Stop Cancelling the Meeting With Yourself

People often want to develop themselves. The problem is not usually a lack of interest. It is time.

That came up repeatedly in the sessions I ran for Learning at Work Week last week. People could see the value of learning, reflection and personal development. They wanted to make progress. But they were also busy, stretched and dealing with the day-to-day reality of work.

That is why personal development needs to move from good intention to protected time.

One simple way to do that is to treat your development time like a meeting. A proper meeting.

Start with a PDP that actually matters to you. It needs to be relevant, useful and compelling enough that you can see why it is worth your time. If your development plan feels like a box-ticking exercise, it is unlikely to survive a busy week.

Then put the time in your diary.

You can move it if you genuinely need to. Real life happens. Priorities shift. Urgent things appear.

But try not to simply delete it.

Most of us would not just fail to turn up for a meeting with someone else. We would reschedule it, apologise or protect the time because we had made a commitment.

Personal development deserves some of that same respect.

It was lovely to see people taking time to focus on themselves during Learning at Work Week. But the real benefit comes when learning is not just something we pay attention to during one campaign week.

It comes when learning becomes part of how we work all year round.

• Small pockets of protected time.

• A development goal that means something.

• A habit of showing up for yourself.

That is often how progress is made.