Committment to Keeping Current

Committment to Keeping Current It is so important to stay current with what is going on within your occupation and industry. How are you keeping up? Do you dedicate time each month or each day to review current trends? Things change so quickly, it is hard to keep up with it all sometimes. One of the worse things to do is make excuses for not keeping up. Have you ever said any of these: I dont have time to keep up. I am spending all my time doing the work. My company isnt on the cutting edge, so I dont really need to know those things. It doesnt effect me or my work. I want to maintain a work-life balance and it would take too much of my time. It is out of my core strengths to focus on emerging trends. My employer wont pay for this. Then let me ask another question. If your company were to lay off half of its employees on Monday, would you be in the 50% that remain? That slim remainder of employees have to be masters at cross functional work. Not just knowing about how to do other things, but actually being able to do them. The remaining 50% have to be innovative and have ideas on how to streamline and expand into new markets. Do you have ideas? No matter what your role in a company, it will benefit you and your employer to understand the bigger picture- internally and externally. This is a form of job security. It is professional development. It is staying in control of your career. I would really love to know how you are are staying current with whats going on. What do you read? What seminars do you attend? How often do you pursue learning opportunities? I welcome your comments!