Identifying Where You Are

 Identifying Where You Are

Identifying your development needs can be thought-provoking. Often, we find ourselves viewing what training courses are available and deciding which of those would be most helpful. As a matter of fact, it's better to try and identify what the development need is and then to work out ways of meeting that need, which might or might not be a training course. Your life coach should be able to help you through this process and put you on the correct path for fixing what needs to be fixed.

Taking A Good Look

There are three stages to identifying your needs. 1. Identify what skills, knowledge and behaviors are ‘required’ for you to be successful. 2. View the skills, knowledge and behaviors you actually hold now. 3. Your life coach should be able to compare ‘actual’ with ‘required’ to discover the gaps. These are your development needs. 1. Identify what skills, knowledge and behaviors are ‘required’ for you to be successful. Everything we do has a specification for what’s needed to be successful. Your life coach should be able to help you narrow down these specifications. At this stage, it’s likewise worth thinking about the skills, knowledge and behaviors that you might need to develop in the future to achieve your successes. You may know, for instance, that what you'll be working on different personal development areas or that you're interested in a career change. What new or different skills, knowledge and behaviors will you need? Your coach should instruct you to make a list of current and future skills, knowledge and behaviors that you need 2. Your coach should view the skills, knowledge and behaviors you actually have now.

Your coach should view the list you have produced and discuss how effectively you match against each one. It’s important to ask some rigorous questions at this stage and reply honestly! Are there areas of your work, for instance, where developing more confidence would make a real difference to your success? Are there knowledge, skills and behaviors that you only need at times that would benefit from some development? Can you identify regions where you feel confident and believe you perform well that could be an even greater strength for you with some development? 3. Your coach should compare ‘actual’ with ‘required’ to identify the gaps. These are your development requirements. Your coach should be as specific as possible about what you need to do differently. This will really help you when deciding how to best address your development needs. It will also help you review and measure your success.