Workout Objective: Create a concrete plan to develop your soft skills and know exactly how developing these soft skills will help your career
Prerequisite: none
Recommended Frequency: once every six month to a year
It can be pretty daunting to think you have to develop 28 soft skills to accelerate your career success. There is a Chinese Saying, “Don’t try to eat a cow in one bite. You will get indigestion.” In the same notion, it is important to prioritize how you will develop soft skills for your career. Follow these 5 steps to create your soft skills development plan and motivate yourself to take action on a consistent basis.
Step 1: Read up. Go to Soft Skill List article – read the 28 soft skills to working smart and understand why they are key to career success
Step 2: Prioritize. Choose 1-2 self management skill and 1-2 people skill to focus on first based on the following criteria
- Your current level of competency for each soft skill (based on self-assessment)
- Your understanding of how these soft skills can help your work and career today
Step 3: Know why. To stay motivated it’s critical to know why you are developing these skills for your career. It will help you focus and keep this effort a priority if you know the specific benefits you will realize if they develop these skills and the pains you will experience if you don’t .
- Write down 3-5 benefits you will experience in your career if you developed the soft skills you prioritized.
- Write down 3 pains you will experience in your career if you don’t take time to develop these soft skills.
Step 4: Make a commitment to practice. Write down 1-3 commitment sentences. For example, I will practice this skill at least once a week for three months. I will look back in a month and see what I have learn about this skill.
Step 5: Find a supporter. Share your answers from step 2-4 with at least 1 other person in your life – someone you already interact with multiple times a week (e.g., spouse, colleague, friend) and will support you in your efforts . Just by verbalizing your plan to this supporter, you are making it real and readying yourself for action. Ask your supporter to do the following for you.
- Ask about your progress
- Be available to listen to your experiences
Your supporter can also choose to join you and choose a set of soft skill to develop on their own. Then, you will have a Soft Skill Workout buddy!
Bonus: If you like, you can also share your plans in the comment section below. The more I know about your plan. The more I can also support your efforts 🙂 You can do it! You have already taken a big step here. Congratulations for finishing this workout. 🙂
Lei
Hi – i have to put together an action plan on how i will work on my soft skills. Currently i work in a male dominated environment and my peers are totally against me. Im being viewed as to aggressive.
Thanks for commenting. looking forward to seeing your draft. this is very subjective. Do you know which situation you are in?
1. co-workers are right – you are really too aggressive and need to learn to finesse your communication
2. co-workers are wrong – they are too critical and you need to find a more diverse environment that accept you for who you are
3. a little of both.
Im supposed to come up with a development plan for 3 soft skills. I find it very difficult to measure and write a plan. I fond this excercise very demeaning.
Ana, soft skills are hard to measure. However, they are measured by your manager or by your interviewers all the time. Let’s take one soft skill you want to improve on. Let’s say it’s active listening skills, then you can do the following to improve it and measure your progress – you share with someone that you want to improve this skill – someone who communicate with you often and someone you respect. this can be your manager, as an example. This way, your manager can suggest how you can improve this skill – Now commit to your manager and… Read more »