As we navigate the new digital frontier, how do we evolve and adapt to stay relevant and valuable to current and future employers? Given how quickly the world has changed since the COVID pandemic, reflecting on one’s own professional development is more critical than ever, and intelligent self-diversification may be the answer.
Why diversify? We ask this question in our personal discussion with our financial advisors. We engage in strategic business planning with key company stakeholders. Why wouldn’t we ask that of ourselves in our own professional development?
To answer that question, we need to first understand what it means to undertake intelligent self-diversification. For example, to be an intelligent system is to master technologically advanced capabilities that perceive and react to the environment around them. To diversify in business is to stand out from the norm by offering something unique or different.
We tend to have our profession define who we are, but we want to build on top of that and add additional self-aspects or attributes that help recognize us beyond our current profession. Is your profession enough to differentiate yourself among all others with the same profession? What attributes will make you different and be noticed but still afford you your professional identify? Our current world is unpredictable and there’s always a potential for unforeseen change. How would we be prepared for that? Are we resilient?
In today’s digital world, the willingness to adapt will prevent elimination or extinction, such that the saying “adapt or face extinction” holds weight, and the need to apply intelligent self-diversification in your professional development is an intentional strategy to stay competitive and differentiate in the marketplace, but more importantly build resilience.
“Resilience is flexibility. Resilience is adapting to unexpected changes, stressors, or adversity. Resilience is strengthened by diversifying ourselves and can be learned.” (Dr. Chantal Reyna, 2023)
To achieve this, consider these key steps to help you succeed in intelligent self-diversification for forging your career path.
- Align with Industry future trends.
- Understand and educate yourself on the direction of current healthcare issues and where these trends are headed while keeping an eye out for newer trendsetting predictions on the horizon.
- Anticipate your investment area.
- Aligning with industry future trends will provide you a basis for how your environment will perceive and respond to these trends so that you can better determine your personal development options. By considering all extraneous influences and circ*mstances you will be equipped to anticipate the growth and diversification area(s) that you will want to personally invest in.
- Listen to yourself.
- This is a skill that’s not always easy to achieve. Our instinct is to self-doubt or second guess ourselves and our actions. However, listening to yourself is learning how to trust your instincts and have confidence in your thoughts and knowledge. To reinvent ourselves, we need to acquire a level of confidence, self-esteem and capacity for change. A pre-requisite to this is having self-awareness between what you want and what society wants or expects from you.
- Our intuition can proactively guide our understanding of our environment, and more importantly, drive our expectations for the future and our reimagined self.
- Be focused and intentional.
- Utilize time to be focused and intentional, be deliberate with your decisions. Consider actions and decisions as stepping stones towards your end goal or North Star vision
- Motivate yourself.
- Focus on understanding your interests, values, and passions and use these to drive your reason for action. We are often reliant on family, friends, or coworkers to give us motivation; however, this is not sustainable. Being self-driven requires self-discipline, which come from within, and guarantee its viability.
- Roll up your sleeves and produce.
- Leave a reputation not as a dreamer or a visionary but as a do-er. If in a leadership role, don’t be afraid to roll up your sleeves and involve yourself in the actual work that can define your reputation and the quality of work that you aspire to achieve and produce.
By applying intelligent self-diversification, we are embracing change and adversity while also redefining our professional growth and development paths. With these steps we diversify and lay the foundation for a new identity, a better version of our current self.
Reference
Reyna, C. (2023, March 29). Diversify Ourselves. Blog. https://blog.womensurgeons.org/family-life/diversify-ourselves/
Association of Women Surgeons. (n.d.). Homepage. https://www.womensurgeons.org
