For Self-improvement In Business

As you gain knowledge and skill, your curiosity grows and you develop self-esteem from your growing ability to handle something that always seemed beyond you.Such learning is experienced most often while young in accomplishing physical tasks such as riding a two-wheeled bicycle. Before learning to ride, all that swaying of the bike from left to right and back again just looks strange. After you get the feel of the sway, you know that moving that way to the correct rhythm gives you better balance, control, and power.When you learn mental tasks instead of physical tasks, you gain an advantage that I want to explore with you: You can hope to improve performance further and for longer periods of time. As a result, you can enjoy more satisfying progress that fills you with optimism about the future.Educators often refer to this step as going from unconscious incompetence (automatically doing the wrong thing) to conscious incompetence (being aware of where you need to be careful).Later, you master everything that needs to be done . . . but a lot of mental focus is required. That stage is often called conscious competence. You enjoy the results from this competence, but not the effort. Finally, you are able to do something effortlessly without paying much attention (like driving a vehicle over a route you know very well), a stage that's called unconscious competence. Although you are getting great results, joy from your performance may decline leaving you feeling a little bored. Michael Jordan's first retirement from basketball to start a professional baseball career instead was an example of this phenomenon. When you start to get bored, do yourself a big favor and begin to learn something new that builds on the skill at which you are unconsciously competent. Here's an example: An effective salesperson who normally deals with English-speaking people could learn a second language and develop a new sales approach for people who speak that language.Business provides many such opportunities to build on unconscious competence: salespeople can learn to sell more valuable offerings engineers can develop design skills that make offerings more attractive to customers marketing people can master new ways of drawing customers financial people can teach others how to understand the financial implications of their decisionsYou may be concerned that you don't learn as fast or as easily as you once did. That may be true, but you also have a lot of experience.  Potomac CollegeWestern Governors University "With StraighterLine's courses, Bridge School students can dramatically reduce the cost of college," says Burck Smith, StraighterLine's CEO. "Further, by starting college with existing credits, research shows that these students are more likely to complete their degree." "Providing an open enrollment opportunity to deliver dual credit courses is one important way for The Bridge School to address individual student goals, says Dr. Spyros Catechis, The Bridge School founder and CEO.  "Partnering with StraighterLine to offer these distance learning courses in a way that matches the high tech expectations of today's high school students, will help maximize our students' acquisition of knowledge."   About The Bridge SchoolThe mission of The Bridge School is to enable students to become self-motivated, independent learners who are in charge of their educational future.  The Bridge School accomplishes this by providing a flexible and individualized opportunity to achieve a high school diploma through the use of open enrollment, on-line instruction.