We all get into a rut sometimes. Maybe you’re not feeling as challenged or useful in your current gig, or you feel a bit stagnant. BUT if your rut starts to feel more like a cavernous ravine, the likes of which make you half expect your jealous lion brother to throw you off the side in front of your infant cub in an attempt to reign as king, you should probably do something about that.
Whether it’s progression that you want or just a better toolkit of skills to whip out in your next big meeting (ha, whip it out), knowing how to upskill is pretty dang important. But we know it probably seems super overwhelming to manage that on top of all your day-to-day responsibilities and chores.
So essentially you’ve got to figure out how to manage it in a way that ensures upskilling doesn’t wind up also killing your productivity, vibe and general state of being.
Really though, it’s not impossible. Here’s a bunch of ways you can upskill straight from your desk when you’re staring off into space having completed all your work already – you superstar, you.
Get yourself a mentor
Mentorships are incredibly valuable undertakings when you feel like your job has you swimming in a goldfish bowl filled with far too many flakes of damp fish food.
Mentors are seriously talented humans who can not only guide you towards the direction you want to head in, but also introduce you to people who can open doors for you and offer you sage advice on everything from how to approach your Big Scary Boss about a raise to why you definitely should not put a weird progress bar on your resume (what does 70% proficient in marketing even MEAN?).
Study it up
Just because you’re settled in your career doesn’t mean you can’t be a university student at the same time. There are a stack of courses designed to help you ramp up your know-how and become the beautiful butterfly of ultimate knowledge and proficiency that you were born to be.
Plus you can definitely do a bunch of them via flexible study – over 75% of students at the University of Southern Queensland study online or by distance, so you won’t be alone in upskilling as you work. Plus there are three campuses so if you ever wanted to pop in there’s bound to be one close enough.
Cop some work-related training
Chances are if you feel like you could be doing more, your company would 110% prefer you do that rather than nick off somewhere else. ‘Coz you know, you’re pretty great and they should do everything they can to keep from losing a hard worker like yourself.
So it’s worth checking up to see if they’re able to introduce some extra training or duties at your current gig – even if it means shadowing someone in a different department for a bit, or seeing if they’d be willing to fund some training, workshops or professional development for you. Ultimately anything you do to improve your skills is going to benefit them in the long run, so it’s worth a red hot crack to at least ask about it.
Get techy
Learning a new skill is always going to make a difference in your working environment but let’s be real: tech skills are the most in-demand. The world is going digital (well, MORE digital. We welcome our future robot overlords), so if you’re going to learn something, make it technological.
There are stacks of online mini-courses and even YouTube videos that can teach you a thing or too about coding, user experience or even skills like podcasting and how to create your own website.
So fret less, friend. Upskilling can make your life a heck of a lot easier and it doesn’t have to be seen as a massive struggle, whether it’s as simple as switching out your work playlist for a podcast, networking or getting in touch with the USQ team to get that hefty upskilling ball rolling.
