Should You Take That Online Course?
You see a shiny new online course offering on the Internet and then you visit the checkout page and you’re like, “Oh! This looks so good. I think I need this. I don’t know. Do I need this? Oh, my goodness! How do I decide whether or not to buy this? I just don’t know. What should I learn next? I want to learn all the things.” But HOW DO YOU DECIDE?
If this sounds familiar to you, you’re just like me. Online courses and new projects and learning make me so excited and I LOVE finding new things to learn. I have so many books stored up on the wait list on my Libby app, I have a pile of things in my checkout carts, and I have a wait list of courses I want to take next after I finish my current ones.
So, let’s dig in. How should you decide what to take and what to skip? Do you have a method for evaluating when a course is a good fit and when to pass? There are so many awesome things out there to learn, to do, to grow. I often have shiny object syndrome when it comes to seeing all these beautiful online courses out there and digital opportunities for growth.
I go through this process all the time.
What I wanted to do today on this mini episode is talk to you about my decision-making process for how I decide what to learn next, how decide whether or not a course is valuable, and the tools you can use to know when you should take action on it.
I love education and I love learning. I am a loud out and proud geek and nerd, and that’s where I stand on this issue. With that as my perspective, how do you decide which courses to take and how do you not get into the trap of trying to take them all and do them all and then end up with a library of 600 unread books and 60 unfinished courses?
That’s the subject of today’s episode, so let’s get into it.
IN THIS EPISODE
- Why you should set up a certain percentage of your business to invest in continuous growth, and how you can think about each year as a time to learn a specific set of new skills.
- Why soft skills are still so under-rated, and how they help you get better not just at your current job, but at all your future jobs.
- How to stand out from the job market field by reading books and investing in your online learning—more than a third of people don’t pick up another book after college. If you read every year, you’re going to become a completely renewed person over time.
- Why investing in your education is like compound interest for your brain.
- Why stepping back up the decision ladder can be really effective—rather than making a single decision each day (365 yearly decisions), make a decision about how you structure your week and do less thinking in the moment of the day-to-day.
- Lastly, I share a really important permission slip that I think everyone should have when it comes to online education and online courses.
The Startup Pregnant Podcast Episode #144
SOME QUOTES FROM THE EPISODE
- Every year, I budget a certain percentage of my business income to reinvest in my own growth through online learning and in-person education.
- I believe so strongly that investing in yourself and your brain is one of the most important things that you can do for the rest of your career. Every time you learn a new skill, it is like compound interest for your brain and your career.
- If you take a program that helps you get better at marketing and increases your return on the client services that you do, you are increasing the value of your own self as an asset for you and your business. You are also increasing the rate that you can charge people for the work that you deliver. You’re increasing the value of your results and you are making yourself more secure in your career in the long term.
- I think a lot of soft skills are still underrated, and we don’t give them enough attention. But if you get better at writing, or communications, or negotiation, you effectively get better at every single job there is out there. That’s priceless.
- If you want to decide what to focus on next, ask yourself “What one thing will help me move the needle or grow the most?”
- Want to know what to learn next? Ask five or seven close people around you this same question: “What one thing do you think I’m missing in my business journey or my personal growth or my career growth?”
- If you focus on learning one new thing each year and gaining mastery over it, it may not seem like you’re making that much progress in the short term. But over the years, you will be astonished by how much you grow and how much this changes the trajectory of your life and your business.
PEOPLE I MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
- Denise Duffield-Thomas, founder of Lucky Bitch.
- Marie Forleo, founder of B-School.
- Claire Pelleatreau, host of The Get Paid Podcast and creator of Absolute FB Ads.
- Pamela Slim, small business coach, author, and leadership coach.
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