Have
you taken inventory lately?
By
Catherine Robinson, Managing
Editor
Are you looking for a professional development opportunity? You might want to consider becoming the next newsletter editor.
We're looking for a new editor for the 2004-2005 publishing season of Signature. If you are interested contact us at: stcsignature@yahoo.com.
Have you taken inventory lately? I'm not talking about checking the kitchen cupboards or your office supplies cabinet but looking at the stuff that's on your inside—your talents, creativity, expertise, and other skills you developed in your personal and professional life (work and professional organizations). You might be able to offer more to your current employer or move on to bigger opportunities elsewhere.
After reading Deborah Gill-Hesselgrave's feature article in this month’s newsletter, I took my own inventory.
In Deborah's steps for successfully "making your own luck," I found in Step 1 that I must first learn what I am about. She asks: "What do you do so well that it distinguishes you from the rest of us?"
In Step 4 Deborah talks about connecting the dots. As she shares her experiences, Deborah speaks about when she wrote materials for use in K-8 classrooms and for the teachers and parents of special-needs students. About this, Deborah says, "When I had the opportunity to develop my first set of user documentation, I recognized that there were far more parallels and similarities between those two efforts than there were differences."
After reading the "real-world examples" in Deborah's article, I was convinced that we must take the first step to improving ourselves and recognizing the skills we have and where they can be used. Whether it be getting out there and marketing ourselves, taking courses to improve our skills, or just down-right evaluating what it is we do, we can eventually learn how to transfer the skills we have into new territory that presents bigger, better, and more exciting opportunities for us.
As I take inventory now, I realize that this will be an ongoing task that I need to put on my regular "to do" list.
