Personal and Professional Development Course Gone Wrong!

Investing in Personal and Professional Development is sometimes an experience of ‘hit and miss’! I boarded the Gibraltar- London flight with the usual sense of happiness and excitement at the prospect of a new learning experience and further business networking opportunity. What promised to be a very informative and practical course, however, turned out to be somewhat of a disappointment!

I adopt a motto that says, ‘Life is not happening to me, it’s happening for me’. This means that when I perceive something has gone ‘wrong’ I search for the lesson(s) in the experience. If I fall prey to the ‘victim’ mindset of blaming others for my circumstances, an important life lesson could be lost. So, having processed the feelings of disappointment and general upset at the ‘ wasted’ time and financial expense invested in flights, hotel, transport costs, being away from my law firm and clients, etc; I took a few deep breaths and had a long hard, honest self-talk.

How much time had I actually invested in researching the trainer of the course before committing to it? Had I googled whether attendees of his other events had provided feedback? Or, had I taken the reputation of the organisers as an indication of what to expect instead? The truth is I had been so ‘busy’ I had taken a short-cut which in the end cost me more time and money than the time and money it would have taken to google  over a lunch break!

My conclusion was: at times I need to slow down my pace in order to be more efficient!

In addition, I gave careful thought to how I could use my time instead- and rather than complain and blame, I kept my attitude and outlook positive, networked with a global community, and made new friends and potential collaborators and business partners.

As the saying goes- when life throws lemons at you- make lemonade!