Self-Development – Whose Responsibility is it?

Should change and development go hand-in-hand? While change is dynamic and not in our control, development is. Here, it refers to self-development. Sitting down and brooding over the change, will not be of any help to an MBA student. Rather, it is important to take charge of one’s self-development, sooner the better. In this world of competition, performance matters more than anything else and it looks as though one is always running against time. Normally, the excuse thrown is “we do not have the time because we have a lot of other things to do.” Whereas, a lot needs to be done apart from the classroom learning, initiated by students themselves. To start with, how many students maintain the “to do” list/diary on a daily basis? It is difficult to think of starting a day without looking at the “to do” list. This needs to be inculcated as a hygiene-factor in your daily lives. At the end of the day you need to tick off the self-assigned tasks or those which you have been told to do. Simple things like homework, assignments, or tasks assigned by your parents or siblings. The checklist may even include seemingly inconsequential tasks like calling up some friends, consulting your teacher in some areas you find difficult to understand etc. How many students put in that concerted effort to read the newspaper especially the business ones, on a daily basis. Even while you are attending your classes regularly, you need to be aware of what is happening in the world of business. Participating in different seminars and conferences, outside the campus, gives immense opportunity to network, apart from the learning. Networking skills are very important for prospective managers. These platforms offer a unique opportunity to network with business leaders, executives and even budding entrepreneurs. If your own college organizes a conference, seminar or a similar event, students can proactively volunteer, in the backend activities, to make the it a success. This involves team-work and planning. It gives tremendous exposure to students who are soon hoping to be a part of the business community. Today, there are many competitions being organised all over. It is very important for students to participate in these competitions too, irrespective of winning or losing. After the activity, it gives ample opportunity to the student to look within and work towards bringing in improvements, if necessary. Apart from all this, having that fire-in-the-belly to organise different activities i.e. co-curricular, extra-curricular in the campus, making it a vibrant place for oneself as well as others. Last but not the least, trying different things and failing is always better than doing nothing and expecting miracles to happen. Hence, it is imperative that all the prospective managers get out of their comfort zones and take the responsibility for their self-development, in their own hands.

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