Everyone wants to be their best. When you take your time and invest in yourself, you contribute to your personal development. The best results are easy to get if you put the right effort in. Though, it is OK if you don’t know how to reach there.

To help people self-develop, there are many personal development courses out there. These courses are good for developing in many areas such as critical thinking, listening, problem-solving etc. When you have the right skills and knowledge, you can achieve many things in business. These skills make you more confident and effective both in business and in your personal life.

If you want to find out more details, keep reading!

What Is Personal Development?

Personal development is a lifelong process where you can assess your skills, and set goals to boost your potential in business life. This process involves many activities that improve your talents and potential. Whatever you do to improve yourself is a contribution to your personal development.  Because self-development allows you to be your best self and gives you the required skills to achieve your goals, the importance of it shouldn’t be underestimated.

Though it might be challenging to find the motivation, you can start improving yourself with a few simple steps. A personal vision is helpful to anticipate where you want to be professionally and personally in a period of time. To keep yourself motivated, you can set goals. Remind yourself of these goals to see whether you take the necessary steps to succeed. You can take online courses if you struggle to start your personal development process.

Available Personal Development Courses

As mentioned above, personal development courses help you improve your skills, and discover your potential. With these courses, you can work on your soft skills to support your self-improvement. Below, we compile some of the best courses for you. Some are free to enrol, some require a small amount of fee.

The Science of Well-Being By Yale University

This course is designed to help students who struggle with anxiety, depression, or stress. It has become the most popular course at the university. The instructor is a psychology professor. The aim is to boost happiness. Some topics that are covered in the course are:

• Misinterpretation of happiness
• How we can improve our happiness
• Putting strategies to overcome anxiety and stress into practice

The material for this course includes videos, exercises, and homework. Two enrolment options are possible. You can either pay $49, and get full access to materials including graded assignments and a certificate, or you can enrol for free without assignments and certification.

Mindshift: Breakthrough Obstacles to Learning and Discover Your Hidden Potential by McMaster University

This self-development course focuses on how people can boost their careers. To have a successful career, it is essential to keep learning. Though this might be challenging, this course teaches you how to develop your potential at work. It also helps you become open-minded. With an open mind, you become willing to learn new things and adjust to changes.

The programme focuses on learning effectively and learning mental tricks to help you focus, and relax when needed. Lessons are supported with videos, quizzes, and assignments. Best of all, you can enrol for free.

Get Beyond Life-Work Balance—Inclusive Leadership Training (edX)

Many people are struggling to keep the balance between work and personal life. As a leader, or as an individual, you can achieve this balance by developing some skills. The non-profit organisation Catalyst provides an online course to improve these skills.

The programme teaches how to create a flexible, and productive working environment. The lessons allow you to have discussions with other students and share your experiences. In addition to life-work balance, this course teaches you inclusive leadership skills to be a successful leader. You can enrol for free and get an official certificate for a small fee.

Dynamic Public Speaking Specialisation by University of Washington

Public speaking is an important soft skill in business. This course is designed to improve your skills. It also teaches people speech writing. Trainees record their speeches during the lessons. Then they give and receive feedback. The lessons cover:

• Introduction to public speaking
• Speaking to inform, persuade, and inspire
• Techniques to deliver a speech to engage the audience

In the end, you will become more confident as a dynamic speaker. You will learn to use storytelling, topic forming, and style. Also, you will be able to prepare effective speeches.

Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects

Coursera offers another self-development course collaborating with McMaster University and the University of California. The course helps you understand how you learn things. In order to discover how your brain processes the learning of complicated subjects, you should give a chance to this course. It’s one of the most popular and loved courses, and it has 2 million enrolled students. The course covers: 

• How the brain involves and uses information
• Illusions of competence
• Dealing with procrastination
• Memory techniques

With the approaches in this course, you can change your way of thinking and your life. It’s supported with visual material and exercises. The recommended amount of time to spend on the course is 3-4 hours per week. 

Think Again I: How to Understand Arguments

To have a discussion on your opinions, you need to understand the arguments well. This course teaches you reasoning and arguing effectively. With a series of four short courses, you can discover the logic of arguing. It also helps you identify and assess arguments. 

Basically, you will be able to understand how to analyse arguments, to identify deductive and inductive arguments, and misconceptions. 

The lessons take 10-15 minutes and there are multiple-choice exercises after each lesson. Additional reading notes are also available for those interested in learning in depth. At the end of each course, you will take graded quizzes. 

Why Do People Need Personal Development Courses?

Self-development courses are necessary to see where you are at, how you want to move forward, and what skills you need. Sometimes, you can miss the messages life gives you, or you might need guidance through your journey. When you feel that way, you can benefit from personal development courses. Here are some reasons why we need them:

Enables to reflect on your talents: Sometimes we don’t realise the talents we have. Personal development lets you discover your strengths and talents. Apart from your current talents, reflect on the talents you would like to have. This can help you acquire different skills.

Increases your confidence: The more self-developed, the more confidence you have. This applies to both your career and personal life. Being more confident enables you to work with higher quality. Speaking confidently with customers is a key to gaining them. Thus, this can be crucial for those who work in a sales department. 

Keeps you motivated: Not everyone can stay motivated all the time. We need a little ‘push’ sometimes. When you feel like you lost your motivation, you can get back on track by reconsidering your self-development goals. Start with a clear development plan. Get help from those courses when you need to boost your motivation.

The Bottom Line

Personal development is necessary for your career. It is a never-ending process and there are many opportunities to improve yourself. You can start with simple steps to find motivation. These online courses are also very helpful, and they are among the best in their fields. So, find what you need and go for it.