Invest In Yourself; Stop Making Excuses

Bob Pusateri (B|T) tweeted a quote image that really struck a chord with me and elicited a strong reaction from myself. It got me thinking I need to write a blog on this, so here we go.

Many times, over the years I’ve had conversations with people in which they have said things like below.

“I can’t learn anything new because my work won’t send me to training”

“I can’t learn about xyz because my boss or coworkers won’t sit down with me to show me how”

“I don’t have time to learn anything new”

“We’ll never go to the cloud, so I don’t need to know that”

"I'm too busy just putting out fires, I can't leave the office to go to training"

“I can’t learn anything new because my work won’t pay for training”

"My free time is my own. When I'm not at work, I don't want to think about databases"

"I'm too burned out, to learn anything new"

"It's just not a priority for me right now"

If you can hear yourself saying any of these, I want you to stop right here and reread the image above several times. If you make excuses like these, you will get nowhere fast and likely become disgruntled which can lead to feeling trapped. If you wish to have a career and not just a 9-5 job it is critical you invest in your own training.

Now many of us don’t have the money to pay for things like week-long conferences or expensive hands-on training, I get that. There are other ways to get training, it’s not necessary to set your target on those. Start small. I challenge you to read one blog a day, that’s it. By doing that simple thing you vastly increase your knowledge. I’ll list a few of my favorites at the end of the blog.

Next, be sure to attend your local user groups, Code Camps, or SQL Saturdays. These are usually free to attend in-person training opportunities on various topics, not to mention it’s your chance to network with other technology professionals. At these events, talk and engage people, as you never know when one of those conversations may lead to your next career opportunity. That’s a win-win. An added benefit is that usually these types of events provide you with motivation to further your own professional development. You’ll be surprised on how they will affect your outlook on work and learning. If you can’t make it out of the office or home for training, did you know there are many virtual training opportunities available like PASS's virtual user groups ? These are live training sessions, much like those at SQL Saturdays, given during lunch hours or after work. They are also often recorded so you can watch them when its more convenient.

Lastly, do yourself a favor and join Twitter. So many of us in the SQL Community are out there learning from each other every day. Bloggers tend to leave breadcrumbs for learning.

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