How hope can help to create your nonprofit leadership development professional plan

There are a lot of nonprofit personal and professional development courses out there. But are you taking advantage of them?
Many nonprofit leaders put courses, webinars and training on the back burner and never get back to them.

In this article, you'll learn how to shift your mindset and get you back on track with your professional development. 

Here's the thing, how many of these or similar comments have you made lately?

• It's been a day!
• I'm tired of being tired!
• I've been in meetings and on calls all day!
• I felt like I never really got anything done today!

If those comments sound familiar or all too true, you aren't alone! AND, they are not just signs of living in survival mode, but warning signs of burnout!

Do you know the signs of impending burnout?
Feeling run down and drained physically and emotionally, irritated with life, a sense that you aren't getting anywhere are all indicators of burnout. But before burnout is often long periods of survival mode. The majority of women leaders that work with me say they've been in survival mode for much of their career. Ugh! That is NOT how we want to live and lead!

How are you doing?
Start by looking back at yesterday. Were you thriving throughout your day, or did you spend much of your day in survival mode? Grab this worksheet and then consider over the last week, how much of your time were you just getting by, going through the motions, grinding away at your days., thus in survival mode?

Now, if I asked you where you want to be by mid-November, what would you say? 

Do you have hope that it can be different?
Do you believe that you can get to thriving? I then asked you these three questions, how would you answer?

1. Do you believe that it's possible? (Belief)
2. Do you think you have the capacity to get there? (Confidence)
3. Do you have a plan of how you're going to get there? (Pathways)

Here's why those questions are important ⬇️

Understanding how hope works
Research has shown that those that are thriving feel hopeful. Hope is made up of three components: 

First, hope is the belief that tomorrow will be better than today. 

• Can you envision in your mind's eye a better tomorrow? 
• That's your goal or your target.

Second, hope is an expectation that it's possible that you can reach that goal. 
You need to have the confidence that you can get there. Remember, confidence starts with competence. 

• Do you have the skills necessary to do the work to get to a place of thriving regularly? 
• Do you know where to get help when you need it?

Third, do you have a plan of how you're going to do that? 

• A plan includes what you will learn, how you will grow and strategies for achieving that future vision.
• Your plan also indicates when and how you will do that!

Having hope will change your daily experience!
When you have all of those three components of hope, belief, expectancy, and pathways, there's a better chance you're going to be regularly thriving by mid-November.

At the end of the day, what you need is to create your plan!
How will you get there?

Learn the steps to create your plan
In this week's podcast, I break down planning for your personal, professional development this fall. That's not what sector-related skill you're going to learn this fall, necessarily. But how are you going to grow and develop as an individual and as a leader? 

What will you do to do that, and when will you put that into your calendar. 
The next question is how you're going to create that plan, and my guess is you might need a little bit of help with that.

Get help to create your plan!
In The Training Library, my membership site, I have a course to help you create your plan. When you join, you'll get immediate access to the Webinar Create Your Quarterly Goal Setting & Planning Strategy as well as every single other webinar and course to help you thrive in leadership.

This is what your peers created:
Below you'll find components of two of my student's plans that they have created after completing the webinar Create Your Quarterly Goal Setting & Planning Strategy.

Sasha's plan for thriving included:

• I am changing my hours at work to spend time in the morning when I like learning best to work on development. (online learning, reading a book, The Training Room.
• Reach out to a couple of co-workers to set up a time for a call, just to go over a couple of work tasks and to take the time to chat.

Becca got serious on her plan, with lots of details!

• Over the next six weeks, I will create my journal document and record at least two conversations each week that I felt uncomfortable in and what I did about it. 
• I will review each Friday for half an hour, look for trends, and see what other good ideas I can generate around new/revised strategies for communicating more effectively with my staff. 
• I will watch one webinar from The Training Library every two weeks for the next six weeks. 
• The mindset shifts I need to make are: I can continue the conversation after I get uncomfortable or feel caught by surprise. I don't have to have the perfect solution on the spot, but I can make an appropriate comment at the time.

It's your turn!
If you want to really create your sense of hope that things will be different by the end of the year for you, start with envisioning it, then cultivating the confidence to get there by developing your competency and finally creating a plan to do that.