How to Easily Build in Time for Your Leadership Development

Nonprofit Leaders Can Make Time for Personal & Professional Development

Effective leaders need and want to grow themselves

As a woman leading in a non profit, I know you want to learn. You want to grow and develop yourself.

• You want to take time to journal. 
• You want to take time for self-reflection. 
• You have a list of courses that you want to do and books to read! 

You know you need to do the work to grow yourself. And yet – When? 

​​Leadership is synonymous with personal development

The best leaders know that they must grow, develop, change and adapt to what is going on. Strong leaders work to become their best selves, cultivate strong character and continue that always. To do that, you need time to work on yourself.

But we all know you're going from meeting to meeting to meeting. Between those meetings, you respond to texts and emails while you put out fires, deal with crises or tick off the boxes of things that absolutely need to be done. And that doesn't cover what happens when you get home! 

The most effective leaders create time for weekly personal and professional development

​When would you find time to do this? How on Earth would you fit it into your busy day, either at work or at home?

It's true. To be your best self, you need to spend time learning, growing and developing. You need to discover new skills, learn new information and do the inner work to figure out how to assimilate that into your leadership and life. ​

So, how do you find time to work on yourself? Below are three things you need to consider to help you shift your mindset and your time, so you can make time to grow yourself as a nonprofit leader.

3 Shifts to Help Nonprofit Leaders ​Make Time for Personal and Professional Development Training

Shift # 1 - Mindset Matters

​​Your mindset matters a lot! You need to think, believe, have an expectation, and understand that growth and development are not nice to haves but must-haves. You must also believe that you can grow.

• Your mindset is your mental model. It is your way of seeing things and your view of the world. If your view of the world is that you're stuck, that nothing can change, and that growing yourself is not a part of leadership, then you're stuck in a fixed mindset and will not find the time to do personal development work. This fixed mindset will keep you stuck in overwhelm, survival mode and perhaps even a toxic culture.​ 

You need to shift from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset!

Shift # 2 - Connect Your Learning to a Goal

Adopting a mindset that personal growth and development are part of leadership and creating the space to do that work is most effective when connected to your goals. As a leader, you need more than goals that your organization may or may not have set for you. You need your own goals that you have crafted to help you be your best self. The best leaders create the impact you desire at work and in your life.

In The Training Library, I encourage you toreview where you're at annually. From there, you create goals that you want to work on and draft a personalized learning curriculum. This learning curriculum will identify how and from what sources you will learn those things you need to learn or work on. 

From there, my students in The Training Library schedule time each quarter to see how they do on those goals. Then, monthly, weekly and daily, I encourage them to connect those goals to their daily activities. 

​​Creating this strategy and curriculum to work on yourself encourages you to create time to do it. It's not something random; it's a plan you are working on, and you can see the steps and feel the outcome.

You need to create goals and a learning curriculum

Shift # 3 - You can't find time, you must create time

​You will never FIND time. You need to CREATE time. We spend most of our leadership and life reacting to things, and instead of reacting, we need to create our own experience of leadership. Part of this experience of leadership that you desire, if you've read this far, is the desire to grow and develop yourself. To do that, you need to create the time and space to grow and develop yourself.

We all have the same 24 hours in a day. What we choose to do with those 24 hours makes the difference for each of us. You have to prioritize in some tiny way growth and development.

The time doesn't have to be perfect

We often think it has to be the perfect time with the right pretty journal and candle lit beside us. Nope.

• You'll never do it if you keep waiting for the ideal time!

It doesn't have to be a big chunk of time

You don't need a full hour to do personal development work. A few minutes here or there will keep you moving forward. Certainly, you'll want more substantial chunks of time to do some of the work. But you can also do parts of it in smaller segments.

• You'll find a mix of both short and longer timeframes works best.

You may need to be creative

This goes back to the perfect time idea. We often have a vision of what reading or journaling looks like. Don't think it has to be that way. 

• I've read books while stirring a pot on the stove. 
• I've watched videos while doing my hair in the morning. 
• I've jotted notes down on the back of an envelope about ideas that have come to me hours after reviewing a lesson.

 What it means is you need to find opportunities that already exist. ​

3 places to create time to do the inner work of leadership

​1) Make use of existing downtime

The best example is all of the times in your life when you are waiting! For example:

• Waiting for your kids to finish their extracurricular activity or while they are at the dentist. 
• Waiting for a meeting to start
• While on transit or driving

2) Look at current time wasters/time fillers 

Consider changing what you do during some of these times:

• What could better do with your time watching T.V. or scrolling through your favourite social media app.
• How many times do you go back and check the same email without responding? What if you set aside specific times for checking email and specific times for doing your personal development work?
• How much time are you complaining that you don't have time, rehashing what's not working for you and your team or shuffling piles on your desk?
  

What could you do to be proactive about creating time for growth and development with these time-wasters?

3) Carve out time

Make time for 15 minutes of learning 4 times a week in these spots (That's a whole hour eacweek!!)

• Get up 15 minutes earlier one day to journal.
• Make time on a lunch break for 15 minutes of reading.
• Schedule 15 minutes in the evening to watch a video.
• Plan 15 minutes on the weekend to organize your notes, schedule time for the following week and respond to a question in the online program you are taking.

Tada....YOU just CREATED a whole hour each week to work on developing yourself!
WHOOOOO HOOOOO!!!! Remember, personal and professional development is your path to success in leadership and life!

Do this right now to make time to grow yourself as a nonprofit leader

• Schedule at least two 15 minutes into your next week to begin the work you need to be your best self!

You'll be thankful you did!

​​If you've been meaning to

• grow yourself
• become a better leader
• learn to keep your composure
• get better at having those tough talks
• figure out how to finally do supervision right

​NOW is the time to plan HOW you will do that  growth.
If you need a place to start,The Training Library may be a good resource for you.