Self-development courses and books have the power to help you grow as a person and discover what you want out of life. In business, they can supply you with the tools you need to build a roadmap to achieve your goals and move your business forward.

But, none of it is worth it if you don’t make the conscious effort to implement what you learn. After all, all those personal development books and courses are pricey. You need to make sure that your time and money is well spent.

If you’ve been keeping up with Mi-TV for a while, you’ll know that I’m a huge advocate for personal development and business courses. In fact, I recently returned from a marketing course in Birmingham and came away with lots of new tactics, strategies, copywriting and marketing ideas to implement in my business.

However, having spent upwards of £100,000 on personal and professional development courses and books over the last 11 years, I understand the importance of not letting that investment go to waste. If you spend a lot of time and money attending courses, only to ignore everything you learned, it’s like throwing money down the drain.

So, here are my top tips to help increase your ROI and get the most out of all those personal development books on your shelf and your next self-development course:

1. Don’t overload on personal development courses!

When you get into the habit of attending lots of courses, it can be super overwhelming and daunting. Your brain is in overdrive and it’s almost impossible to implement so many different ideas and suggestions.

I’ve been going to mastermind groups and self-help courses for as long as I can remember. You name it, I’ve probably been there.

But I know I’m not the only one guilty of this! We’ve all done it, where we’ve gone off on masses of courses and come back with stacks of notes on what we’ve learned. But, instead of working on implementing those ideas, we look toward the next course, and the next after that and so on.

My first tip is to take it one course at a time. Don’t overwhelm yourself and your diary with a string of personal development courses. Take one at a time and don’t move onto the next one before implementing the strategies you’ve taken away from the previous course.

2. Be pickier about the courses you attend

Don’t spread yourself thin by attending a course just for the sake of it. Make every course mean something. I used to be the type of person to go to multiple events per month because I thought I had to. That’s what successful people did, right?

As it turns out, successful people don’t attend many courses or events. Instead, they carefully pick and choose which events are worth their time and which are not.

So, rather than attending lots of different events and spending time and money on random courses, I’m now a lot pickier. I go to fewer courses than I once did and I’m definitely choosier on those I attend. After all, there’s no point paying for someone to mentor or coach you if you’re not going to implement what you’ve learned.

Business owners can save time and money by choosing courses carefully.

If you’re one of those people who attends courses willy-nilly, takes loads of notes and then never looks at them again, you’re doing yourself a massive disservice. You’re wasting not just your time, but your money by not filtering the benefits into your business.

A few key questions to ask yourself before booking a course include:

Am I actually going to properly implement this when I get back?

And…

Is this a course that I am going to use in my business at some point?

I’ve personally found that if you honestly answer these questions when considering courses, you’ll save yourself a lot of wasted money and time.

So, my next tip for you is to be choosy about which courses you attend and when you DO attend a course, implement the heck out of it!

3. Take lots of notes and record each course in your diary

The next time you find yourself sitting in the audience of a keynote or brainstorming with other business owners in a self-development course, remember to take notes!

If you’re not the note-taking type of person, you could try audio recording with your smartphone so you can go back and re-listen later.

It’s also important to keep a record of all the events and courses you’re attending. When you leave the course with lots of ideas and you’re excited to start implementing them in your business, make yourself accountable by booking time in your calendar to get those things done.

The same goes for all those self-help and business advice books collecting dust on your shelf. There’s no point in reading a whole raft of books on various subjects when you aren’t going to implement their teachings.

Likewise, there’s no great value in attending seminars, events, functions, and courses if you aren’t going to implement their benefits. There’s no sense in picking a course to attend and not having done your research to see if it’s something you can implement!

It’s beneficial to take a day or a few hours after you’ve read a book or completed a course to get done what you need to get done. Read over your notes and focus on how you’re going to implement what you’ve learned in a way that’s going to impact your business.

Here are a few key points to remember the next time you go to a self-development course:

• Be choosy over the courses that you invest your time, money and efforts into
• Evaluate whether or not you can implement the strategies and ideas of a course before committing
• Take a day out to plan and implement what you’ve learned

And above all, yes, you guessed it, IMPLEMENT THE HELL OUT OF IT!

Want to delegate more tasks and start making the most out of your time at work? We can help. Call me on 0161 820 6080 or email me at emma@mi-pa.co.uk.

If you want to find out more about our services and discover all the ways that we can help you to grow your business, click here. https://mi-pa.co.uk/services/