Slacking With Your Professional Development? The True Reason Is Different Than The One You Want To Believe! By Charles Dominick, SPSM, SPSM2

Wanna put a theory of mine to the test?

Ask yourself the following question and write down your answer on a sheet of paper before reading the rest of this article.

Why have you not earned your procurement certification or participated in much professional development?

OK.  Do you have your answer written down?

If so, please continue reading…

My theory is that there is a significant chance that you’ve written down the words “I don’t have time.”

If that was your answer, here’s what you need to do next.  Think of other people who have achieved success.  These can be people in procurement roles, business roles, sporting roles, charitable mission roles, or really any other role.

How do you think these people got to their high level of success?

While luck and some other factors may have come into play, I am confident that perhaps the biggest part of their success is their willingness to continually improve themselves.  They have the same 24 hours in a day that are given to you.  And while you may have certain commitments like a family, a demanding job, and such, some of the people you’ve thought of probably have even more commitments than you.

People who are successful never lose sight of the need to develop themselves constantly.  They pack more into their 24 hours a day or seven days a week than the average person, and undoubtedly a lot more than a “slacker.”

The bottom line is that successful people have ambition when it comes to self-improvement.  Because everyone has commitments yet the same amount of time as everyone else, it is the level of ambition that is the difference between ever-increasing success and being mired in the same-old, same-old for years on end.

In short, if you’re slacking on your professional development, it’s not that you don’t have time…it’s that you don’t have ambition!

Not “having time” is an all-too-convenient excuse.  But it’s a lie.  It’s a lie that, if you use it often enough, you will actually start to believe.  And when you believe it, you will only inflict harm on yourself by limiting your potential.  This lie erases your sense of accountability to yourself.  That sense of accountability is a good thing.  It keeps you ambitious, so why not use that to your advantage?

Harness your ambition and your self-accountability.  The next time you think “I don’t have time,” say to yourself “I don’t have ambition.”  That won’t feel good.  But you’ll know it’s true and want to actually do something to keep your self-improvement momentum going.

You have been given as much time as the achievers you admire.  Use it to do great things for yourself.

Your self-improvement is in your hands.  Do you have the ambition to reach your potential?

Editor’s Note:  Charles is founder, president and chief procurement officer of Next Level Purchasing, which offers the SPSM (Senior Professional in Supply Management) Certification.

Be sure to check out Charles’ Purchasing Certification Blog.

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