I am blessed because I work with a team with members that have a strong commitment to their personal growth. We regularly talk about this, and we believe that this will contribute to our future and to the future of our firm.

That is probably the reason why our patent attorney firm – despite being a relatively small firm – regularly receives positive client testimonials and public awards of excellence. Last week, we were awarded the five (5) Financial Times Golden Stars, the number 8 Patent Attorney firm in Europe and the number 2 Patent Attorney firm in Germany.

The next level that we want to achieve is to define personal and organizational growth goals together. This means also that we discuss what we plan to learn in order to achieve these growth goals.

I am thrilled and I am looking forward to that.

Personal Growth is Learning

Defining a goal is one thing. But reaching it is a different level. Effort and time is needed for that.

Here is a TEDx video presentation that I found very encouraging:

This is the outline of the video´s teaching:

#1. Read a book or watch a Youtube video about what you want to learn and then break down the skill that you want to learn into little parts. Then practice the four or five most important parts first.

#2. Learn just enough so that you can self-correct yourself.

#3. Remove barriers to practise: distractions.

#4. Practice for at least 20 hours, and overcome the initial frustration barrier. That breaks down to 45 minutes per day.

My Own Experience with Learning

From my own experience, I can tell you that it is best is to get a trainer to help you. The trainer should watch the video above and then support you in the four steps. Yes, smart trainers are expensive. But they help tremendously.

These are my personal learning goals for 2019: the Asana task management program and the Scrivener book writing tool.

I shall let you know how that went.

Call to Action

Give it a try.

What is it that you want to learn?

Then start with step #1 above. Now.

What have you got to lose?

 

Martin “Growth” Schweiger