Rome, Italy: I was at the Toastmasters Conference in a beautiful city of Rome. It was June and over 30 degree temperature outside the air conditioned building where all workshops were held.

I remember I was at one workshop session which started with a question: “Why are we doing what we’re doing?” In other words why self-development is important to us.

A few people answered this question but I only remember one answer which caught my attention and which I remember very well. Someone answered: “I like self-development because it helps me survive…”.

It was a very strong and powerful message. Even though we don’t need to take it so seriously, self-development or as some people call it: self-improvement, personal development or personal growth or just simply making ourselves better is extremely important if we want to develop in our lives.

A few weeks ago I attended The Best You EXPO 2016 in London with more than 100 speakers, 17 hours of non-stop workshops, 6000 attendees and 160 exhibitors presenting areas of coaching, NLP, business growth, transforming yourself etc.

This large scale spectacular event has helped me understand why this type of educational events are so important. Now I am going to give you 6 reasons why you should attend self-development workshops too.

#1 Get inspired – Self-development events are a great opportunity to find new ways of doing things differently or you can come up with entirely new ideas for your personal or professional growth. Being in an environment of inspirational people who are experts in their fields is awesome and highly motivating.

#2 Network – Try to meet new people who might be your potential business partners in future. Mingle with them to identify areas how you could help them. I am purposely saying: “how you can help them” as it usually works in a way that if you help them first, they will be more likely to do the same or even more for you afterwards. You can also meet interesting speakers and talk to them face to face. Remember however networking is not about exchanging business cards but it’s a long-term process of building rapport with your new contacts.

#3 Find your life purpose – It’s hard to answer questions: “Who am I” or “What do I want to achieve”. By attending self-development workshops, your will start to notice your goals, new life path which you should take and you are more likely to define your mission then.

#4 Build good habits – After a good self-development workshop people feel driven, full of energy and they are willing to start up new challenges or make resolutions even if it’s not New Year’s Eve yet. That’s a perfect occasion to start forming positive everyday habits in our lives which will help us achieve our goals. It doesn’t matter how big or important a new habit is but it’s essential you do it regularly and never stop. If you haven’t read a book: “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People“ yet, that’s a high time to do it!

#5 Manage time effectively – Time is one of the most valuable assets we have and attending self-development workshops is undoubtedly a good time investment. You will not only invest your time in the best way you can but also when creating your new goals, ambitions and taking up a lot of new challenges, you will learn good time management and you will need to be very well organized.

#6 Learn, learn, learn – More importantly self-development workshops are a great opportunity to learn, keep up to date and share ideas. You can improve your skills immediately if you practise regularly or learn new things to help you boost yourself and your career.

You must have your own means how to create a better version of yourself.
People are often looking for a magic pill for their success but workshop speakers usually can provide great tools to achieve success quicker as they must have gone through the same or similar situations. So if you are struggling with your new business, start-up, want to get rid of your fears, learn new skills or transform yourself and keep your high level motivation along the way, attend self-development events.