5 courses to improve your personal development skills
Personal development is a lifelong process and a vital part of an individual’s growth and progress. It is the process of self-improvement, which focuses on building up our own awareness, knowledge and skills, and setting goals in order to realise and maximise our potential.
Personal development skills and abilities can help us grow both personally and professionally. They can help us achieve our personal and professional goals, advance in our career, and improve our strengths and talents.
Individuals value different personal development skills depending on their goals, but some examples of skills people commonly practice to facilitate personal growth are communication, organization, problem-solving, self-confidence, leadership, adaptability, work ethic, etc.
These skills can be qualities you already have or ones you can gain through education and training. Moonshot suggests 5 Coursera courses you can take to improve your personal development skills.
Rating: 4.8/5
Time: Approximately 5 months to complete (suggested pace of 3 hours/week)
Do you feel nervous and your palms sweat when you’re about to speak in front of a large audience? Then this four-course specialization is for you. It will provide you with the instruction, experience, and practice to develop and deliver compelling presentations. Drawing from the established knowledge in communication, rhetoric, linguistics, and argumentation, each course balances proven ideas with lots of speech practice.
Learners will design, practice, record, and receive feedback on speeches that they can use in their professional lives. After completing this specialization, they will have the experience and skills to design compelling presentations and a portfolio of polished speeches.
Rating: 4.7/5
Time: Approximately 4 months to complete (suggested pace of 5 hours/week)
In this specialization, you will learn the essential skills to coach people for improved performance. You will learn from Executive Coach and UC Davis Instructor Kris Plachy, who has created and transformed dozens of teams through coaching. She will share best practices, research, tools and models for coaching effectively.
You will learn how effective managers use coaching to establish clear expectations and accountability, how to assess performance, and how to conduct coaching conversations that build awareness and get results. Throughout the courses, you will apply insights about management and coaching to develop your own coaching practice and tools.
Rating: 4.6/5
Time: Approximately 11 months to complete (suggested pace of 2 hours/week)
This series of courses will help you build, develop and hone the essential skills needed to improve your employability and advancement in today’s dynamic workforce. You will learn how to apply management principles and problem-solving skills, how to communicate with co-workers and produce clear and concise writing, how to manage your time and plan projects effectively, and understand finance and use winning negotiation strategies.
The courses in this specialization may be taken in any order and each one can also be taken independently. The specialization concludes with a Capstone project that will give you the opportunity to integrate and apply the skills you have gained throughout the courses to your individual and organizational needs.
Successful Negotiation: Essential Strategies and Skill (free)
Rating: 4.8/5
Time: Approx. 17 hours to complete
We all negotiate on a daily basis. On a personal level, we negotiate with friends, family, landlords, car sellers and employers, among others. Negotiation is also the key to business success. Within a company, good negotiation skills can lead to career advancement.
In the course, you’ll learn about and practice the four steps to a successful negotiation:
- Prepare: Plan Your Negotiation Strategy
- Negotiate: Use Key Tactics for Success
- Close: Create a Contract
- Perform and Evaluate: The End Game
The Science of Well-Being (free)
Rating: 4.9/5
Time: Approx. 19 hours to complete
This course will engage you in a series of challenges designed to increase your own happiness and build more productive habits. As preparation for these tasks, Professor Laurie Santos reveals misconceptions about happiness, annoying features of the mind that lead us to think the way we do, and the research that can help us change. You will ultimately be prepared to successfully incorporate a specific wellness activity into your life.
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