One of the best practices workers can incorporate to become more productive, and subsequently more successful in their careers, is to develop effective self-management skills. While businesses spend a lot of time and resources on employee training and performance improvement, every individual should perform self-assessment surveys to determine where they have room for growth. For employees who are serious about their job advancement, such a notion is critical. It's difficult to imagine a productive employee who succeeds in job progression and promotion without putting in the effort to learn self-management. To help you take those steps towards advancing your career, let’s delve into the self-management definition and the steps you can take to develop those skills.

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What is Self-Managing? 

Self-management is the practice of accepting responsibility for our own behavior and responsibilities. Doing so allows us to perform to the best of our ability and the capacity to regulate one's thoughts, feelings and behaviors are known as self-management skills. We learn to create objectives on our own and take the initiative to attain them. Purposeful self-management can assist us in directing the course of our career and ensuring that we pursue prospects that will help us achieve those objectives. By instilling self-management in our daily lives, we demonstrate that we can be independent and self-sufficient. The core element of adopting self-management techniques is to be in charge of ourselves, not a team or a firm.

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Why Is Self-Management Important? 

Self-management skills are a vital component of demonstrating that we are trustworthy employees. Those who lack these abilities can seem unpredictable, resulting in feelings of distrust and anxiety among managers. When someone has trouble managing their emotions, they may lash out at a client or speak harshly to another employee. Self-management allows us to control our emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, allowing us to make better decisions both professionally and personally.

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List Of Self-Management Skills 

To begin our mastery over self-management, each person needs to answer one very important question: what is the best definition of self-management skills for you? Different people will need different self-management skills, which is why we need to determine what self-management means as it relates to us. To get started, let’s focus on this generalized self-management skills list so you can start thinking about how some of these may apply to you. 

• Goal Setting: The capacity to establish what we want to attain in a clear and well-defined manner is known as goal setting. Goal setting in the workplace assists us in determining what is important and developing an action plan to help us reach our goals. Because it allows us to control our time and activities, this skill is essential for maintaining workplace efficiency.
• Initiative: Being able to work without being instructed what to do is referred to as initiative. We can demonstrate initiative by thinking for ourselves and acting when necessary, not when told. It entails using our intellect and a strong motivation to succeed. Because we need perseverance and determination to solve issues or accomplish things without being reminded or asked, initiative necessitates self-management. Employers frequently state that they seek employees who can respond to and deal effectively with difficulties. In many job applications and interviews, emphasizing the ability to "show initiative" can be a deciding factor for the hiring team. 
• Organization: Getting organized in life and at work allows us to responsibly schedule our time. We know which tasks should be completed first and will take the most time on our to-do list. This skill also emphasizes being ready to tackle projects and having everything we need. Being organized will help us enhance our productivity in various ways, including time management, work prioritization, and even things as simple as keeping a clean desk. Being organized not only ensures we don't miss a deadline or arrive late for a crucial meeting, but it also makes us more professional and allows us to perform tasks more efficiently. Employers highly value strong organizational abilities because it translates to reliable employees. Equipped with a well-organized outlook, we demonstrate our commitment to our career and the company.
• Accountability: If you’re wondering, “what is another name for self-management skills?” it can be boiled down to accountability. This is one of the biggest ones because, for many, it can be the most challenging self-management skill to develop. Although accountability and responsibility are comparable, they are not synonymous. A boss may entrust us with a task, but we may still search for someone else to blame if things go wrong, or we may opt not to put up the effort because we're unconcerned about the outcome. When we tell ourselves that we are accountable, we assume responsibility for the duties that come our way. By accepting accountability, we take pride in our job and want to do it properly to get the best potential outcomes. If a job we're in charge of doesn't go as planned, by taking accountability, we make it our personal goal to figure out how to improve next time or discover a better approach to complete the assignment. This is still a matter of responsibility. It's not about whether the work is successful or not; it's about how we approach the task.

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How to Develop Self-Management Skills 

The best way to improve our self-management abilities is by honestly assessing ourselves and concentrating on how we can better direct our efforts to improve our everyday lives — at work and at home. Here are some techniques for working on self-management skills, examples, and tips to help your journey to self-managing.

• Examine our strengths: Determine which professional duties we excel at and work on improving our skills in those areas. Knowing our talents can help us manage our professional path in a way that maximizes specialized abilities.
• Make a list of our obligations: Define which obligations are the most vital and concentrate our efforts on the most important tasks, avoiding distractions that divert our attention away from what matters most. 
• Get organized: It’s essential to develop efficient strategies for managing our time and streamlining our everyday routines. Using an agenda book, setting up a time-management tool on our phones, or developing an organized system at our desk are all great ways to stay on top of our responsibilities. 
  
• Set hard deadlines: To continually improve our self-management skills, we need to have a baseline from which we can measure. We can implement this by maintaining a calendar and assigning strict deadlines to each step of a project. We need to hold ourselves accountable for completing projects on time by meeting our self-imposed deadlines. 
• Practice patience: It’s important to maintain a calm demeanor in order to think clearly and objectively. By controlling our emotions, we gain mastery over ourselves and can approach difficult situations with a clear mind, allowing us to choose the appropriate tactic for the occasion. One of the most effective (and easiest) ways to practice this is simple: take deep breaths.
• Take care of our physical and mental wellbeing: An often overlooked aspect of self-management in the workplace is self-care. All humans need to maintain a healthy diet and exercise to reduce our stress levels in our daily lives. We need to establish times to take breaks, stretch our bodies, and clear our thoughts. Meditation is an excellent way to work on this skill.
• Assess our development: What gets measured gets managed. To this end, we need to set checkpoints along the road and log our successes to determine whether we've reached them to objectively analyze the progress toward our goals. To receive a well-rounded evaluation, ask for help from a mentor.

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Give Your Employees a LeggUP 

Learning self-management affects more than just our work lives, but our personal lives as well. By incorporating positive habits into our daily routines, we perform better on the job and transition these skills to build a more engaging life. If you want to encourage personal growth among your employees, adopting a culture focused on self-improvement can significantly impact employee satisfaction and office morale. 

Thankfully, you don't have to start from scratch. As an employee benefit, LeggUP is a preventative mental health and people development tool. We help businesses create adaptable workforces that encourage employees to embrace personal growth and change with enthusiasm in order to build collaborative and resilient teams. Visit LeggUP’s coaching platform and level up your strengths and areas of opportunity. Contact LeggUP today to get started!