It’s a new year and with it comes new opportunities to grow our businesses and careers. To help you achieve your goals, we’ve collected career and business advice from executives within Upwork, human resources experts, experienced freelancers, and business leaders. We’ll be sharing these tips all month long! You can subscribe to the blog to avoid missing this valuable insight.
Here's Corbin's advice in full:
Always Be Learning
Whether broadening skills within a specific industry or completely pivoting to a different career, it’s critical to always strive to continuously learn throughout your life. Those who make it a habit to enhance their skills are not only better professionals but tend to also be happier and more fulfilled in their lives.
If this year has taught us anything, it’s that things can change very rapidly. Institutions and norms we expect to persist indefinitely can end up disappearing without fanfare. So, being nimble and adaptable is an essential mindset to have when examining the trajectory of your career—and that trajectory won’t always be upward. And that’s totally ok.
It’s important to always be looking at what skills are emerging in the marketplace. Try to stay abreast of rising trends and new technologies in your (or another) industry. When possible, try to get an early start on learning these skills to stay ahead of the competition.
Use what you’ve just learned as soon as possible. Learning by doing is one of the strongest methods for retaining and deepening skills. Teaching or mentoring others is another fantastic way to maintain newly-acquired skills (and expand your network as a bonus).
It doesn’t matter what stage you are in your career, how old you are, or what you do, engaging in continuous learning is a powerful way to help you achieve your career and life goals.
A great way to grow your skills as a freelancer on Upwork is through Upwork Academy.