Administrative and Executive Assistants: Do You Want to Survive Or Thrive; It's Your Choice

Are you coasting along in your administrative assistant or executive assistant job, learning as you go? With the new year coming, perhaps it's the perfect time to light a fire under yourself. Perhaps it's the right time to get proactive and purposefully engage, or re-engage if you've gotten slack, with professional development and continuous learning opportunities. Get the edge in your administrative professional field. Stay abreast of what's going on with it.

No doubt, you learn day-to-day on the job. For many administrative professionals, that translates into this kind of talk: "I don't need to get a degree. I don't need to take any courses. I don't need to read any self-study material. I don't need to attend another seminar. I don't need to ...." You get the idea. It's the party of, "I don't need to do that because...."

And here comes the rationalization for these administrative assistants and executive assistants: "I'm a quick learner. I can learn everything I need to know as I go and need to. This job just takes common sense. Been there, done that. I'm not some newbie you just hired off the street. I'm experienced, self-taught over xyz years."

Sure, that day-to-day, when I need "learn it by experience" learning is "continuous learning." But do you realize this is "reactive" learning?

I'll say it again: REACTIVE

Reactive = Not such a good thing (if you're claiming to be a professional in your field, a career administrative professional).

Great administrative professionals have skills like "anticipation" and "initiative."

"Reactive" doesn't quite fit in with that thinking. (And don't confuse it with being "adaptive" and "flexible" because it's not that either.)

The top-notch administrative professionals are "proactive." If you want to be a top-notch administrative professional, that means you have to deliberately create your own learning strategy.

Don't just wait until your boss tells you that you have to attend a seminar.

Don't just wait to learn something when you need to know it in your job. That will get you just what you have now: stagnation in your job and career. A reactive work style. A career that "just happens."

You want "growth" in your job and career if you see yourself as a professional in the administrative professional field. Otherwise, you're not a professional; you're just warming a chair in the office for eight hours a day.

However, don't get nervous by the word "growth": It does not mean growing out of the administrative field; it means growing while in it (though you're welcome to choose advancing beyond the admin profession if that's your idea of growth).

Growth means improving yourself.

Growth means becoming the best in your field and doing what it takes to remain the best for your entire administrative professional career (in this case, through proactive professional development and continuous learning and proactive career management).

Growth means stretching your capabilities and stretching your brain (knowledge, thought processes).

Ask yourself this: Did you learn anything new today in your job or field? And if so, did YOU define that learning opportunity or were you "forced into" it by reacting to something on the job (i.e. a problem, assignment, dilemma, boss's request, etc.)?

If you really have a "career" in the administrative professional field, then YOU define your professional development and continuous learning endeavors. You manage your career proactively. You don't do all your learning on a need-to-know basis. YOU are the executive of your career. You set the strategy for it and make the choices for what you will learn proactively.

So, are you leading your career management strategy and your professional development and continuous learning strategy, or are you simply reacting to your day at work? The answer will help you define your current status as a professional in the administrative professional field.

If you don't like the answer, then it's up to you to proactively plan to change it. You can choose to define your professional development strategy. Or you can choose to wait and see what happens today, or tomorrow, at work. You can choose to just passively survive at work, or you can choose to actively thrive in your field and career.
---------------
Learn new tips and strategies that will expand your thought processes and skills in your administrative assistant or executive assistant role and career through The Effective Admin Tips Series. Currently, the series contains 22 publications full of specialized knowledge that can specifically help you become and remain the best in your administrative professional role and career. Plan what areas you will improve in and then use these tips and this guidance to work your plan. It's all self-study. You can read the material at home or at the office, mark it up with your pencil or sticky notes, and then transfer that knowledge to daily activities in your job and career.

Even the smallest change, the smallest tip you implement from The Effective Admin Tips Series, will be you proactively learning something and purposefully using it in your administrative professional role and career. That's a start in proactively defining and managing your continuous learning and professional development endeavors in your administrative assistant or executive assistant career.