I attended a Thai language workshop that my organisation offers as part of the self-development training that staff can apply for and realised that personal growth comes from trying new things all the time.

Personal growth by itself is rewarding. You feel that you gain mastery over a skill, ability or technique and you are also exposed to a new world, culture and reality that makes your life that little bit more interesting.

In today’s globalised world, personal growth also helps you move nearer to your goal of being financially free because you gain skills and abilities that if matched with the right market who demands it, you can achieve a new source of income or alternative second career that could be your ticket to financial freedom.

Planning Your Personal Growth

Financial freedom comes when our lifestyle expenses is met by passive income from investments e.g. rental from property, interest, dividends etc. Many of us can build up our investible capital only through savings from employment income which will remain as the key contributor during our productive years.

Planning projects for personal growth increases your abilities and skills and life-long learning is about about life-long earning!

I count myself fortunate that my current job allows me to be engaged and to build up new skills and abilities. I manage direct reports, network with my peers and also explore new tools, technologies and frameworks to help me be a better internal auditor.

But the skills I’ve picked up can also prepare me for a second career as a paid Director on a listed company and an audit committee member. I believe this is one personal growth area to explore that involves my day-to-day activities in supporting the work of my organsation’s audit committee. Thus, I am gaining the experience and skills in providing secretariat support and executing the initiatives driven by my audit committee and CEO.

Grow Tangentially

My growth in internal audit and audit related work is a direct growth area. Many times, we forget that we also need to grow tangentially, i.e. to grow into areas that is not directly related to our day to day work.

Me taking up a language class provided by my organisation allows me to learn conversational Thai. It is helpful in accessing the culture and perhaps even consider Thailand to be a retirement home when Singapore population hits 6.5m under the current Government. In the future, we may not be able to afford to retire in a global City that Singapore aspires to be.

I know of a trainer who is based in the region, i.e. he has bought property in Thailand and plans to retire there eventually. In the era of budget airlines and skype, that is starting to be a real possibility to be considered in my lifetime.

Your Personal Growth Paths

Some of my personal growth areas looking back are in the areas of information technology security and audit, blog monetisation, computer assisted audit tools, fathering 101 as well as public speaking and communication.

Going forward, my new growth areas are building up my personal and professional social networks, languages (Thai, Chinese, Japanese) fathering 201, fraud risk management as well as health and fitness.

Each one of us has different strengths, weaknesses and are presented by the world with threats counterbalanced by opportunities.

What will be your personal growth paths towards financial freedom for 2010?

Share with Panzer in the comments section.

Be well and prosper.

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