When you are working as a public safety professional, you want to ensure that you are doing the best that you can at all times. Being the best professional is important, not just for you but for the public too. To grow as a public safety professional, you have to remain committed to growth, development and learning. There is so much that you can do to make a positive impact on the public and on local communities, and when you are committed to achieving this, you will see and feel the results. So, when you are focusing on growing, what areas should you be focusing on specific and why?
Being Prepared to Change and Grow
Growth within a role or career does not just happen naturally. You have to be prepared to change and grow – or else you will find that success is always just out of your reach. To be prepared to grow and change, you have to always be conscious about what you are doing and of course what you are going to do. You cannot make changes that stick and work unless they are consciously made. If you are not prepared to change and grow, then the area within which you work (be it law enforcement or emergency services) will move and grow without you and you will be left behind in a stagnant stance.
Adopting the Right Mindset
Once you have established change and growth are necessary, you then have to adopt the right mindset. The mindset you have can hinder you or it can push you to succeed. If you are always thinking or acting negatively, then you will find that this will be detrimental to your career and progress. Whereas if you adopt a positive mindset that is focused on growth, you will find that your approach to your career is completely different and certainly more focused. To adopt the right mindset, you need to try and see things as clearly and as positively as possible.
Identifying Areas to Develop and Change
To grow within your role, or to even focus on career progression, you must identify areas which need developing and changing. To do this you have to evaluate what you are currently doing. Is there a weakness in your approach to work and to your role? Are you keeping up to date with planned changes in your department or are you falling behind? When you can identify areas that need developing and changing, you can then start taking targeted action. Are you setting goals and are you achieving them – or are you falling behind quickly? Establishing areas for professional development and change is crucial and when you can do this, you can be proactive about growth and about pushing forwards.
Focusing on Education
To improve what you do and offer within your role, you must focus on your education. When you focus on enhancing your education, you grow as a professional, and you understand more of the role that public safety has to play in local communities and countries. By advancing your education with a public safety degree you can then be sure that our professional goals are aligned with the expectations of the service area you are working within. Developing a deeper understanding of public safety (across all areas) will help you to find new opportunities.
Committing to Continued Development
You need to see education and development as continual. It is important that you do not treat education as a one-off that you do every few years. When you are committed to continual development both in an educational capacity and in a professional capacity too, you will transform yourself into a public safety professional that plays an integral role in any area in which you work. If you are not committed to continual development then ultimately you will struggle to retain your position or role within public safety, and you will most certainly struggle to grow and push forwards.
Maintaining a Strong and Solid Reputation
Your reputation as a public safety professional counts for a lot, and it is important that you focus on maintaining a strong and clean reputation. If anything happens to tarnish or damage your reputation, you could then find that it affects your career both in the short term and in the long term. To maintain a strong and solid reputation, you have to invest a lot into your career, and you have to be prepared to put in the hard work. Taking shortcuts may seem like a good idea at the time, but you will find that this may not be as beneficial as you originally think. Conducting your role and handling your responsibilities with professionalism at all times will ensure that you maintain a strong and solid reputation – which can then follow you into new positions and future roles.
Liaising with Other Professionals
To grow as a professional, you need to take advantage of other professionals. Trying to do everything by yourself and in isolation will not be beneficial. Liaising with other professionals, and even focusing on building professional networks is important. New opportunities for growth and development can arise through networking, and opportunities for change can also come about through conversations and meetings with other professionals. So, be prepared to invest your time and energy into other professionals and their careers and roles, and not just your own.
Looking to the Future
To focus on growth, you have to be sure that you focus on the future. Creating future plans for your career and embracing future opportunities is going to be beneficial. If you are not looking forward to the future already, then you should start now. Changes to future policies and changes to safeguarding may affect how you work, and it may affect what your roles and responsibilities are, so always be sure that you are futureproofing yourself and your career as much as possible. Being proactive is important, and it is something you must practice regularly.
