Are you ready to engage in learning and self-improvement? Here's a breakdown of the best personal development courses to level up your life in 2023.
If there's one way I love to spend my free time, it's digging into a good personal development course.
It never ceases to amaze me that if there's any skill you want to learn - anything at all - there's an online course or program that you can enroll in right now to eventually become an expert in that area.
You can find courses to help you learn the science of persuasion, how to play guitar, how to negotiate your salary, or how to manage stress more effectively.
In fact, you can even find courses that teach you how to learn, so that your entire personal development journey becomes easier and more enjoyable.
It took me a while to get around to doing it, but I'm delighted to finally share my top picks for personal development courses.
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more information.
Here are the best personal development courses online to consider enrolling in this year:
Let's face it. Knowing how to effectively navigate interpersonal relationships is a key part of personal development.
We want to be charismatic, memorable, and authentic in the minds of the people we interact with on a daily basis.
That's why Master Your People Skills by Vanessa Van Edwards is one of my favourite personal development courses. It's available on CreativeLive, which is the world's largest live streaming education company.
In this course, Vanessa will teach you the communication methods and relationship-building strategies that will transform your interactions.
You will learn how to increase your likability, deal with difficult people, be a master conversationalist, and quickly identify personality types.
Some of my favourite lessons in the course include:
Key Course Features:
By the way, this isn't a course where the instructor just talks at you - the format is slightly different and feels like you're in an engaging classroom setting with other students.
Moreover, there are many bonus materials and practical takeaways that will truly change the way you view every new person you meet.
=> Enroll in the Master Your People Skills online course here.
This free personal development course by Yale University takes you through a series of challenges designed to increase your own happiness and help you build more productive habits.
As preparation for these tasks, Professor Laurie Santos reveals misconceptions about happiness, annoying features of the mind that lead us to think the way we do, and the research that can help us change.
Course Syllabus:
Key course features:
Shareable Certificate
100% online
Flexible deadlines
Approx. 19 hours to complete
English
=> Enroll in the Science of Wellbeing online course here.
Almost a million people have already enrolled in this popular negotiation course offered by the University of Michigan.
Why study negotiaton?
We all negotiate on a daily basis. On a personal level, we negotiate with friends, family, landlords, car sellers and employers, among others. Negotiation is also the key to business success. No business can survive without profitable contracts. Within a company, negotiation skills can lead to your career advancement.
In this course, you’ll learn about and practice the elements of a successful negotiation.
Course Syllabus:
Key course features:
Shareable Certificate
100% online
Flexible deadlines
Approx. 16 hours to complete
English
=> Enroll in the Successful Negotiation online course here.
Panic, anxiety, and stress are paralyzing emotions that can stand in the way of the life you want.
Freeing yourself from the grip of these toxic thoughts and feelings will give you clarity you can use to make better business and life decisions.
In this CreativeLive course, stress expert Dr. Cynthia Ackrill shares powerful tools to help you relieve stress and develop greater emotional resilience.
What you will learn:
Key course features:
This personal development course will help gain a greater understanding of the physiological impact of stress, so you can minimize the disruption it has on your body and life.
=> Enroll in the Stress is Optional online course here.
Personal development often involves an emphasis on learning to work smarter instead of harder. Learning to speed is an excellent way to put this into practice.
The Super Reading Program is a highly optimized speed reading methodology by Jim Kwik, one of the world’s top experts in accelerated learning, memory, speed reading, and brain performance.
The goal of the program is to at least double your reading and learning speed in just 21 days. It follows a simple step-by-step process that anyone can follow in just a few minutes each day.
Course syllabus:
This course will teach you how to:
=> There's actually a free 60 Minute Masterclass by Jim Kwik that you can sign up for to experience a sample of the Super Reading program and learn a useful, science-backed 15 Minute speed reading technique.
Treehouse is a platform that enables you to learn the languages, frameworks, and principles required for the most in-demand careers in tech.
The platform contains various "tracks" or mini-programs, each designed to teach you a particular set of skills. The Start Your Coding Journey track is ideal for someone who's ready to dive into coding, but isn't sure which language to choose.
You'll get a thorough introduction to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, PHP, React, and more.
Fun fact about this personal development course: An entry-level salary for the technologies covered in this course is about $60,000 / yr (USD) on average.
I personally love the sleek and intuitive layout of the Treehouse platform and their professional, expert-led video courses that enhance your learning experience.
Moreover, when you sign up with Treehouse, you gain access to the entire Treehouse course library, so you can go on to learn other tech skills too (e.g. UX design, Digital Literacy, Machine Learning, etc).
Life Mastery is a practical program designed to help you rocket towards your personal and career goals to achieve total happiness. If you feel like things aren't turning out as you'd dreamed, you want to progress faster, or you're overwhelmed with stress and worry, this course will transform your approach to life.
The course creator, Chris Croft, is an international speaker and widely published author who's been teaching happiness, time management and assertiveness to companies for over 20 years.
While most courses cover either happiness in a vague way, or success from a purely money focused angle, this program combines both into one simple route to achieve all your goals as a fully rounded person.
The course overview includes:
Key course features:
=> Enroll in the Life Mastery online course here.
If you are nervous about public speaking or simply looking to refine your skills in this area, this personal development course is for you.
This four-course specialization on Coursera will provide you with the instruction, experience, and practice to develop and deliver compelling presentations.
Program Syllabus:
Based on knowledge in communication, rhetoric and linguistics, the course slowly works up specific skills that you can practice multiple times before putting together a longer speech.
Key course features:
Shareable Certificate
100% online
Flexible Schedule
Approx. 5 months to complete
English
=> Enroll in the Dynamic Public Speaking online course here.
Like his books, this popular CreativeLive course by Ramit Sethi is both immensely educational and entertaining.
If you're not already familiar with him, Ramit Sethi is the bestselling author of the book "I Will Teach You to Be Rich", and an entrepreneur who has taught over a million students how to better manage their finances.
In How to Make Money, Ramit shares his proven techniques for transforming your financial outlook.
What you will learn in this course:
Key course features:
Even if you feel pretty comfortable financially, I still recommend this course. It takes an usual approach to most money advice. In fact, as Ramit says in the course, it's actually a bit like a psychology course disguised as a personal finance course.
=> Enroll in the How to Make Money online course here.
This series of courses by the University of California (Irvine) will help you develop essential skills needed to improve your employability and advancement in today’s dynamic workforce.
The course concludes with a Capstone project that will give you the opportunity to apply the methods and techniques you learned in the series of courses to a personal experience, giving you a way to communicate your value to potential employers.
You’ll focus your communication, management, negotiation, problem solving, business writing, time management, finance, entrepreneurship, and project management skills into a single project that demonstrates your career readiness.
Program Syllabus:
Key course features:
Shareable Certificate
100% online courses
Flexible Schedule
Beginner Level
Approx. 11 months to complete
English
This course is one of the best personal development courses you'll find that specifically focuses on career and professional development.
=> Enroll in the Career Success Specialization course online here.
Have you ever thought of sharing your passion for personal development with others? This popular life coaching certification course can help you do so.
Coach Training Alliance (CTA) is a global coaching organization that has trained and certified over 10,000 coaches from 45 countries.
Their Coach Training Accelerator is an online self-study program that provides you with the training and tools you need to establish a solid, sustainable coaching practice.
This course will teach you how to:
Key course features:
=> Learn more about the Coach Training Accelerator course here.
This program by the University of Pennsylvania provides you with the key theories and research in the field of positive psychology as well as opportunities for application.
As a student in this program, you will learn to design and justify small-scale positive interventions to enhance specific aspects of your personal wellbeing.
You will learn to:
Program Syllabus:
Key course features:
Shareable Certificate
100% online courses
Flexible Schedule
Beginner Level
Approx. 5 months to complete
English
Personal development refers to a broad category of activities that improve awareness and identity, develop your talents and employability, aid in the realization of your dreams, and ultimately improve the quality of your life.
People who actively seek to improve themselves often find that they are able to successfully push past limiting beliefs and reach difficult goals.
Rather than waiting for life to hand you knowledge, opportunity and success on a silver platter (which it won’t), you can take control of your life through personal development.
You can read my full post on the definition of personal development here.
Personal development courses can help you reach your goals by guiding you through a step-by-step program, taught by experts in your desired subject area.
In life, you can learn from your own mistakes (which often takes longer), or you can follow the trusted advice of qualified individuals and people who've already done what you're trying to do (much quicker!).
The best personal development training courses will shorten your learning curve and give you an opportunity to put what you learn into practice.
Additionally, the flexibility of online learning is particularly well-suited to building personal development skills, since you can select individual courses that match your goals, instead of pursuing a full degree program.
The course(s) you choose to take first will completely depend on learning goals and personal situation. Many people choose to take courses that align with their ideal career path or personal interests.
For beginners, the 3 personal development courses I recommend taking first are:
These courses will give you a great start and set a strong foundation for whatever areas you decide to pursue next.
Thanks for reading this article on the best personal development courses to enroll in online this year. Special congratulations for making it this far, since it was quite a long post!
I hope the above courses will help give you some direction on areas you can focus on to experience greater success in your life over the next few months.
Personal development is a lifelong journey and an exciting one. As you build on the knowledge and skills provided in these courses, you'll likely look back at where you started and be amazed at how far you've come!
All the best,
Roli
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