7 Reasons To Love Continuing Education

All around the world and in many different professions we are required to keep up with our ever-changing environment by refreshing and/or developing our professional skills. This quest for growth is referred to as Continuing Education (CE) in the US & Canada, Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in the UK; etc. Read about why re-educating ourselves as Licensed Massage Therapists or Bodyworkers is so valuable.

 

The great value of Continuing Education

Even if we sometimes might feel like we don´t have the energy for investing that “extra” time in our professional career as an LMT´s, RMT´s or Bodyworker, when we really reflect upon the benefits of Continuing Education, it becomes quite clear that it is an essential part of what we do today and what we will be doing tomorrow.

 

7 reasons for why Continuing Education in Massage & Bodywork is key to our professional & personal growth:

1. Continuing Education helps us to retain what we learned in “massage school”. Imagine if we would never again study anything related to our profession as a Licensed Massage Therapist again during our entire career. I´m sure it would lead us to forget aspects that are crucial to our work. It would also lead us to develop bad professional habits that easily would turn into injuries, etc.
2. Not only does it help us to retain, it also encourages us to develop our existing skills. Continuing Education is a great excuse for learning more in depth about the subjects that we are interested in and/or that we feel that we need to improve in; be it body movements, massage for certain conditions, professional ethics, etc.
3. Through Continuing Education we enter a new world of possibilities as we increase our awareness of other modalities. I´m sure many of us have scrolled through CE or CPD courses, workshops or webinars and found some techniques that we hadn´t even heard of. All this enriches us and expands our horizons.
4. Continuing Education encourages us to learn to perform new techniques of massage and bodywork. This is great because it develops us as professionals as well as helps us to stay competitive in a society where there is a Day Spa or a Massage Center in every block. If you offer a unique massage technique that nobody in your area does, you have a key advantage!
5. We can also opt for improving our customer service skills, or “soft skills” as they are also called. Many Continuing Education courses and workshops talk about how to give your clients that WoW experience, how to create long-lasting relationships, etc. This is very important nowadays especially with all the social media where our clients make posts about their experiences. A positive post can give you new clients, a bad post can ruin your business.
6. Continuing Education can also help us to attract new customers and make them repeat their experience over and over again through marketing/business workshops and courses. This is very useful especially for all self-employed Licensed Massage Therapists and Bodyworkers.
7. Last but not least, by trying out new techniques, not only of massage but also related to self-care, we keep our mind and body active, and avoid becoming bored and falling out of motivation for our profession that we are – or at least ought to be – passionate about. This is key to staying motivated and positive throughout a life-time of massage and bodywork, and being able to give the best of you to your clients.

I hope you enjoyed this (not too exhaustive) list of what I see as truly positive aspects of Continuing Education related to Massage and Bodywork.

I would love to hear your comments, ideas, and personal experiences in the comments below!

Wishing you a beautiful weekend,

César Tejedor

Take a look at our continuing education courses here (NCBTMB approved).

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