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by VP of Communications and professional Author, Araminta S. Matthews, MFA, GCDF, DC, SrID, Consultant, Owner-Operator of HIVE-Wise, Artist, Developer
Araminta is a lifelong learner with a Rennaisance series of certificates in Digital Curation, Art Education, Life Coaching, Death Doula, Teaching, Global Career Development, Web Development, and so much more! Check out her website (currently under development with the help of her new literary agent, Savvy Arts!)
INTRODUCTION:
Summer in Maine is the time to kick off your shoes, squish beach sand between your toes, listen to the waves crash against the rocky shoreline, crack the spine of a great new book, and soak up the sunshine that perhaps only Mainers really earn. After all, they say Maine has four seasons: Winter, Mud, Construction, and Black Fly (or Tick) Season! Don't we deserve a little Rest and Relaxation? And what better time to maximize those extra hours of daylight than to mix and mingle our relaxation with a little professional development. Summer in Maine is more than just a season for vacations—it's the perfect window to pause, reflect, and invest in developing your talents! Whether you're an Learning and Development professional, a corporate trainer, or exploring new leadership pathways, this summer can be a launchpad for fresh skills, deeper insights, and stronger networks.
Here are six practical tips (and three highly recommend, Go-To reads from yours truly) to help you maximize your professional development goals this summer—and carry that momentum into fall and beyond.
1. Set One Bold, SMART Measurable Goal
Ever try to set a goal for yourself only to find it dwindles to dust before you even manage to finish scribbling it on a notecard and pinning it to your bathroom mirror? What if I told you the problem might not be your willpower or your ability to meet goals? What if I told you that maybe--just maybe--it's the goal itself?
A SMART goal is a way you can avoid the trap of vague ambitions. Instead of a loosely worded aspiration to lose weight or eat healthier, learn to write a SMART goal. Choose one professional development goal that’s Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Reasonable, and Time-Centered. Do you want to lead your first workshop? Become certified in instructional design? Start with that and reverse-engineer the steps so that your goal is specific enough that you'll know when you've met it and time-centered and measurable enough that you'll be 100% sure you reached the aspiration without a doubt in your mind. Clear goals help you stay focused, motivated, and accountable. Use tools like SMART goals or OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) to stay on track. Learn more about writing SMART goals from ATD here.
2. Read to Grow—Not Just to Know
Now we all know that down-time and self-care are SO important that you should be making sure your daily to-do list of work and household items always includes at least one or two items just for you! Self-care is just as important (if not moreso) than developing our talents, and what better time than those hot, sunlit months than to hear that delicious sound of a spine cracking on a brand new beachy, summer read? What if a couple of those Summer reads were maximized to expand your thinking through fresh perspectives. Here are three standout books I recommend for your Summer 2025:
Set a goal to read one book a month—or better yet, start a summer book circle with colleagues to spark discussion and insight!
3. Join (or Start) a Summer Learning Sprint
Traditional learning tends to take a break in summer while the children pause their daily school-routines and adults decide whether to head home for the summer months or tough it out for an accelerated summer-term at college. While everyone else might be gearing up for Summer Break, that doesn't mean you have to! Host a microlearning sprint with peers or join an online learning cohort. Many platforms like EdX, Coursera, LinkedIn Learning, and ATD’s own Talent Development Body of Knowledge offer bite-sized, high-impact learning experiences that can fit into your summer schedule. Focus on one competency—coaching, evaluation, DEI, or tech stack fluency—and go deep for four to six weeks. Consider taking a free EdX or Coursera MOOC (Massively Open Online Course) with a friend or colleague, picking away at one lesson a week and getting together to talk shop and expand on what you've learned. Personally, I'll be expanding my art education skills this summer with a MOOC from the Museum of Modern Art to help reinforce the graduate course I teach via SNHU for the Maine Educator Consortium: Methods of Teaching Art in the K-12 Classroom. What will you explore in your summer sprint?
4. Turn Networking into Relationship-Building
Summer events—virtual and in-person—tend to be more casual and open--but casual and open doesn't mean it has to be meaningless, too! Use this as a chance to build meaningful professional connections. Instead of collecting contacts and business cards, invest in conversations. Use the long line at the ice cream stand to strike up a conversation with the person next to you. Look for someone with a similar car or similar attire to your own at the amusement park, and ask them what brings them to Vacationland--then bridge that into a conversation about career, life, and goals. You never know who you might meet or how each new meeting might lead you to your next big thing! In career development theory, we call this Happenstance.Learn more about Planned Happenstance at our ATD site here. Meanwhile, spend your summer doing fun things! Attend Maine ATD meetups, webinars, or community forums. Follow up with LinkedIn messages, share resources, or even schedule a virtual coffee to learn from someone’s path. Real relationships grow when there's mutual curiosity and follow-through.
5. Reflect, Celebrate, and Recalibrate
You don’t have to wait until the end of the calendar year in December to reflect on your growth: Mid-year is the ideal time to pause, acknowledge what you’ve accomplished, and adjust what isn’t working. In learning experience design, we sometimes call this a "Mid-course Correction." This is when we ask our learners or our inner selves what's working, what's not, and what needs to evolve for us to meet and reach our goals. Keep a professional development journal. Celebrate wins—big or small—and refine your goals based on what you’ve learned about yourself. Progress is built on reflection.
You could begin by exploring your Core Values, which LCSW, Shellie Cook of Cornerstone Wellness, advises we should do once every six months or so to see how our values are growing, evolving, and changing as we grow, evolve, and change ourselves. This Online Values Card Sort is a great activity to help pinpoint what you really care about in life and make sure you're directing your time and energy--your personal resources--toward those talents you wish to develop.
Consider exploring your Professional Blind Spots--areas you may not know you are misgiving or misrepresenting about yourself. This Questionnaire can help you spot areas about yourself you may wish to evolve with the support of a good coach of talent developer. If you're feeling very proactive, consider putting out a blind survey to ask your peers to offer up what they consider to be your blind spots as an anonymous survey and use a word cloud to identify what may need your attention. Just remember! Not everything someone identifies as a blind spot is an area you need to change or improve! Sometimes what one person considers a weakness is actually the very wellspring of our greatest strengths. Proceed with caution.
Lastly, consider taking some time to explore your Implicit Biases with Harvard's now nearly 30-year study into Implicit Bias (the biased or discriminatory beliefs we hold about which we are not even consciously aware) and use the results to strengthen your ability to include everyone in the room in your talent development, to diversify your learning experience designs, to help ensure you create an environment conducive to belonging, and to bridge the gap between equity and equality in your talent development goals. Project Implicit offers up a variety of self-evaluations to explore your biases. Use these to unlock areas of reflection and personal growth to become a better, stronger, more adept and nimble leader, colleague, ally, and friend.
CONCLUSION:
Summer 2025 offers a unique opportunity to step back from the daily grind and reinvest in your personal and professional growth. By setting focused goals, diving into insightful reading, engaging in targeted learning sprints, cultivating meaningful connections, and pausing to reflect, you can turn these warmer months into a powerful season of transformation. Professional development doesn’t have to wait for a new year or a formal training—your growth starts with small, intentional steps today. The Maine Chapter of ATD encourages you to seize this season, challenge yourself, and carry the momentum into the months ahead.
