There are tons of jobs you can do as a digital nomad: teaching, translation, copywriting, IT and programming, coaching, art design, and much more. But what if you want to be a digital nomad and have none of these skills? How should you enter the tribe then? Well, here are just a few of the many ways you can upskill or reskill to become a digital nomad.
Identify your strengths and weaknesses
A good change begins with knowing where you are. What you need to start with is seeing what skills you already have and what skills you need to be able to do the job you want. Perhaps you have a lot of teaching experience but not much of it was ever done remotely. Maybe you have good IT skills but need to work on time management and keeping deadlines. This is called reskilling: learning new skills that help you in your career.
You also need to see which job best suits you. Maybe you’re used to an office job that asks you to read through a lot of material like tables and documents to find small mistakes and fix them. If this is the case, editorial or proofreading work might be easier to adjust to than picking up a book about C++ and diving in. Identifying both your strong and weak points will give you a good idea of which job would be a good fit for you and what you need to work on.
How to reskill and upskill?
Reskilling is hard. It can be a daunting cliff to climb over towards your new job but it is worth doing. Firstly, you might find a lot of online courses that might help you with reskilling. The aptly named Skillshare offers courses on anything from photography and video editing to programming and can be a great resource for when you need to understand something from the ground up.
Also, make sure you check out your current employer’s benefits. They sometimes include courses in all sorts of fields. And while some might not be for you, it is a good way of using the resources you already have to move on in your career. Lastly, you can learn new skills the old way. Picking up a book and learning on your own or finding a tutor can both be effective ways of learning new skills. Just remember that learning alone will always take longer than when you have a good teacher.
Upskilling can also be a good way to finally reach that digital nomad lifestyle. Upskilling refers to the acquisition of new skills within your field that further your value on the job market. For example, it can mean learning a new programming language or taking a teaching course where you can learn better teaching strategies. As you can see, you can upskill much the same way as you reskill so don’t be afraid of exploring all your possibilities before diving in.
Soft skills
No matter what you choose to do, your soft skills will carry you a long way as a digital nomad. Being able to negotiate, communicate clearly, make decisions, manage your time well, and the like the more you’re likely to have a good time as a digital nomad. Learning these skills is by no means easy, however.
The best way is to read up on soft skills through ideas like non-violent communication and leadership skills and then find ways to practice them. This can take the form of leading projects, networking, deepening your emotional intelligence, or mentoring others. Once you’re half the world away and there’s a sudden change in a deadline from a client while other deadlines breathe down your neck, being able to handle communication well and finding ways of completing everything in time will be a blessing. And this cannot be done without soft skills.
