NST Weekly L&D Digest for August 31–September 4, 2026, features September career insights, learning opportunities and L&D industry updates.
Welcome to September – It’s Time to Start “Calling the Mare”
As we enter the final stretch of the year, September offers more than the beginning of another month. It is a timely opportunity to pause, take stock and ask an important question:
How much of what you set out to achieve this year have you actually accomplished?
Some years ago, we shared a fascinating harvest tradition known as “Calling the Mare.” As farmers approached the end of the harvest season, the last sheaf of corn was fashioned into a rough figure resembling a mare and sent to a neighbouring farmer who had not yet completed his harvest. The message was clear: finish what you started before the opportunity is lost.
For career professionals, the story carries a powerful lesson.
At the beginning of the year, many of us set goals - new skills to acquire, professional certifications to pursue, leadership capabilities to strengthen, courses to attend, career milestones to achieve and projects to complete. But as the months pass, competing priorities, demanding schedules and the pressures of everyday work can push some of those ambitions into the background.
September is the time to take another look.
There are still months ahead, but the window is narrowing. The question is no longer what you intended to accomplish this year; it is what you can still deliberately accomplish before the year ends.
Don't wait for the “Mare” to arrive at your doorstep.
Don't allow unfinished professional development goals, postponed training, neglected skills or unfulfilled career ambitions to become the reminders of what you could have achieved.
Instead, start calling the Mare.
Identify what remains unfinished. Prioritise what matters. Make a plan. Take action. Enrol in that course. Develop that skill. Pursue that certification. Have that career conversation. Complete that project.
Most importantly, ensure that the Mare is not dropped at your doorstep.
September is here. The year is not over.
There is still time to finish strong - and to make the remaining months count.
This Week on Nigerian Seminars and Trainings
Our posts this week were built around the central theme “Calling the Mare”, exploring different ways professionals can review their progress, regain momentum and ensure that unfinished goals do not follow them to the end of the year.
If you missed them, here are the highlights:
Monday - Become Better Every Day
Mastery isn't about being perfect. It is about refusing to remain the same.
We encouraged professionals to reflect on the previous month, identify what they had learned, consider what they could have handled better and determine what they would do differently.
The lesson: Small improvements, consistently applied, can produce remarkable professional growth.
Challenge: Choose one behaviour, skill or mindset to intentionally improve over the next 30 days.
Don't wait for a new opportunity to become a better professional.
Start becoming better today.
Tuesday - Welcome to September 2026: It’s Time to “Call the Mare”
September is here, and the year is not over yet.
With four months remaining in 2026, we encouraged professionals to pause, review their progress and refocus on their goals.
The old harvest tradition of “Calling the Mare” provides a timely metaphor: don't wait until the end of the year before confronting unfinished business.
Reset your priorities. Refocus your energy. Identify what needs improvement. Take action.
If professional development is one of the goals you've postponed, now is the time to act.
Finish Strong. Start Now.
Wednesday - Review Your Progress
You can't know where you're going if you never stop to see where you've been.
September provides an excellent opportunity to review the goals set earlier in the year.
- What have you accomplished?
- What have you learned?
- Where have you fallen behind?
The purpose of a progress review is not to criticise yourself. It is to gain clarity.
Celebrate what you've achieved, learn from what didn't work and identify what needs your attention for the rest of the year.
Challenge: Take 15 minutes to write down three things you've achieved this year, one lesson you've learned and one area where you need to improve.
Then use that review to make better decisions about what comes next.
Thursday - Review, Refocus and Move Forward
The September message is not about dwelling on what has not been accomplished.
It is about using the information available to make better decisions.
A review without action becomes merely an exercise. The real value of reflection comes when it informs the next step.
- If something matters, prioritise it.
- If a skill needs strengthening, start learning.
- If a goal has been neglected, restart.
- If your original plan no longer makes sense, revise it.
The objective is not to recreate January. It is to make the remaining months count.
Friday - Get Back on Track
Maybe you started the year with clear goals, but somewhere along the way, things changed.
- A demanding workload.
- Unexpected responsibilities.
- Delays.
- Distractions.
Whatever knocked you off track, you don't have to stay there.
September is a reminder that you still have time to make meaningful progress. You don't need to accomplish everything at once.
Start with one goal, one decision and one action.
Challenge: Identify one goal you've neglected and take one practical step towards it today.
Stop waiting for the perfect time to restart.
Start from where you are. Move forward. Get back on track. Finish strong.
Quote of the Week
“He who deliberates fully before taking a step will spend his entire life on one leg.”
- Chinese Proverb
The lesson is particularly relevant as we enter the final four months of the year.
Reflection is valuable. Planning is important. But neither produces results without action.
Sometimes, the next step does not require a perfect plan. It simply requires the courage to take the step.
Article of the Week
Run Your Race, But Keep Moving
Your professional journey is unique. Your colleagues may progress at different speeds, achieve different milestones or appear to be further ahead, but their journey is not yours.
The lesson of the lily, mango and bamboo seeds is that growth does not happen at the same pace for everyone.
But running your own race should never become an excuse for standing still.
This article explores the balance between respecting your personal growth journey and maintaining the urgency required to keep learning, improving and moving forward.
As the year enters its final stretch, ask yourself:
What remains unfinished - and what am I going to do about it?
Read the full article:
Run Your Race, But Keep Moving
Suggested Reading
Resilience – A Strategic Approach to Finishing Strong Always
Getting off track is not failure.
Staying off track when you have the ability to restart is the bigger problem.
This suggested reading explores resilience as a strategic capability for professionals who want to recover from setbacks, maintain momentum and finish strong.
Read: Resilience – A Strategic Approach to Finishing Strong Always
Upcoming Training Opportunities
Have You Tried Our New RSS Feature?
Our new RSS feature puts upcoming training opportunities at your fingertips, making it easier to stay informed about newly published professional development programmes.
Instead of repeatedly searching for new opportunities, professionals can subscribe to or bookmark the feed and keep training opportunities within easy reach.
Explore the NST Training RSS Feed
For more courses in the remainder of Q3, download the:
Third Quarter 2026 Conferences and Training Guide, featuring highlights of August and September training opportunities.
Download the Third Quarter 2026 Training Guide
Want to see what's up ahead?
Don't wait until the next quarter begins before planning your professional development. Download our Fourth Quarter 2026 Conferences and Training Guide and start looking ahead at the training and conference opportunities available in the final quarter of the year.
Download the Fourth Quarter 2026 Conferences and Training Guide here: Download the Fourth Quarter 2026 Training Guide
New NST Platform Feature
Promote Your Events with Videos – Have You Tried This Feature Yet?
As part of the ongoing and intentional upgrade of the Nigerian Seminars and Trainings platform, we continue to introduce features designed to deliver greater visibility and marketing value to Training Providers.
One of these enhancements is our Event Video Upload platform.
Training Providers can now easily add YouTube videos to their event listings using virtually all standard YouTube video links and identification formats.
This creates another powerful opportunity to:
- Showcase your courses more effectively
- Engage prospective participants
- Provide a richer insight into your programmes
- Make your event listings more informative and compelling
- Help prospective participants make better booking decisions
For maximum impact, we encourage Training Providers to upload videos that are directly relevant to the events they are promoting.
Don't just tell prospective participants about your programme. Show them what they can expect.
Take advantage of this enhanced feature and make your event listings more engaging, informative and persuasive.
Trainers' Corner
Is Your Training Programme Getting the Visibility It Deserves?
A great training programme deserves more than a listing.
It deserves to be seen, understood and considered by the right audience.
That is one of the reasons Nigerian Seminars and Trainings continues to evolve its platform and introduce tools designed to increase the marketing value of event listings.
From improved event presentation to the upgraded RSS feed and enhanced video capability, our objective is to give Training Providers more ways to present their programmes and connect with prospective participants.
If you are a Training Provider or organisation offering professional development programmes, make your listings work harder for you.
Give prospective participants enough information to understand the value of your programme—and use the available platform features to make your events more visible and compelling.
Your training may be exactly what someone needs. Make it easier for them to find it.
L&D Industry Round-Up
The Nigerian Learning and Development ecosystem entered September with a strong emphasis on leadership, capability building, professional development and preparing talent for the future of work.
One notable development is the upcoming Champions of Talent Development (CTD) Conference 2026, scheduled for September 15–16 at NECA House, Ikeja, Lagos. The conference brings together HR professionals, talent developers, business executives, educators, policymakers and technology innovators to examine innovation, strategy and impact in L&D.
The wider training calendar also continues to reflect growing demand for practical capability development. The Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria's September learning calendar, for example, includes programmes covering HR digitalisation, strategic recruitment, employment law, strategic change management, leadership pipelines, organisational agility and HR analytics.
The University of Lagos also commenced September with a two-day “Leading with Purpose: Strategic Leadership for University Excellence” programme for senior non-teaching staff, demonstrating the continuing emphasis on purposeful leadership and institutional capability development.
Meanwhile, the training marketplace remained active through the week, with programmes running across areas such as administration, office management, executive support, procurement, relationship management and leadership. NST's own listings included multiple five-day programmes running from August 31 to September 4.
The broader direction is clear: organisations and professionals are increasingly recognising that capability development must be continuous. Leadership, digital capability, analytics, adaptability and specialised professional skills are becoming increasingly important as workplaces evolve.
And that brings us back to this week's message.
The time to identify the gap is before the opportunity arrives.
The time to build the skill is before you need it.
The time to restart a neglected development goal is now.
Conclusion
September is more than another page on the calendar.
It is a checkpoint.
A chance to look back without regret, look forward with clarity and decide what the remaining months of 2026 will mean for you.
Perhaps you did not accomplish everything you planned.
That's okay.
Perhaps some goals have been delayed.
That's okay too.
What matters now is what you choose to do with the time that remains.
Don't spend September explaining January's intentions. Use September to act on them.
- Review your progress.
- Identify what remains unfinished.
- Reset your priorities.
- Sharpen your skills.
- Restart where necessary.
- And keep moving.
- The year is not over.
Your harvest season is still ahead.
So, don't wait for the Mare.
Call it yourself.
And whatever you do, make sure the Mare is not dropped at your doorstep.
Finish Strong. Start Now. Keep Moving.
