Whether you are just starting your professional career, chasing your next promotion, or just want to grow professionally, a personal development plan
Whether you are just starting your professional career, chasing your next promotion, or just want to grow professionally, a personal development plan (PDP) can help you.
Especially when many employees are about to complete the mid-year review or evaluation, it is important to be able to clearly articulate your progress.
Communicate the actions you take to achieve your goals and identify any gaps that may increase the follow-up on your path to success step.
PDP is a framework in which you can determine your professional strengths, weaknesses, and ambitions, and then use them to establish personal development goals to help you grow and improve key skills or improvements in certain areas.
What is a personal development plan?
In order to achieve success and happiness in your education, career, and personal life, you must continuously improve your knowledge, skills, and experience. This is called personal development, and it is a process that lasts a lifetime.
Personal development is good for you personally, but also good for the company and society as a whole. Making the most of your abilities and skills will have a positive impact on you and the people around you.
According to the NHS, learning new skills can improve your mental health because it will give you a sense of mission and increase your confidence.
The benefits of PDP The benefits of PDP are:
- It provides you with clear goals.
- Help you identify your strengths and weaknesses.
- Improve your employability.
- Improve your performance.
- Increase your motivation.
- Help track your progress.
- Improve your sense of purpose.
- Improve your mental health and reduce stress
Overall, PDP can provide you with the greatest chance of success and maximize your potential.
Why you need a personal development plan?
Imagine if you ask a contractor to build your new home and say “we don’t need a plan, we will solve it immediately.”
You will not tolerate it for a second. So why do so many of us lead such a life? Most of the time, we have ambitions and dreams, but we rarely stop to think carefully about our future.
A personal development plan can help you understand where you are going and how to get there and provide detailed information. First of all, it will make your thoughts clear and you will know exactly where you want to go.
In addition, it will give you peace of mind because you know that you are moving in the right direction every day. Since you will have clear points of reference, you will feel more thoughtful and make decisions easier.
How to build your personal development plan?
The process of making a plan can take a considerable amount of time. This is completely normal, and you should not rush for success.
However, it is a good idea to set a deadline in your mind. After all, tasks are fluid-they take up as much space as you give.
Clear out your vision
You must start from the end. To develop your personal development plan, check out the other side of the content. Think about your future life.
Choose a time period that is meaningful to you if you are still 20 years old, then looking at 3 or 5 years from now is enough.
The older you are, the longer the planning period you can have. Now imagine your life, say, 3 years, and go through the day you imagined:
What was the first thought that came to mind in the morning? Getting up
- How is your day arranged?
- What is your workplace? what are you doing there?
- How much time do you spend with friends and family?
- What makes you feel fulfilled at the end of the day?
- So,what gives you the energy to move on?
So what consumes it?
In the pivot of her book, author Jenny Black even suggests that you put together a complete story-this is the ideal template for Crazy Freedom Day.
Now take a step back and review it. Which areas will make you feel successful? This will help you determine your values. Map them-you can use anything, from a note-taking application to a blank sheet of paper, from a simple bulleted list to a beautiful visual dashboard.
The best way for me is to use a mind map that contains a few major nodes in each area of your life. Some people prefer to keep it simple, with 2-3 nodes in the professional, personal and social fields. Others provided more details: The framework used by blogger Michael Hyatt has 10 life areas:
- Intelligence
- Emotion
- Body
- Spirit
- Marriage
- Parents
- Social
- Finance
- Occupation (professional and professional related)
- Occupation (hobbies and interests)
I think the map is most suitable for 5-6 categories, where you can put whatever you want; if you think travel is a key area for your development, then it is best to put it there.
Key areas are the main nodes and fill in your mind map by including various sub-nodes that will make this area successful.
The following is an example of the final result using the free version of the Mind Meister tool. The final result will give you a general understanding of the area to be focused on.
Outline your strengths and areas for improvement
You have marked where you want to go; now let us see how we can move forward. First, think about what you already have:
what are the strengths and abilities that are already related to your dreams? Maybe you want to switch to a new job field, then your natural network skills will help you understand this industry faster.
Then, list the skills you need to develop and the projects you can start working on to get closer to your business. Target. Think about the people you can reach and they can help you along the way.
You don’t need to be too specific at this point; think of it as a kind of brainstorming. Jenny Blake also has a useful template in this regard. After creating a long list, look at the different items and group them together to form a group. You can use a format that most business students are familiar with:
SWOT charts. Although we are accustomed to seeing it as a tool for evaluating organizations, it is also useful for evaluating their personality. You only need to draw a four-quadrant diagram and use each part for your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Build your personal development plan
Once you have a clear direction, let us get into the details. The key here is to start a business for the future. Start by starting a specific project. What do you need to do?
- What resources do you need? Books to read, courses to learn, tools to subscribe…
- Who will help you do this? Friends, mentors, etc.
- What will success look like? Set specific standards to measure.
- What is the time frame?
Set general deadlines or milestones for different parts of the project. Finally, you will know exactly what needs to be done and how to do it. Do it now! You can even link your personal development plan to your annual goals.
Review and adapt
President Eisenhower once said: “Plans are useless, but plans are essential.” The importance of a personal development plan is to gain clarity by answering questions about your future. But it is not static.
After all, life changes quickly, and we must change with it. This is why it is important to look back and adapt. It can be reviewed every quarter. Make sure you pay attention to the awards and remember why you are doing what you are doing.
Reread your vision and review your values mind map. But after that, focus only on what needs to be done in the next three months; otherwise, you may be overwhelmed by the big picture and you will never be able to do anything.
If a project no longer makes sense, please feel free to delete it from your personal development plan. Feel free to adjust the plan according to new interests or changes in circumstances.
A good personal development strategy will grow with your development. As Tony Robbins said, “Stick to your decision but be flexible in your approach.”
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