How to Make a Personal Development Plan
You’ll look at your strengths and weakness, define your career objectives, assess any gaps in your skills and experience, and then build a practical action plan using the template included, to achieve your career goals.
Personal Development Plan will help you to define and explore your goals and map out
ways to turn them into reality. It will enable you to articulate the skills you are developing now. Personal development planning puts you firmly in control of achieving your career success and fulfillment.
Using this guide you can build up your Personal Development Plan from goal-setting exercises, together with reflective notes and useful feedback. It will grow according to your input and should prove an excellent tool to manage your own development.
Identify your goals :
The first step you have to take is to identify your goals. Make a list of all the things you want to 
achieve in life. However, be careful in setting your goals. Make sure that they are simple, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. Get to know yourself better and examine your needs in life. Your goals reflect who you are and what you want to be in the future.
1 Focus Area
Choose 1 to 3 areas to focus on. Too many and you’ll never get anywhere – too few and you may have all your proverbial eggs in one basket.
2 Where are you now?
What are you like now? You need to know where you’re starting from so you can measure your progress as you progress through your personal development plan.
3 Will be?
If you went to bed tonight, and your problem was solved, what would that be like? What would you feel? What would you see? Knowing what you want to achieve will increase your chances of achieving it.
4 How known?
What quantitative measure will tell you that you’re achieving your goal? Even a simple 1-5 scale is enough to measure intangible goals, like increasing your confidence or reducing anxiety during presentations.
5 Activities and Resources
What practical steps are you going to take to achieve your goal? Do you need to study or do research?
6 When?
Plan time in your diary for specific activities like you would a regular appointment. If you must make changes, re-schedule for a later date. Be realistic about your commitments and make some adjustments to your life, or plan, if necessary.
Formulate a plan
After knowing your goals, it is time you plan out how you will be able to reach them. Formulate a plan where you write down your goals, the timeframe for you to achieve them, and the steps you have to take.
Visualize
A very effective tip on planning your personal development plan is visualization. Imagine yourself reaching the peak of success. Think about how happy, proud, and accomplished you will feel when you finally achieve your goals. Visualization helps you stay motivated and driven to do everything you can to succeed in this life.
Reward
Giving yourself rewards as you achieve your mini-goals make the whole process more enjoyable. This may just provide the incentive you need to do the work that will make the big change you desire.
A personal development plan is indeed very important especially in preparing a wonderful future for your self. Just remember the guide presented above and you will never go wrong in making your own personal development plan.
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I like the reward part. I will put milestones in my plan, and I will celebrate each milestone accomplished. It will surely fuel my desire to reach my ultimate goal. What I didn’t like about goal setting is that sometimes it does not capture opportunities that could come your way. For example, I have a goal of becoming a Foreman in my work, I have it all planned out and I am on the right track to its fulfillment. Then comes along an opportunity to uplift my lifestyle with an offer to work out of the country. So should I continue with my goal of becoming Foreman or quit and take that opportunity to work abroad and earn so much for my family?
Pretty tough decision on my part. With regards my side business I am lucky to be working with the Mentor club, I would have a coach to guide me along the way. Thanks for sharing this template it’s very useful, I could share it with my colleagues during our department’s planning session.
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