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How to Create a Personal Development Plan: 3 Examples

For successful change, it is vital that the client remains engaged, recognizing and identifying with the goals captured inside and outside sessions. A personal development plan (PDP) creates a focus for development while offering a guide for life and future success (Starr, 2021).

This article introduces and explores the value of personal development plans, offering tools, worksheets, and approaches to boost self-reflection and self-improvement.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Goal Achievement Exercises for free . These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or your clients create actionable goals and master techniques to create lasting behavior change.

This Article Contains

What is personal development 7 theories, coaching in personal development and growth, how to create a personal development plan, 3 examples of personal development plans, defining goals and objectives: 10 tips and tools, fostering personal development skills, 3 inspiring books to read on the topic, resources from positivepsychology.com, a take-home message, frequently asked questions.

Personal development is a fundamental concept in psychology and encompasses the lifelong process of self-improvement, self-awareness, and personal growth. Crucial to coaching and counseling, it aims to enhance various aspects of clients’ lives, including their emotional wellbeing, relationships, careers, and overall happiness (Cox, 2018; Starr, 2021).

Several psychological models underpin and support transformation. Together, they help us understand personal development in our clients and the mechanisms and approaches available to make positive life changes (Cox, 2018; Passmore, 2021).

The following psychological theories and frameworks underpin and influence the approach a mental health professional adopts.

1. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

As a proponent of the humanistic or person-centered approach to helping people, Abraham Maslow (1970) suggested that individuals have a hierarchy of needs. Simply put, they begin with basic physiological and safety needs and progress through psychological and self-fulfillment needs.

Personal development is often found in or recognized by the pursuit of higher-level needs, such as self-esteem and self-actualization (Cox, 2018).

2. Erikson’s psychosocial development

Erik Erikson (1963) mapped out a series of eight psychosocial development stages that individuals go through across their lifespan.

Each one involves challenges and crises that once successfully navigated, contribute to personal growth and identity development.

3. Piaget’s cognitive development

The biologist and epistemologist Jean Piaget (1959) focused on cognitive development in children and how they construct their understanding of the world.

We can draw on insights from Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, including intellectual growth and adaptability, to inform our own and others’ personal development (Illeris, 2018).

4. Bandura’s social cognitive theory

Albert Bandura’s (1977) theory highlights the role of social learning and self-efficacy in personal development. It emphasizes that individuals can learn and grow through observation, imitation, and belief in their ability to effect change.

5. Self-determination theory

Ryan and Deci’s (2018) motivational self-determination theory recognizes the importance of autonomy, competence, and relatedness in personal development.

Their approach suggests that individuals are more likely to experience growth and wellbeing when such basic psychological needs are met.

6. Positive psychology

Positive psychology , developed by Martin Seligman (2011) and others, focuses on strengths, wellbeing, and the pursuit of happiness.

Seligman’s PERMA model offers a framework for personal development that emphasizes identifying and using our strengths while cultivating positive emotions and experiences (Lomas et al., 2014).

7. Cognitive-Behavioral Theory (CBT)

Developed by Aaron Beck (Beck & Haigh, 2014) and Albert Ellis (2000), CBT explores the relationship between thoughts, emotions, and behavior.

As such, the theory provides practical techniques for personal development, helping individuals identify and challenge negative thought patterns and behaviors (Beck, 2011).

Theories like the seven mentioned above offer valuable insights into many of the psychological processes underlying personal development. They provide a sound foundation for coaches and counselors to support their clients and help them better understand themselves, their motivations, and the paths they can take to foster positive change in their lives (Cox, 2018).

The client–coach relationship is significant to successful growth and goal achievement.

Typically, the coach will focus on the following (Cox, 2018):

• Actualizing tendency This supports a “universal human motivation resulting in growth, development and autonomy of the individual” (Cox, 2018, p. 53).
• Building a relationship facilitating change Trust clients to find their own way while displaying empathy, congruence, and unconditional positive regard . The coach’s “outward responses consistently match their inner feelings towards a client,” and they display a warm acceptance that they are being how they need to be (Passmore, 2021, p. 162).
• Adopting a positive psychological stance Recognize that the client has the potential and wish to become fully functioning (Cox, 2018).

Effective coaching for personal growth involves adopting and committing to a series of beliefs that remind the coach that the “coachee is responsible for the results they create” (Starr, 2021, p. 18) and help them recognize when they may be avoiding this idea.

The following principles are, therefore, helpful for coaching personal development and growth (Starr, 2021).

• Stay committed to supporting the client. While initially strong, you may experience factors that reduce your sense of support for the individual’s challenges.
• Coach nonjudgmentally. Our job is not to adopt a stance based on personal beliefs or judgment of others, but to help our clients form connections between behavior and results.
• Maintain integrity, openness, and trust. The client must feel safe in your company and freely able to express themselves.
• Responsibility does not equal blame. Clients who take on blame rather than responsibility will likely feel worse about something without acknowledging their influence on the situation.
• The client can achieve better results. The client is always capable of doing and achieving more, especially in relation to their goals.
• Focus on clients’ thoughts and experiences. Collaborative coaching is about supporting the growth and development of the client, getting them to where they want to go.
• Clients can arrive at perfect solutions. “As a coach, you win when someone else does” (Starr, 2021, p. 34). The solution needs to be the client’s, not yours.
• Coach as an equal partnership. Explore the way forward together collaboratively rather than from a parental or advisory perspective.

Creating a supportive and nonjudgmental environment helps clients explore their thoughts, feelings, and goals, creating an environment for personal development and flourishing (Passmore, 2021).

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A personal development plan is a powerful document “to create mutual clarity of the aims and focus of a coaching assignment” (Starr, 2021, p. 291). While it is valuable during coaching, it can also capture a client’s way forward once sessions have ended.

Crucially, it should have the following characteristics (Starr, 2021):

• Short and succinct
• Providing a quick reference or point of discussion
• Current and fresh, regularly revised and updated

Key elements of a personal development plan include the following (Starr, 2021):

• Area of development This is the general skill or competence to be worked on.
• Development objectives or goals What does the client want to do? Examples might include reducing stress levels, improving diet, or managing work–life balance .
• Behaviors to develop These comprise what the client will probably do more of when meeting their objectives, for example, practicing better coping mechanisms, eating more healthily, and better managing their day.
• Actions to create progress What must the client do to action their objectives? For example, arrange a date to meet with their manager, sign up for a fitness class, or meet with a nutritionist.
• Date to complete or review the objective Capture the dates for completing actions, meeting objectives, and checking progress.

Check out Lindsey Cooper’s excellent video for helpful guidance on action planning within personal development.

We can write and complete personal development plans in many ways. Ultimately, they should meet the needs of the client and leave them with a sense of connection to and ownership of their journey ahead (Starr, 2021).

• Personal Development Plan – Areas of Development In this PDP , we draw on guidance from Starr (2021) to capture development opportunities and the behaviors and actions needed to achieve them.
• Personal Development Plan – Opportunities for Development This template combines short- and long-term goal setting with a self-assessment of strengths, weaknesses, and development opportunities.
• Personal Development Plan – Ideal Self In this PDP template , we focus on our vision of how our ideal self looks and setting goals to get there.

“The setting of a goal becomes the catalyst that drives the remainder of the coaching conversation.”

Passmore, 2021, p. 80

Defining goals and objectives is crucial to many coaching conversations and is usually seen as essential for personal development.

Check out this video on how you can design your life with your personal goals in mind.

The following coaching templates are helpful, containing a series of questions to complete Whitmore’s (2009) GROW model :

• G stands for Goal : Where do you want to be?
• R stands for Reality : Where are you right now with this goal?
• O stands for Options : What are some options for reaching your goal?
• W stands for Way forward : What is your first step forward?

Goal setting creates both direction and motivation for clients to work toward achieving something and meeting their objectives (Passmore, 2021).

The SMART goal-setting framework is another popular tool inside coaching and elsewhere.

S = Specific M = Measurable A = Attainable/ or Agreed upon R = Realistic T = Timely – allowing enough time for achievement

The SMART+ Goals Worksheet contains a series of prompts and spaces for answers to define goals and capture the steps toward achieving them.

We can summarize the five principles of goal setting (Passmore, 2021) as follows:

• Goals must be clear and not open to interpretation.
• Goals should be stretching yet achievable.
• Clients must buy in to the goal from the outset.
• Feedback is essential to keep the client on track.
• Goals should be relatively straightforward. We can break down complex ones into manageable subgoals.

The following insightful articles are also helpful for setting and working toward goals.

• What Is Goal Setting and How to Do it Well
• The Science & Psychology of Goal-Setting 101

1. People skills

Improving how we work with others benefits confidence, and with other’s support, we are more likely to achieve our objectives and goals. The following people skills can all be improved upon:

• Developing rapport
• Assertiveness and negotiation
• Giving and receiving constructive criticism

2. Managing tasks and problem-solving

Inevitably, we encounter challenges on our path to development and growth. Managing our activities and time and solving issues as they surface are paramount.

Here are a few guidelines to help you manage:

• Organize time and tasks effectively.
• Learn fundamental problem-solving strategies.
• Select and apply problem-solving strategies to tackle more complex tasks and challenges.
• Develop planning skills, including identifying priorities, setting achievable targets, and finding practical solutions.
• Acquire skills relevant to project management.
• Familiarize yourself with concepts such as performance indicators and benchmarking.
• Conduct self-audits to assess and enhance your personal competitiveness.

3. Cultivate confidence in your creative abilities

Confidence energizes our performance. Knowing we can perform creatively encourages us to develop novel solutions and be motivated to transform.

Consider the following:

• Understand the fundamentals of how the mind works to enhance your thinking skills.
• Explore a variety of activities to sharpen your creative thinking.
• Embrace the belief that creativity is not limited to artists and performers but is crucial for problem-solving and task completion.
• Learn to ignite the spark of creativity that helps generate innovative ideas when needed.
• Apply creative thinking techniques to enhance your problem-solving and task completion abilities.
• Recognize the role of creative thinking in finding the right ideas at the right time.

To aid you in building your confidence, we have a whole category of articles focused on Optimism and Mindset . Be sure to browse it for confidence-building inspiration.

With new techniques and technology, our understanding of the human brain continues to evolve. Identifying the vital elements involved in learning and connecting with others offers deep insights into how we function and develop as social beings. We handpicked a small but unique selection of books we believe you will enjoy.

1. The Coaching Manual: The Definitive Guide to the Process, Principles and Skills of Personal Coaching – Julie Starr

This insightful book explores and explains the coaching journey from start to finish.

Starr’s book offers a range of free resources and gives clear guidance to support new and existing coaches in providing practical help to their clients.

Find the book on Amazon .

2. The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level – Gay Hendricks

Delving into the “zone of genius” and the “zone of excellence,” Hendricks examines personal growth and our path to personal success.

This valuable book explores how we eliminate the barriers to reaching our goals that arise from false beliefs and fears.

3. The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are – Brené Brown

Brown, a leading expert on shame, vulnerability, and authenticity, examines how we can engage with the world from a place of worthiness.

Use this book to learn how to build courage and compassion and realize the behaviors, skills, and mindset that lead to personal development.

We have many resources available for fostering personal development and supporting client transformation and growth.

Our free resources include:

• Goal Planning and Achievement Tracker This is a valuable worksheet for capturing and reflecting on weekly goals while tracking emotions that surface.
• Adopt a Growth Mindset Successful change is often accompanied by replacing a fixed mindset with a growth one .
• FIRST Framework Questions Understanding a client’s developmental stage can help offer the most appropriate support for a career change.

More extensive versions of the following tools are available with a subscription to the Positive Psychology Toolkit© , but they are described briefly below:

• Backward Goal Planning

Setting goals can build confidence and the skills for ongoing personal development.

Backward goal planning helps focus on the end goal, prevent procrastination, and decrease stress by ensuring we have enough time to complete each task.

Try out the following four simple steps:

• Step one – Identify and visualize your end goal.
• Step two – Reflect on and capture the steps required to reach the goal.
• Step three – Focus on each step one by one.
• Step four – Take action and record progress.
• Boosting Motivation by Celebrating Micro Successes

Celebrating the small successes on our journey toward our goals is motivating and confidence building.

Practice the following:

• Step one – Reflect momentarily on the goal you are working toward.
• Step two – Consider each action being taken to reach that goal.
• Step three – Record the completion of each action as a success.
• Step four – Choose how to celebrate each success.

If you’re looking for more science-based ways to help others reach their goals, check out this collection of 17 validated motivation & goal achievement tools for practitioners. Use them to help others turn their dreams into reality by applying the latest science-based behavioral change techniques.

17 Tools To Increase Motivation and Goal Achievement

These 17 Motivation & Goal Achievement Exercises [PDF] contain all you need to help others set meaningful goals, increase self-drive, and experience greater accomplishment and life satisfaction.

Created by Experts. 100% Science-based.

Personal development has a rich and long history. It is underpinned by various psychological theories and remains a vital aspect of creating fulfilling lives inside and outside coaching and counseling.

For many of us, self-improvement, self-awareness, and personal growth are vital aspects of who we are. Coaching can provide a vehicle to help clients along their journey, supporting their sense of autonomy and confidence and highlighting their potential (Cox, 2018).

Working with clients, therefore, requires an open, honest, and supportive relationship. The coach or counselor must believe the client can achieve better results and view them nonjudgmentally as equal partners.

Personal development plans become essential to that relationship and the overall coaching process. They capture areas for development, skills and behaviors required, and goals and objectives to work toward.

Use this article to recognize theoretical elements from psychology that underpin the process and use the skills, guidance, and worksheets to support personal development in clients, helping them remove obstacles along the way.

Ultimately, personal development is a lifelong process that boosts wellbeing and flourishing and creates a richer, more engaging environment for the individual and those around them.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Goal Achievement Exercises for free .

Personal development is vital, as it enables individuals to enhance various aspects of their lives, including emotional wellbeing, relationships, careers, and overall happiness.

It promotes self-awareness, self-improvement, and personal growth, helping individuals reach their full potential and lead fulfilling lives (Passmore, 2021; Starr, 2021).

Personal development is the journey we take to improve ourselves through conscious habits and activities and focusing on the goals that are important to us.

Personal development goals are specific objectives individuals set to improve themselves and their lives. Goals can encompass various areas, such as emotional intelligence, skill development, health, and career advancement, providing direction and motivation for personal growth (Cox, 2018; Starr, 2021).

A personal development plan typically comprises defining the area of development, setting development objectives, identifying behaviors to develop, planning actions for progress, and establishing completion dates. These five stages help individuals clarify their goals and track their progress (Starr, 2021).

• Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory . Prentice-Hall.
• Beck, A. T., & Haigh, E. P. (2014). Advances in cognitive therapy and therapy: The generic cognitive model. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology , 10 , 1–24.
• Beck, J. S. (2011). Cognitive behavior therapy: Basics and beyond . Guilford Press.
• Cottrell, S. (2015). Skills for success: Personal development and employability . Bloomsbury Academic.
• Cox, E. (2018). The complete handbook of coaching . SAGE.
• Ellis, A. (2000). Can rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) be effectively used with people who have devout beliefs in God and religion? Professional Psychology-Research and Practice , 31 (1), 29–33.
• Erikson, E. H. (1963). Youth: Change and challenge . Basic Books.
• Illeris, K. (2018). An overview of the history of learning theory. European Journal of Education , 53 (1), 86–101.
• Lomas, T., Hefferon, K., & Ivtzan, I. (2014). Applied positive psychology: Integrated positive practice . SAGE.
• Maslow, A. H. (1970). Motivation and personalit y (2nd ed.). Harper & Row.
• Passmore, J. (Ed.). (2021). The coaches’ handbook: The complete practitioner guide for professional coaches . Routledge.
• Piaget, J. (1959): The Psychology of intelligence . Routledge.
• Rose, C. (2018). The personal development group: The students’ guide . Routledge.
• Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2018). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness . Guilford Press.
• Seligman, M. E. (2011). Authentic happiness using the new positive psychology to realize your potential for lasting fulfillment . Nicholas Brealey.
• Starr, J. (2021). The coaching manual: The definitive guide to the process, principles and skills of personal coaching . Harlow: Pearson Education.
• Whitmore, J. (2009). Coaching for performance . Nicholas Brealey.

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Personal planning templates for achieving your goals

Stay organized and get things done with these personal planning templates..

Free personal planning templates

As Benjamin Franklin once said, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Personal planning is essential if you want to set and accomplish your goals. Luckily, these personal planning templates can make setting goals easier than ever. Choose from personal development plan templates, daily schedules, personal 5-year plan templates, and more. Easily customize your personal plan template in Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel , depending on which template you choose, to make it your own and stay organized in whatever way works best for you. You can change the text, images, and other design elements, then once you’ve edited your personal planning template, download it to your computer and share it online, or print it out to keep at your desk, on your refrigerator, or wherever is most handy. If you want your loved ones to help you stay on track toward your goals, you can print out your template or email it to them. Explore more planner and tracker templates that help with getting things done.

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The ultimate personal development plan guide + free templates

Sophie Heatley, Content Writer

| 19 Sep 2018

| 8 min read

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This is where personal development comes in. Personal development is about stopping you from getting stuck in a rut. About getting you out of that comfort-is-cool mentality and helping you take the next steps in your career. 

Personal developing planning might seem tedious. It may make you think of those charts endorsed by supper nanny for naughty kids, but they’re more than worth your time. Don’t mock star stickers, they may just be the solution to your career stagnancy. 

Here are a few simple guidelines to help change the way you think about personal development and put you on the right path to achieving your career goals.  

What is a personal development plan? 

Personal and career development plans are projects that help you excel in your personal and professional life. PDPs are forward thinking projects which show you the what, where, how and when of personal growth. They highlight what your strengths and weaknesses are, where you need to improve, how to do so, and by when. 

There are some essentials that you need not miss if you want to successfully enhance your career and/or personal life. Here, you’ll find a few personal development plan ideas to help with your project. 

With a personal development plan, you can figure out the following:

• What your aims are.
• Why these aims are important to your values (in the short-term or long-term).
• What your current situation is.
• The skills, knowledge or competencies needed to take you to the next step.
• The activities or training you can partake in to meet those requirements.

How to structure your personal development project

Once you’ve got the gist of what you’re looking for, go into more depth. Why do you want this? And how will you achieve this?

Step one: What is your purpose? 

So, first off all, the numero uno aim is establishing the purpose of your personal development project.

In order for you to do this, you should identify your current professional situation in relation to your potential in your current field of work. 

What are your strong points? Are you good at creative problem-solving, computer programming, managing, collaborating? Which of these can you work on even more?

This can be sorted independently, or with the help of your manager, a friend, a colleague, or even a mentor. 

You can do this by writing a list of ten things that are important to you or ten goals that you want to achieve. For example:                                                      

Step two: Define what is important to you

Aside from figuring out your potential, you should also ask yourself what you are honestly interested in pursuing. Just because you have the potential to achieve something in your sector does not mean that you should take that path. Especially if it doesn’t actually appeal to you. 

Your purpose should be motivated by passion and professional or personal desire, not just pure obligation.

Your career potential should be analysed in relation to your own value system. For instance, the impact taking new career steps will have on your private life or any constraints and obstacles that may arise due to a change in responsibility. This could be an increase or decrease in liability or a change in the characteristics of your job role. 

After having identified what you wish to achieve, and if it aligns with your own values and career prospects, you have to figure out the development needs. 

Step three: What are your development needs? 

Here, you might want to start thinking about personal development plan procedures and who you want to involve in your personal career development planning.

Step three is where you should brainstorm all your personal development and career plan objectives and ideas, the potential business benefits of your personal development, and how you could go about achieving these objectives and ideas. 

Step four: Get your team involved! 

Personal development plan objectives don’t have to be kept a secret. In fact, it is highly recommended that you involve your manager in your personal development plan so that you can have someone support you.

Collective development plans can be just as motivational as personal development plans, especially if you share the same goals as your colleagues and managers. Managers also need to work on renewing their skills and updating their business know-how. 

Group development projects can be a wonderful team bonding exercise! They can evolve into grander, business development plans. With your dedication and motivation, the scope of any career development plan can impact the fate of your company. 

There is always room for improvement. Help one another! 

Writing a personal development plan can take time. But, don’t be put off by comprehensive planning! It can be a healthy (and necessary), stimulating challenge! 

Your plan, unlike your list of goals, should be practical. Once you have a solid understanding of what you aim to achieve, you must figure out how you will achieve it. What do you need to change or improve?

Nobody likes analysing their weaknesses, but this is a must if you want to transform them into strengths.

Step five: Time to make a plan of action! 

An action plan is not an inventory of dreams or goals. It is an extensive, realistic to-do list. Your action plan could cater for short-term results or long-term results, depending on your goals. For lengthier procedures and personal development plans, five year plans are also a popular choice, especially if you plan on remaining loyal to your current company. 

Fail to plan, plan to fail…

Make an action plan template. You can make a template using Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or good old pen and paper poster making. Whichever method you choose, creating a personal action plan template is essential if you truly want to take the next steps in your career. 

You have to take responsibility for your personal development project. You may have mentors and managers on your case, but only you have the power to make those improvements. 

There are a few things you should ask yourself when planning your personal development schedule. Steps three and five align here, as your brainstorm will help you to ask the right questions when forming your plan of action: 

1. Are you under-qualified? 

This is an educational question. Do you need to acquire new qualifications to open up new career avenues? Do you need to do an online course? Do you require an NVQ? 

2. Do you need extra training in your sector? 

This is a vocational question. Do you need extra training in your sector, regardless of qualifications, to achieve your objectives? 

3. Are there other occasions or opportunities for career enhancement?

This is a more general question about what you can do in your own time. 

Examples of such independent personal development plans include:  private reading, presentations, networking events, community events, group meetings, work shadowing, shift rotation (to see how other areas of your sector work, and thus broadening company awareness)

Having completed steps one to five, you should have started to formulate an accurate and achievable route to enhancing yourself and your career. 

Step six: Give yourself a realistic deadline

Finally, set yourself a deadline. Whilst your personal development project should be fulfilling, we all need a little bit of pressure to get us where we need to be. 

Give yourself a clear timeframe for each goal. To begin with, set mini goals to avoid distraction.

Let’s say you only have 30 minutes each day to do this. That’s more than enough! Developing new skills can take a minimum of 15 minutes daily practice . You just have to be consistent.

Keep it up! 

Block off a bit of time for your practice each day. This may just be reading a book on personal development at your desk  over lunch – you can count researching relevant books as part of your project - or doing an online course at home before dinner. 

Likewise, 30 minutes shadow work a day or listening to an audiobook during your commute to work could also be part of a successful, integrated programme. 

Whatever it may be, narrow down your search by selecting an area which interests you most to get the ball rolling. This will help you stay engaged during the primary stages of your project.

Influential leaders dedicate on average 30 minutes per day to personal development. How does your day compare to this infographic ? 

A personal development plan template  

Whilst the above may seem a bit wordy, your schedule doesn’t have to resemble a dissertation on personal enhancement. You can make quick and easy personal development plan templates. 

The following templates can be catered to individual goals, for work, or for managers working on a larger scale. They can be adapted to suit short and long-term projects too:

Read next: 360 degree feedback template + what you need to know

And here's a fuller checklist provided by the Chartered Management Institute .

Or, for five year plans , you may have a more in-depth graph…

To summarise, take note: 

• Figure out what is important to you.
• Decide what developments need to be made.
• Find out what opportunities are available to help you achieve this. E.g. training, coaching, courses, personal research etc. 
• Participate in these opportunities.
• Create a sound method of monitoring and maintaining your progress, and be aware of any obstacles that you may have to face – think ahead. 
• Evaluate and review your outcome. 
• Enjoy your personal development project. 

And then… Go from strength to strength! 

There aren’t really any negatives involved in putting together a personal development plan. Unless, that is, you don’t enjoy putting in a bit of extra effort. 

Personal development processes can be fulfilling and motivational. They’re a great way to monitor how new learning activities have improved your knowledge, skills and understanding. Tracking your progression can boost your confidence. 

Personal development plans can build self-esteem by illuminating all the areas in which you have improved and enhanced your skills. They can show you just how capable you are of taking the next steps in your career or personal life. 

Just like that old friend who always give you that little push, or a personal manifesto to remind you of what you stand for.

Look at it this way, personal development plans serve as loyal reminders. They help you to keep tabs on your progress, but more than anything, they enable you to create your own vision and establish goals that suit your life plan.

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How to Craft a Personal Development Plan that Inspires Meaningful, Long-Term Results

Overview : This in-depth guide provides a comprehensive 7-step roadmap to create a customized personal development plan template to help you actualize your true potential. It also provides a personal development plan template you can use (with examples).

______________

I leaped into the personal development world with a copy of Tony Robbins’ Personal Power program in the early 1990s.

If you’re old enough and living in the States, you know the one I’m talking about (late-night infomercials).

I was 18, and this audio program made a measurable difference in my outlook and behavior.

From that moment onward, I was hooked on personal development.

I jumped from seminar to seminar, book to book. Investing every possible moment I had, I covered a lot of ground in my first five years.

Reflecting over 30 years on my journey, I now see I was missing several vital ingredients essential for long-term, healthy development back then.

In this guide, I will share with you lessons learned and provide a roadmap for crafting a powerful Personal Development Plan. (Also, toward the bottom of the guide, you can download a personal development plan template and an example plan.)

Let’s dive in …

What is a Personal Development Plan?

A personal development plan is like a business plan for an individual. A personal development plan creates a roadmap for an individual’s growth in key categories of life and work.

There’s no set formula or template for creating a personal development plan.

Your plan can be a half-page, a full-page, or 20 pages long. It’s entirely up to you.

To clarify, “individual development plans” are generally more geared toward career development than a personal development plan (or “self-development plan”), but they all share common attributes.

The primary question a Personal Development Plan helps answer is:

Where am I going to place my available time and attention?

Personal Development Definitions

If you examine most people over a decade, you’ll observe little or no change in their development and behavior.

Development implies a permanent change in the structure of your being including your body, brain, or consciousness.

Just because you adopt a new habit , for example, doesn’t mean you have or will grow from it. If this new habit leads to internal growth over time , however, it will facilitate your development.

It’s all too easy to believe we’re developing when we’re not. I know I deceived myself for many years and there’s evidence of this throughout personal development communities.

Reading books in this genre, for example, doesn’t mean you’re developing. You might just be acquiring more ideas.

Personal development books can potentially provide a roadmap for development in certain areas, but real development comes through practice and repetition .

Our behavior and the development of skills, aptitudes, and desired tendencies are where we can observe signs of permanent change.

Personal Development Is Not Self Help

Self-help implies there’s something wrong with us.

The multi-billion-dollar self-help industry profits by subconsciously communicating these “deficiencies” to its unsuspecting audience.

Actual personal development is how humans realize more of their innate potential.

In an ideal environment, this process happens naturally .

Because this perfect environment doesn’t exist in society, the call for personal development is an individual’s choice. It’s up to each individual to say “yes” to their hero’s journey .

Why Personal Development Plans Are Important

When you don’t have a vision, a plan, or a goal, where does your attention go?

For most people, attention goes to entertainment and distraction. Sight, sound, and motion captivate our brains.

Television series, films, video games, social media, sports, and stock prices hook the primitive parts of our brains.

Even if you’re an overachiever who defines yourself by accomplishments and external status, your attention likely gets fixated on more work, higher productivity, and making more money. That’s fine, but this effort doesn’t necessarily support our personal development goals.

When entertainment, distraction, and workaholism consume our attention, something doesn’t feel right within us.

We may not identify it, but a deeper part of us isn’t fulfilled.

Focusing on Growth Needs

Psychologist Abraham Maslow noted that when individuals mainly focus on meeting their basic human needs like physiological needs, security, fitting in, and being liked and respected, they become neurotic.

Self-actualizing individuals, in contrast, are more focused on their growth needs.

Their motivation stems from an internal directive called intrinsic motivation instead of being driven by external forces. (All of our basic human needs are external.)

To have a full and meaningful life requires us to open to deeper aspects of ourselves.

A personal development plan can help us do just that.

But most people don’t know what’s available to them. I certainly wasn’t aware of the options when I started my journey.

Youthful enthusiasm and naivete guided those early years.

If you go to personal development seminars or read books in this genre, you may only think within the confines of the illustrations these resources provide.

7-Step Roadmap to Creating Your Personal Development Plan

Before we jump in, here’s a quick overview of the steps for creating your personal development plan:

Step 1: Discover the Human Potential Landscape Step 2: Envision Your Future Self Step 3: Select your Current Areas of Focus Step 4: Determine Your Key Practices Step 5: Establish Personal Development Goals Step 6: Set Your Schedule for Deliberate Practice Step 7: Monitor Your Ongoing Progress

Step 1 is what’s missing from many people’s approach to personal development.

So we’ll start our journey with a larger vision for our human potential.

Note : Toward the bottom of this guide, you can download a personal development plan template based on this roadmap.

STEP 1: Discover the Personal Development Landscape

One thing I was missing from my personal development journey was a roadmap of the terrain. How can you navigate through your development without a map?

Every good explorer has one. Such a map shines a much-needed light on the diverse areas of our potential.

A reliable map of human potential wasn’t readily available in the early 90s.

The fields of transpersonal psychology, developmental psychology, integral theory, and neuroscience, however, were converging on one.

Theorist Ken Wilber played a major role in synthesizing many fields of research into a cohesive whole.

Personal Development Categories

In my experience, I’ve found it helps to take an integrated approach to your personal development plan.

That is, know your menu of options so you can select from multiple areas that interest you.

To create a map for our development, we need to know the categories available to us. These categories include:

• Lines of Intelligence (also called Streams of Development)

Skill Development

Major life categories, behavioral change, personality development.

Let’s look at each of these categories in more detail.

Available Lines of Intelligence

While we used to associate “intelligence” with IQ; we now know there are many forms of intelligence.

One popular model comes from the pioneering work of Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner and his Multiple Intelligence theory. 1 Gardner, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences , 2011.

In Gardner’s model, there are now nine lines of intelligence:

Logical-mathematical intelligence : logic, abstractions, reasoning, numbers, and critical thinking. This intelligence is associated with IQ and intellectual aptitude. This line is also referred to as cognitive intelligence as explored in Jean Piaget’s research.

Linguistic intelligence : words, languages, reading, writing, telling stories, and memorizing words.

Intrapersonal intelligence : to know oneself including one’s strengths and weaknesses, emotional triggers, and motivations. One’s ability to be introspective and self-reflective. Psychologist Daniel Goleman popularized this as  Emotional Intelligence .

Kinesthetic intelligence : one’s ability to control one’s body and one’s skill in using it. Also called body intelligence or body-mind connection.

Musical intelligence :  sensitivity to sounds, pitch, rhythms, tones, meter, melody, etc.

Visual-spatial intelligence : spatial judgment and the ability to visualize and imagine with the mind’s eye.

Interpersonal intelligence : sensitivity to others’ moods, feelings, temperaments, motivations, and their ability to cooperate with others. Goleman popularized this as  Social Intelligence .

Naturalistic intelligence : sensitivity to one’s environment; the ability to recognize flora and fauna; nurturing and relating to one’s natural surroundings.

Existential intelligence : sometimes called spiritual intelligence; relates to one’s understanding of oneself concerning reality or the cosmos.

Integral Theory’s “AQAL” Model of Human Development

Additional Perspectives from Developmental Research

Other developmental researchers have studied the stages of growth in morals, values, worldviews, emotions, contemplation, spirituality, needs, and psycho-sexual development.

Do you see the diverse range of our potential?

In  Integral Life Practice , Ken Wilber, et al. group these “streams of development” into four categories:

• Cognitive development
• Self-related intelligence (including basic human needs , morals, values, and self-identity)
• Talent lines of development (including musical, visual-spatial, mathematical, and kinesthetic)
• Everything else (including spiritual, aesthetic, emotional, psychosexual, and interpersonal)

We each have a different base level of development in each line of intelligence and an innate potential we can realize through deliberate practice.

Our environment often thwarts this potential in early childhood. As adults, our responsibility is to resume this upward march. A personal development plan can help us with that!

Skill development is a broad category that includes areas where you show interest and/or ability. You can develop skills for personal or professional reasons.

There are skills in problem-solving , communication , collaborating, drawing, computer programming, bookkeeping, writing, analyzing, martial arts, persuading, musical instruments, negotiating, learning , presenting, goal setting, listening, managing, planning, reasoning, and predicting, to name only a few.

All skills are associated with at least one line of intelligence listed above. With sufficient interest, practice, and the right methods, individuals can develop any skill.

One way to get more clarity on your natural skills is to take the free VIA Character Strength survey . Your natural strengths often translate to specific skills.

The Wheel of Life Exercise

In your pursuit of personal development, you may have come across the Wheel of Life .

The Wheel of Life is a standard tool that coaches use to illustrate the various categories of one’s life, measure an individual’s status in each area, and set goals to improve in those areas.

Your wheel might include physical health, relationships, social, finances , professional, personal growth, spirituality , creativity , and fun.

The message behind the Wheel of Life is that development occurs through conscious effort and being intentional about how you grow within these key categories.

Who doesn’t have behaviors they would like to change?

We all have set patterns of behavior that get entrenched by unconscious repetition.

Making positive changes to these habits requires repatterning the brain.

For lasting change to occur, we repeat the new habit or behavior over time under various conditions.

The time necessary to install a new habit varies; research suggests it takes 66 days on average. 2 https://www.spring.org.uk/2009/09/how-long-to-form-a-habit.php I’ve found that it’s usually much less.

Why do many personal development programs fail to produce long-term results? Because these programs are “one size fits all.”

Research shows there is a range of psychological types. In the Enneagram system, there are nine primary types and nine levels of development within each one.

Each type has varying propensities, habitual patterns, strengths, weaknesses, fears, and potentials.

If you want to create an effective Personal Development Plan, be sure you’re aware of your psychological type. Each type has a different pathway to higher development.

As a business coach to high-performing entrepreneurs for over 25 years, I went through and used most (if not all) personality tests on the market, including popular ones like Myers-Briggs (MBTI), Human Design Engineering (HDe), and DISC.

In my opinion, the Enneagram is the most efficacious, robust, and useful. (MBTI and HDE are insightful too.)

You can take a free Enneagram test here . You can find scientifically validated paid tests online as well.

After you get your results, read more about your type and see if it resonates. Then, look for ways to develop your type. (On the Enneagram Institute website, they offer “Personal Growth Recommendations” for each type.)

STEP 2: Envision Your Future Self

Consider what the above information means about our potential: Developing any line of intelligence gives us greater sensitivity to the world around us.

We can now process information in new and deeper ways. Every time we grow in a line of intelligence, we perceive the world differently.

We are more aware than before. We have greater sensitivity to the world around us. Our possibilities are remarkable to ponder.

Nietzsche believed it was our destiny to be Ubermensch or Superman. An Ubermensch is an integrated or whole human being accessing his full potential.

Numerous researchers in developmental psychology have come to a similar conclusion, calling the final stage of development “Integrated.”

Maslow called this stage of development self-actualization and later, self-transcendence .

Cast Your Vision

Now, in Step 2, it’s time to create your vision for your future self .

Your vision (and personal development goals) will inspire you if it is true to who you are.

Sometimes we create a vision based on what we  should want or what we hope will gain approval from others—our parents, significant others, colleagues, or friends). Such a vision will lack inspiration and will feel meaningless to us.

Don’t worry about creating a “perfect” vision or the “right” vision. Just craft a sentence or two that inspires you right now.

STEP 3: Select Your Current Areas of Focus

In Step 1, you see a diverse range of options available. Learning about these options can be exciting, but it can also be overwhelming. If you nailed your vision in Step 2, you have more clarity.

Now, depending on your level of clarity, Step 3 can either be the easiest or the most difficult part of this process.

Even when you have a compelling vision for your future self, selecting areas of development to focus on can challenge us because we have limited time and countless options.

We can’t do it all. Creating an aggressive or complicated personal development plan with many goals backfires over time. I can attest to this from personal experience.

An aggressive plan will create additional internal resistance that undermines your efforts.

Over-planning sets you up for failure and discouragement. Eventually, you will burn out (lose motivation) and abandon your plan.

Be Mindful of Your Available Time

We’ll discuss scheduling in Step 6, but consider how much time you have available to invest in your development.

Let’s say you only have 30 minutes a day.

Is it reasonable to expect to make significant changes in six areas of your life within three months?

Developing new skills, for example, may take a minimum of 15 minutes of daily practice.

To set yourself up for success, I recommend picking up to three areas to focus on within the next 90 days.

Where Should You Start?

Select the areas that interest you the most. You’ll learn faster in these areas and have an easier time staying engaged with your practice.

So the question is: What’s most important to you right now ?

What are the areas you are most interested in developing now ?

To help answer these questions, it helps to know what you most value .

Narrow Down Your Search

Be aware of the tendency to overthink the selection process.

Better to dive into something for a month or two and then determine it’s not for you than to analyze your options. Analysis, as the saying goes, often leads to paralysis.

If you’re still having trouble deciding, go with the classic categories of Body, Mind, and Spirit.

• Body : pick an area that interests you like strength training, stamina, aerobics, or functional training.
• Mind : select one to three topics you want to explore. Read relevant books for each one.
• Spirit : consider focusing on gratitude, acceptance, kindness, compassion, meditation, or service to others.

I also recommend you include shadow work as part of an integrated program.

Include Important Lines of Development

While everyone is different and will create their plan to suit their needs, there are certain areas I believe to be foundational (for at least most people).

Cognitive Intelligence

Research shows that cognition is “necessary but insufficient” for other lines of development. For example, just because you have well-developed cognition doesn’t mean you’ll have moral intelligence.

One way to improve your cognition is to read books that challenge your understanding.

Emotional Intelligence (EI)

EI is, arguably, as important as cognitive development. EI relates to your physical and mental health, the quality of your relationships, and your leadership abilities (including self-leadership ).

One way to grow your emotional awareness is through meditation training . In the context of your personal development plan, meditation is a skill-building exercise. You are developing the skill of attention .

Intrapersonal Intelligence

Your level of self-awareness and knowledge of yourself influences your behaviors, moral development, and psychological development.

The Enneagram system can support the development of intrapersonal intelligence. Another way is to practice self-reflection and journaling.

See this in-depth guide on developing intrapersonal intelligence .

Kinesthetic Intelligence

Your awareness of your body defines the degree of your connection to your instinctive self. The more connected you are, the more mental balance you experience (and vice versa).

You can develop your body intelligence through practices like Yoga and Qigong as well as dancing and functional training. You can also use centering exercises , grounding techniques , and Zhan Zhuang  to increase body awareness.

Of course, there are other important aspects of your development. I singled out these four because they influence so much of our behaviors and decisions. Also, many of us are unaware of the profound role they play in our life experiences.

Pushing Beyond Professional Development

One thing I’ve observed in working with high-performing individuals is they tend to focus only on professional goals.

Many of us want to profit from our self-development plan. I’m not suggesting there’s anything wrong with that. Developing your abilities and talents should make you more marketable and of greater value to others.

However, watch the tendency to invest exclusively in this area, denying other aspects of yourself that are still important to a deeper part of you.

If you create a diverse personal development plan, you’ll increase your chances of actualizing your plan. You’ll also find it to be a more rewarding experience.

STEP 4: Determine Your Key Practices

Excellent books like Daniel Coyle’s The Talent Code and Anders Ericsson’s Peak: The New Science of Expertise  show that talent isn’t born but cultivated through deliberate practice .

Once you have selected the areas of your Personal Development Plan, the next step is to determine your practices.

These practices are the actions you are committing to doing consistently to develop in your particular areas of interest.

Examples of Practices

For example, if you want to improve your writing, write at least 1,000 words every day and edit what you write ruthlessly .

Want to learn to play the guitar? Pick up your guitar for at least 15 minutes every evening.

Want to increase your strength? Determine your training routine and follow through three or four days per week.

You may not know what practices to follow in the beginning. At first, you’ll research different topics through books, videos, and articles.

This exploration will help you to pick your practices. You may also consider hiring a coach or trainer to help you establish your practices.

STEP 5: Establish Personal Development Goals

Another common mistake people make with their personal development plan is to set BIG goals.

Big goals are useful for businesses but suboptimal for your self-development plan.

A big goal might be to master a particular instrument within 12 months. Such a goal will go unrealized.

As Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War , “Every battle is won before it’s ever fought.”

To win the battle for your development in the war of distraction, set mini-goals instead.

Mini goals help you build momentum because they’re more readily achievable than big goals.

Yes, have a big vision . But only set mini personal development goals that are fun, engaging, and manageable.

Examples of Mini-Goals

Instead of mastering an instrument, for example, perhaps you establish a mini-goal like learning how to read sheet music or comfortably playing your favorite song.

If you’re just starting with strength training and you can only do ten consecutive push-ups, perhaps you set a goal of 30 push-ups.

If you want to improve as a public speaker, maybe you set a mini-goal to speak in front of a crowd at least once a week.

If you’re getting into meditation, and you can’t sit comfortably for more than a few minutes, maybe you commit to sitting for just 2 minutes once or twice a day for the next 21 days.

These types of personal development goals will inspire your practice and help you build positive momentum.

STEP 6: Set Your Schedule for Deliberate Practice

Once you know your practices, ensure you block off sufficient time for making progress.

Many people struggle with scheduling for two primary reasons:

• They underestimate how long things take. They get too ambitious with their expectations.
• They don’t honor their calendar unless it involves other people. Time scheduled for ourselves is the first thing to get bumped.

Watch out for both of these common patterns. If you don’t honor your time, I can assure you, no one else will.

Ground Your Plan to Reality

So first ask, How much time can I reasonably commit to my personal development plan?

The question isn’t what you should do; it’s what you think is reasonable and practical in the course of your busy life.

This infographic from Inc. illustrates how 500 chief-level executives spend their day. The average business leader invests 30 minutes a day in personal development—right before bed.

For most people, the two easiest periods to carve out time for your personal development plan are early morning and late evening.

Both of these times share the same two qualities:

• There are fewer distractions and
• You don’t have to interrupt your work/life flow to jump into your practices.

The key is to find times when you can be consistent and then establish a daily rhythm with your practice.

This way you don’t have to make a daily decision of whether or not to practice. You just practice!

Just 10 to 15 minutes is sufficient when you have a busy schedule. On the weekends, you can carve out additional time.

STEP 7: Monitor Your Ongoing Progress

Feedback facilitates the learning process. Athletes and musicians excel when they have experienced coaches to provide the right practices and effective feedback .

In Daniel Coyle’s examination of exceptional talent, he found that having a masterful coach was one of the common denominators for producing talent. 3 Daniel Coyle, The Talent Code , 2009.

Be Aware of Your Overall Mindset

One reason many people fail to develop is because they have a fixed mindset . Individuals with a fixed mindset are more driven to avoid looking foolish than by the desire to learn. They evade any constructive or critical feedback from others.

In contrast, someone on the path to self-mastery accepts failure and mistakes as part of the learning process.

In The Art of Learning , chess master and tai chi champion Josh Waitzkin explains how he became a tai chi champion by challenging superior opponents.

Instead of sparring with opponents of equal or lesser ability, he sought more skilled martial artists. He was often defeated, but he learned quickly.

The Important Role of Attention

Other than outside feedback, the other key to monitoring your progress is to increase your awareness as you practice.

The goal is to become fully present-minded with your practice. (To assist in this process, try using something like The Mastery Method to increase your mental alertness and self-awareness.)

When you bring more awareness to your practice, you ignite an internal feedback loop that facilitates faster learning.

How to Develop Awareness

One way to develop greater awareness is through mind training.

Breathing techniques and meditation help develop parts of the brain (prefrontal cortex region) associated with awareness.

It’s also important to enter a centered state before you practice. It only takes a minute or two, and it will speed up your results.

Do Periodic Check-Ins

Finally, check in with your personal development plan often.

Scan it weekly and revisit it each month to see if there are any adjustments you want to make.

Are you making progress toward your personal development goals? If not, why not?

Evaluate and make course corrections as needed.

Your Personal Development Plan Template (Fillable)

To help you create your plan, I’ve designed a personal development plan template based on the roadmap and principles outlined above. The template is fillable.

Your free kit includes:

• Print-ready PDF of this guide
• Fillable personal development plan template
• Personal development plan example that’s already filled in

Download your free personal development plan kit below.

Note: After you enter your email, you’ll be redirected back here. Links to your free assessment templates will be right here.

Build Your Own Personal Development Plan Template

If you would prefer to create your own template, it’s easy to do. Just include the following elements we just discussed:

• Personal vision (the results from Step 2)
• Areas of focus (the categories selected in Step 3)
• Skills (you’re in the process of developing)
• Practices (you’re using to develop your skills and lines of intelligence from Step 4)
• Mini goals (associated with your skills from Step 5)

All of this information can fit on a single-page template. It will take effort to set up your plan, but once you do, it requires little energy to maintain and update.

Ready? It’s time to create your own Personal Development Plan.

Make Your Personal Development Plan Clear and Practical

It’s important to keep your personal development plan as simple and concise as possible.

The more complicated and robust your plan becomes, the less likely you are to follow through.

For years, I kept my plan on my desk. A 10-second glance at the document was often all I needed.

I used to help my clients create elaborate results plans that often grew into large report-sized documents. We found they were less functional the bigger they became. Eventually, we reduced these plans down to a single page.

Keep your plan to a single page if possible. A one-page personal development plan makes it easy for you to check in often.

Books Related to Personal Development Plan Roadmaps

First, here are a few excellent personal development books cited in this guide:

Mastery by George Leonard

The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle

The Little Book of Talent  by Daniel Coyle

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck

From my experience, the most neglected step in creating a Personal Development Plan is understanding the terrain of human potential—what I attempted to summarize in Step 1.

Here are a series of books that opened my mind to greater possibilities years ago.

Integral Life Practice  by Ken Wilber, et al.

3 Vital Stages of Self-Discovery (and Activities for Each Stage)

A Practical Guide to Joseph Campbell and the Hero’s Journey

How to Change Your Mindset from Fixed to Growth

How to Transmute Sexual Energy: An Inner Alchemy Guide

About the Author

Scott Jeffrey is the founder of CEOsage, a self-leadership resource publishing in-depth guides read by millions of self-actualizing individuals. He writes about self-development, practical psychology, Eastern philosophy, and integrated practices. For 25 years, Scott was a business coach to high-performing entrepreneurs, CEOs, and best-selling authors. He's the author of four books including Creativity Revealed .

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A Personal Development Plan (PDP) Guide & Template

What is a personal development plan.

Personal development is an ongoing process that drives you to improve your knowledge, skills and experience, so that you can achieve your goals. A personal development plan (or PDP) is a method of focussing your goals into achievable steps, which helps you keep track of your personal development.

Download Free PDP Example/Template

Why Should I Create a Personal Development Plan?

Your plan may be aimed at your education, career or personal goal, or a mixture of all three – that is up to you to determine. Whatever the case may be, a good plan will provide you with a clear sense of focus. It helps you map out a path towards your goals, strategise a plan to achieve them, record the actionable steps you will take, and set a timeframe for completing them. Focussing your goals into a PDP helps you maintain your vision, keep on track to achieve your targets, and reflect on your progress.

Simply put, a PDP can help you build a clear understanding of what you want to achieve and how you are going to achieve it.

Interested in Learning More?

Let us help with your personal development goals this year. Choose from a wide range of  business essentials courses , whether it be  Leadership and Management ,  Starting a Business , or  Coaching and Mentoring . You could have your CPD recognised certificate in a matter of hours!

A clear plan can also support your positive mental wellbeing and improve your level of satisfaction. It can provide a sense of direction, purposefulness and a feeling of success as you start to fulfil your potential. All of these can have very positive impacts on your mental health. 

Therefore, discovering what your goals are, getting organised and giving yourself a sense of direction can be incredibly beneficial. This article will give you an understanding of how to write a personal development plan, as well as provide you with a handy template to support your development journey.

How to Write a Personal Development Plan

There are seven steps to writing a PDP:

• Set yourself goals.
• Prioritise those goals.
• Set yourself deadlines for when you want to achieve them.
• Recognise threats and opportunities.
• Develop your skills or increase your knowledge.
• Use your support network.
• Measure your progress.

1. Set Yourself Goals

The first step is to set yourself goals . Think about what you want to achieve, whether that’s within a few weeks, within a year, or over your lifetime.

Deciding what you want is not only the first step in planning, it’s also the hardest. Once you’ve figured out what you want to do, that goal will provide clear direction and a structure for your resulting plan.

At this stage, your goals will feel big. You might be wondering how you are ever going to achieve them. Don’t worry – the next step is to prioritise and turn those goals into smaller, actionable steps that will support you on your way to achieving them.

2. Prioritising Your Goals

Now that you have your goals, the next stage is to break them down into smaller steps. When doing this, it’s important that your goals are SMART:

• Specific. Avoid large, ambiguous steps. These won’t support you on your way to achieving your goals. Insted, make sure that your goals are specific and clearly highlight the skill, knowledge or experience you want to develop.
• Measureable. You need to be able to monitor and reflect on your progress. Therefore, your goals need to be measurable, such as by setting a goal to develop your SEO knowledge with a measurable target of growing your website traffic by a set, defined percentage.
• Attainable. Your goals need to be achievable and realistic. You need to think about if it is something you can realistically achieve with the time and resources you have. If not, you will likely be setting yourself up for failure. 
• Relevant. It’s important to keep your overall goal in mind and make sure that every step you take is supporting you to achieve it. You don’t want to be spending time doing things that don’t get you where you want to go.
• Time-bound. Set yourself key targets to achieve and deadlines in which to achieve them. This will help you stay focussed on achieving your goals. However, it’s important to make sure you are realistic in what you can achieve in any given period. Don’t try to achieve everything all at once. It’s unrealistic and you won’t be setting yourself up well to achieve them. Remember that personal development is a journey – your PD plan can continue to grow and develop as you take those steps towards your goals.

Once you have your goals, you’ll need to prioritise them. 

In your PDP, you should be setting yourself mini goals to make the big ones happen.

For example, if you wish to pursue a career in academia as a senior lecturer and then a professor, a necessary step to succeeding in this goal is to achieve a PhD. So that would be one of your long-term goals. You then need to break it down into steps, such as:

• Learn about the PhD application process.
• Find a suitable university and supervisor for a PhD.
• Look at routes for funding.
• Find studentships to apply for or apply to your university of choice.
• Write and submit your PhD application.

3. Set Yourself Deadlines

Knowing when you want to achieve a goal is crucial, and picturing your future is an important source of motivation and inspiration.

Having goals and a set deadline will drive your motivation to achieve them. For example, if your goal is to buy a home, knowing when you want to achieve it will help you calculate exactly how much money you need to save each year in order to get your deposit. The same is true for your skills, knowledge and experience development. As mentioned above, setting realistic and time-bound goals are essential to achieving them. 

One good way to understand more about achieving your goals is to speak to those who have previously trodden a similar path. Learning about  their experiences can help you understand key barriers to, or methods of, success that may also be applicable to your PDP.

4. Recognise Threats and Opportunities

When considering your goals, you should identify your own strengths, consider areas of weakness you can develop, look at the opportunities available to support you in achieving your goals, and any threats that may hinder you in your progress. This is called a SWOT analysis. Note that these threats may be external or they may be core skills that you can develop as part of your PDP.

For example, a lack of motivation could hinder your plans to apply for a PhD. However, once you’ve identified your tendency to procrastinate or lose focus, you can put in place methods that will keep you motivated.

There are also going to be things that you could do, and connections with people or resources you could take advantage of, that will help you on your way. These are your opportunities that you should commit to doing.

For example, if there’s a conference coming up, take advantage of that. Go along and network, stay up to date on the latest knowledge, or even present a paper. These are all opportunities that could help you achieve your goals.

5. Develop Yourself

Once you have an idea of what could help or hinder you, this is when you can capitalise on those opportunities you recognised. Make an action plan about how you’ll make that progress.

Whatever it is that hinders you, there’s a way to stop it. Your plan is the first step to making sure you stay on track. 

So, why not take a look at how to upskill yourself , develop transferable skills in today’s rapidly changing jobs market, or even discover an online learning opportunity .

6. Use Your Support Network

The next thing you need to realise is that:

You don’t have to do everything by yourself.

And you shouldn’t. The support network around you is a valuable asset, so use it and don’t underestimate it.

In your PDP, list the people who can help you. This could be a financial advisor, a friend, or a colleague. People are often so happy to help you, more than you might realise.

7. Measure Progress

After you’ve achieved some progress, whether it’s big or small, take time to reflect on how far you’ve come.

Recognising what has gone well is an effective way to bolster your motivation and remain dedicated.

And after a setback, this is another time to take stock.

Wallowing – briefly – is a good way to feel what you need to without holding on to it. Holding onto sadness, anger or frustration, however, will only deter you. These emotions will take you nowhere and will only hinder you.

You should also spend a little time figuring out why it went wrong. Can you identify a skills or knowledge gap? 

 If you can, then you can get yourself back on track by focussing on your next step. This will reignite your sense of purpose and help you regain control, which is integral to making progress.

Continue to reflect on your progress. You can gain significant insight from your reflections and this can help you grow. Remember that you should update your plan where necessary. Don’t overload it at any one time but, once you have achieved your small steps, reflect and then update your plan to focus on your next move.

Free Personal Development Plan Example & Template

In this article, we have discussed how you can create your own personal development plan, so you should now feel ready to start considering your goals and developing your own plan. To help you produce an effective personal development plan, we have created an editable template that you can use. Take a look at our example PDP, and download your free template below:

Further Resources:

• How to Upskill Yourself
• What are Personal Development Goals for Work?
• Using Key Phrases in Performance Reviews & Appraisals
• Resilience Quiz
• Resilience in the Workplace: What are the Benefits and How Can Businesses Develop It?
• How to Stand Out in a Virtual Interview: Preparation Tips
• What is CPD? A Guide to Continuing Professional Development
• Writing A Professional Development Plan – Example & Template
• Business Essentials Courses

Post Author

Her favourite article is Five Top Learning and Development Trends for 2020

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The Ultimate Personal Development Plan Template That Will Get You Noticed

• What is a personal development plan?
• How to use a personal development plan
• How to make a good personal development plan
• Personal Development Plan Template
• What are personal development goals?
• Best practices for setting personal development goals
• Examples of most common personal development goals
• Personal development goals for work examples
• Common mistakes to watch out

Employees look for training and personal development opportunities at their respective companies. The lack of these opportunities is one of the main reasons they decide to quit. HR professionals and team leaders can avoid this using a personal development plan template to help employees reach their personal development goals. In such a case, it would be a win-win situation for both the company and the people working there. 

A proper template ensures you help individual employees work on their weaknesses and build up their strengths. This is a direct way to set personal development goals and find the shortest way to reach them.

According to a survey , 94% of respondents said they would stay at the company longer if it invested in their careers. In addition, professional and personal growth leads to higher retention. Besides, 58% of employees claim that professional development contributes to their job satisfaction. Moreover, employees who feel respected, empowered, and as if they are making a difference are much more likely to stay in a company—those who don’t have less than a 35% chance of staying. 

A proper template ensures you help individual employees work on their weaknesses and build up their strengths. This is a direct way to set personal development goals and find the shortest way to reach them. It enriches their experience at work and has a positive impact on their career. 

On top of that, it also attracts new hires to your company. Almost 60% of millennials list development opportunities as key factors in applying for a job. As this is the case, it’s high time you work on your employees’ personal development.

Let’s take a closer look at a personal development plan and see how it correlates with personal development goals to tap into each employee’s power. Keeping that in mind, we should start with a personal development plan and later proceed to personal development goals for everything to make perfect sense. 

A personal development plan (PDP) is an agreement between an employer and employee that outlines that team member’s objectives. It wants to empower employees to analyze their professional life and work on self-improvement. Employees can easily achieve goals when they have a clear picture of their performance. They understand what it takes to reach a specific milestone because of their personal development plan.

HR professionals and managers usually help employees create a personal growth plan. However, team members don’t need to wait for their next performance review to learn new skills and identify areas that require improvement. They can make a personal development plan themselves. Employees can establish short-term or long-term goals and set realistic deadlines to fulfill them.

Having a personal development plan template helps all parties. You can just fill in the required fields and create a clear plan for an individual’s development. Add an HR management tool to that equation, and you’re set to take your workplace to the next level.

  Related: Top 12 Performance Review Software in 2023 ‍

Remember that a PDP must be tailored-made for a specific employee. You can’t take someone else’s plan and expect it to work for them. Each person has different skills and experiences. The plan reflects that.

Why is it important?

 Personal development is all about a process of self-improvement. The plan helps employees:

• Outline specific goals and what they should do to achieve them
• Identify the strengths that ensure they grow in their personal and professional life
• Recognize what skills they need to overcome their existing weaknesses ‍

It is essentially a roadmap that guides them through the process of achieving goals. ‍

What kind of benefits can you expect from a personal development plan? Here are the improvements you will see with a good PDP in place:

• Boosts employee motivation – a personal development plan makes employees aware of their strengths and weaknesses. They can use their strengths to work more productively and learn how to minimize their weaknesses. This boosts their motivation and encourages them to do more. 
• Minimize staff turnover – it can cost more to find a new hire than it does to retain an existing employee. You should give your employees a personal development plan template to show them you’re committed to their improvement. They are more likely to stay at the company if they have a plan.
• Advances existing skills – employees create a career plan focusing on their development. They identify performance development areas so that they can grow in the workplace. While improving existing skills, they also acquire new ones to achieve career goals.
• Improves goal-setting – a PDP outlines both long-term and short-term goals. Managers can teach employees how to break down those goals to make them more achievable.

A PDP benefits both the company and the employee. Introducing personal development plan templates makes the process easier for managers and HR professionals. ‍

Let’s see how you can use a PDP.

According to research , 74% of surveyed employees think they don’t progress at work due to a lack of development opportunities. You can help them reach their full potential with a personal development plan.

A PDP is an effective way to learn a new skill or master a particular one. Employees can also use it to boost their careers. They just need help from their managers or HR team members. ‍

If you’re a team lead or an HR professional, you can use a personal development plan to:

• Conduct a skill-gap analysis – a PDP helps you understand which skills your employees lack. The company’s subsequent training efforts should strive to fill the gap.
• Identify employees who want to grow – this plan also identifies team members who want a promotion. For example, let’s say your company is looking for a Project Manager. Instead of hiring someone outside the company, you can promote one of your employees.
• Align employee goals with business goals – one-on-one meetings reveal individual goals. When you know a team member’s career growth plans, you can align them with business goals and help them grow. ‍

Related: 5 Meeting Agenda Templates to Use Right Away ‍

Remember, most employees crave professional development opportunities. If you disregard their development needs, you’ll have a team of dissatisfied members. How can a company grow when the employees aren’t happy?

You should go through several steps to create an effective personal development plan. We’ll list those steps below.

• Ask employees to perform a self-assessment

It all starts with us. We can’t grow or improve if we don’t reflect on ourselves. That’s why your employees must do a self-evaluation first. After all, they know their interests, professional life goals, skills, and knowledge best.

You can ask them the following questions to fuel their path to self-improvement:

• How satisfied are you with your work progress?
• Is there something you can do to reach your full potential?
• What are your career goals? Do you have the skills to achieve them?

Employees can reflect on their performance and determine what they can do to develop personally and professionally. ‍

Get started with templates and save time

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• Set clear goals

Every employee should know what they want to achieve in their career. If they don’t, you can help them set and achieve goals. These objectives should reflect their strengths and personal development plans.

When creating a PDP for your company, we suggest you focus on SMART goals. They are:

• Specific – the goal should be precise and to the point. There’s no room for ambiguity. For instance, instead of saying, “I’m going to write an article this week,” your employee should say, “I’m going to write a 2,000-word B2B article.”
• Measurable – there should be criteria that measure progress. You can agree on how you will assess whether they’ve achieved the goal.
• Achievable – ensure your employees don’t set unattainable objectives. They should know if their skills and resources make it possible to achieve a goal.
• Realistic – your employee should be willing to work towards achieving an objective. This depends on their skills, so they should evaluate them before agreeing to something.
• Time-bound – encourage them to set a realistic deadline to meet their duties.

Setting these goals helps employees split their objectives into smaller, more manageable milestones. They complete a goal one step at a time which derives great pleasure and satisfaction. 

Related: The Best Performance Improvement Plan (+Template)

• Determine which strategies to implement

After setting the goals, it’s time to consider how employees will achieve them. The strategies vary depending on the objective. For example, if an employee wants to work their way up the career ladder, they might want to attend an online course that helps them expand their knowledge. They should consider the skill set they need and the best way to build those skills.

• Explore resources

Employees cannot achieve professional and personal growth without any further resources. It’s impossible to learn something new if you don’t have some help along the way. You can help employees determine which resources they need. Those resources include online courses, learning platforms, interactive flipbooks , conferences, niche-specific articles, webinars, and even training. Look at their personal development plan to figure out what can benefit them.

If you follow the above steps, you can make a good personal development plan for your employees. One thing that can help you—having a personal development plan template.

As your company grows, you’ll have to focus on more and more employees. Each of those employees requires their own plan. Not to mention, you must follow their career development and growth after the goal-setting process. What can you do to make the process more manageable? You can use a personal development plan template. PDP in HR is a popular way to track personal and professional development progress and make adjustments along the way.

Using a template for personal development needs is quicker and more efficient. Imagine if you need to create personal development plans for every employee. This would be time-consuming. Don’t make this mistake—use personal development plan templates. These PDP templates help you create a clear picture of your employee’s goals and the steps they should take to reach them.

You won’t need to worry about missing important information that can affect your employees' personal development. We have prepared a personal development plan template to jumpstart your team members’ success! The PDP template is concise and identifies areas your employees need to answer to achieve success. 

You can use the following personal development plan template to help your company grow with talented individuals.

Personal development plan template ‍

Employee name: _________________

Position and title: _________________

Date: _________________

Development area: _________________

Personal development goals: _________________

Top strengths: _________________

Areas to improve: _________________

Development opportunities: _________________

Action plan: _________________

Skills and knowledge needed for personal growth: _________________

Necessary resources: _________________

Evaluation period (how often will you check the progress): _________________

Deadline: _________________

Review (How am I doing): _________________

Personal development plans are the way best to get to know your employees and see how your company can influence their success and growth.

Here is a filled-in PDP sample you can use as an example of what a completed personal development plan template should look like:

Employee name: John Doe

Position and title: Social Media Manager

Date: July 30 2022

Development area: Time management

Personal development goals: Organize my time better to help my team members and learn how to prioritize tasks

Top strengths: Social media planning and delivery, communication skills, writing engaging content

Areas to improve: Time management and organizational skills

Development opportunities: Become a team leader of the company’s social media department

Action plan: Use to-do lists to better organize my day, track each task’s progress, report my progress to a supervisor

Skills and knowledge needed for personal growth: Time management and leadership skills

Necessary resources: Online courses about social media marketing, tools to better track the performance of social media posts and analyze our audience

Evaluation period (how often will you check the progress): Every month

Deadline: Three months from today

Review (How am I doing): N/A (to be completed every month)

Use personal development templates like this to make the process of creating a PDP for employees simpler and more time-efficient!

How to get started with a template

Achieving personal growth is easier with personal development plan templates. But the journey doesn’t end there. You must also take certain steps to ensure your employees are improving and meeting their goals.

Here are some strategies you can take after an employee submits their personal development plan: 

• Review the plan immediately – make sure to go over an employee’s plan. You must check if their goals are attainable and clear.
• Remind employees to check the plan periodically – a team member might forget what areas they need to improve. You can remind them to read their plan to see if they are working on the right skills.
• Assess their improvement so far – you can plan a one-on-one meeting with an employee. Ask them to be honest and tell you how they are doing, if they need additional help and which changes they see.
• Determine their success – personal development plans are about creating specific goals. The plan would be futile if you don’t check if an employee has made progress towards their goals.
• Decide what to do next – if you find any issues, you must devise a solution. Don’t abandon your employee—show them you're committed to their success!

When you know all about the personal development plan, it is time to proceed to the next crucial step, setting personal development goals. These two aspects come toe-to-toe and are vital for making goals and planning a reality.

‍ What are personal development goals?

Personal development goals, or self-improvement goals, are the objectives people set to improve themselves in many ways, including habits, mindset, skills or even work ethics.  Although personal development goals are not necessarily connected to the job setting, they can help people improve their professional and personal lives.

Some of the most common areas for personal development goals include:

• change of mindset
• improving hard skills
• working on social skills
• character building

How can they help people?

Working on personal development goals has many benefits, but here are five areas where it can help employees the most:

Better focus  

One of the biggest benefits of setting personal development goals is a better focus and a clear sense of direction. Clear goals inspire people to act and easily decide on their next steps. This pushes them to be proactive and get more things done in their personal and professional lives.

Free time endlessly scrolling on the phone without a clear purpose or spreading work throughout the day is easy. Specific goals will motivate people to become more proactive and efficient.

Increased productivity

Goal setting teaches individuals prioritization techniques. This way, it is much easier to decipher what matters the most and take care of it instantly. Another major advantage has concrete, measurable goals to work towards. This makes it possible to evaluate people’s success precisely and encourages them to keep improving. The more goals they tick off, the more satisfied they will be. Over time, this will also increase general productivity. 

Better professional relationships

Self-improvement goals can improve the quality of people’s relationships with their colleagues and business partners. By becoming a better version of themselves, they're inspiring everyone who gets in touch with them to do the same. Their growth mindset is reflected in others as well. As a consequence, positive relationships in your team could dramatically improve. People in self-development tend to be better listeners and more compassionate toward others.

Improved work-life balance

Employees that don’t have a healthy work-life balance are prone to burnout more than others. That’s why this aspect shouldn’t be neglected. Employees should be encouraged to pursue their passions and learn new skills that don’t have to be work-related. Personal development goals can help people find time for themselves and remember who they are outside of their job. Consequently, they will become more motivated, and their productivity at work will improve.

Career advancement  

Finally, working on personal development goals can positively affect professional life and bring professional success to everyone. Many skills are transferable, meaning one can use them in other areas. Communication skills, soft skills, and creativity — are all crucial for success at work. New skills can help employees better serve customers and even get promotions. Sometimes working on personal development goals can bring insights and ideas that can revolutionize how you work.

As an HR or business mentor, your job is to share some resources on goal-setting with your team. Of course, each person’s goal will be different, but here are some universal strategies that everyone can benefit from, regardless of their goal.

Here are some points you can ask your employees to do:

• Identify what you want

 This is a fun exercise you can do as a team. According to one statistic, employees engaged in meaningful activities are 87% less likely to leave the company.

You can ask them the following questions:

• What goal would make the biggest difference in your life? 
• Is that goal in alignment with your vision for the future?
• What is something you’ve always wanted to learn but never seemed to have enough time for?

This exercise helps them connect with their personal development goals deeper, which will help them commit. When it becomes hard, and it feels like quitting, it's important to connect with your why and remember why you started.

• Set milestones for your goal

Big goals are not only frightening, but they can also be too vague. The next step is to break your personal goals into achievable milestones.

There are three good reasons to do so:

• The goals become more doable.
• You feel more motivated to work towards your goals.
• It's easier to measure your progress.

For example, someone's personal development goal could be to learn French. That's too vague. That person would be much more motivated if they created smaller goals for each month or week. 

• Set a day and time to work on your goal

As Michael Hyatt once said: What doesn't get scheduled, doesn't get done. Set yourself up for success by turning your goals into plans. It means that you should allocate time and space where you will be dedicated to working on your goal.

It will be much easier if your goal becomes part of your routine. It doesn't have to take a lot of time, especially in the beginning. The most important thing is to make it a habit.

How to Build the Best Employee Development Plan

The 90-Day Review Template to Keep Your Business on Track

Here are the most common personal development goals related examples: 

• Improving your communication skills . This goal can improve professional relationships, the atmosphere of the whole team, as well as the results you get with clients.
• Mastering time management - Time management is one of the most important skills for your own success. Today it's even more challenging due to the distractions around us. One can learn different time management strategies from books, but it's important to try them and choose those that work in your life.
• Mindfulness - Mindfulness is one of the most effective stress management techniques, and everyone in the corporate world needs it. Your mindfulness practice could consist of meditation, visualization, breath work, or sitting silently for a few minutes every morning.
• Developing a growth mindset - A growth mindset is essential for success. Maybe you need to work on your mindset if you've been stuck lately. Some of the ideas include journaling, affirmations, or reading self-improvement books.
• Networking - One of the common goals is to grow your network and meet more people. This can be done through organizing networking events or joining clubs and communities on the topics that interest you.
• Learning a new skill - The best way to keep your brain sharp is to challenge yourself to learn a new skill! Choose something that interests you, whether crochet or graphic design and be patient with yourself because every new skill takes time.
• Creative thinking - Many people don't know it, but creativity can be learned! You need to give yourself space to let your mind wander, and ideas will come. There are also different exercises to boost your creativity, from design thinking to creative writing.
• Reading habit - One of the most common New Year's goals is: I'd love to read more books this year! Reading has many benefits, and it can be a life-changing habit. It's important to set realistic goals for yourself. Your first goal shouldn't be to read one book a week. Instead, your goal should be to get into the habit of regularly reading.

We'll now go into more detail and show you how to set personal development goals properly.

Improving leadership skills

Leadership is one of the most valuable assets that can benefit your employees in many ways. According to Forbes , it helps employees boost productivity, engagement, and independence.  ‍

Here is how your organization could help employees improve this skill:

• Organize internal workshops - You don’t need famous motivational speakers and leaders to organize a successful workshop. You can also organize internal workshops where managers and executives share their practical experiences with younger employees.
• Organize leadership challenges - It’s important to understand that one doesn’t need a title to be a leader. It’s about behavior and the way you treat others and tackle problems. To make it more fun, you could organize leadership challenges where each employee has to do one small task that shows leadership capabilities.

Become a better networker

If one of your team member’s goals is to become a better networker and create stronger relationships, you should first ask them to define what it means for them and why it's important. Next, they should list actions that will get them there. The steps should be concise and easy to follow.

The list may look like this:

• Read a book about communication
• Talk to people that are great networkers
• Practice being an active listener
• Commit to going to networking events every month
• Reach out to your new connections

They should also set some milestones, for example, I want to meet 10 new people by the end of this month. And then, you can create a plan of how they will do it. If you know that someone in your team lacks accountability, you can encourage them to share their goals with your other colleagues so you can support each other. 

As an HR, you could also introduce your team to the concept of an accountability buddy. It means that each person gets another person that keeps them accountable. They’re here to support each other and track their progress together.

Common mistakes to watch out for when setting development goals

Here are some of the most common mistakes people make when they set personal development goals:

The goal is not measurable

One of the first rules of goal setting is that personal goals should be clear and measurable. If people can't measure your progress, how can you know they're going in the right direction?

Some might say that certain goals are simply not measurable, and that's true. However, in that case, you can help people track their activities. They can measure how much time they dedicate to the goal weekly to ensure they're on the right track.

The goal is not something people want

The worst thing is to choose a personal development goal just because it's something that's "good for people" and "should be done". Achieving personal development goals requires time and dedication. That's why it's essential to help your employees choose a goal that's meaningful to them.

People don't have the right mindset

A positive mindset is crucial for continuous self-development. Even if some goals are out of people’s comfort zones, they can still work on those. Many people have limiting beliefs that prevent them from achieving their highest potential.

The rule is - if you want to succeed, it's essential that you believe that you can do it. If you lack self-confidence, you won't be motivated enough, leading to procrastination.

Now that people have set their personal development goals, it's time to do an honest assessment and see where they currently are. The best way to do it is during one on ones with employees.

Take some time to think about the following topics and encourage people to be honest with themselves. Here are some questions to ask employees should ask themselves:

• Did I allocate enough time to my personal goals?
• Did I have all the resources I needed for achieving this goal?
• What were the biggest obstacles?
• What can I do differently next time?
• Where can I get the support when I need it?

Even if they haven't achieved their goal, they should be patient with themselves. They can start again, but this time with a better strategy and more support. 

On the other hand, what if people achieve all personal development goals with success?

First, take time to celebrate and congratulate your employees. Too many people take their success for granted and always look for a new challenge. Right now, they should be proud of how far they've come!

Here are some things you can ask your employees:

- ‘’If you enjoyed working on this skill, you may want to take it to the next level. You can challenge yourself to get out of your comfort zone once again and become even better at it. At this point, you may even consider getting a certification or something similar.’’

 - ‘’Or, you can choose a completely different area to work on. If you worked on your physical health, you could now switch to emotional intelligence or the other way round.’’

Conclusion: Personal Development Plan and Goals

Helping your employees work on their personal development plan creates a positive workplace. Employees are satisfied to see their company cares about them and doesn’t see them just as “seat-fillers.” With an effective personal development plan template, you can easily discover each person’s skills and weaknesses. You get to grow the talent you already have and nurture an impressive company culture.

As you can see, self-growth is a never-ending process. There's always room for improvement. Adopting a growth mindset and entering the field of personal development could be one of the most positive things you've done for yourself. If you're a manager or business owner, you should encourage your people to set personal development goals. They will not only make your employees happier and more productive, but they will influence everyone around them in a positive way.

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FAQ: How to Set Personal development goals

A personal development plan (PDP) is the practice of consistently adding new skills , knowledge and competencies to yourself in areas of your choice. It is a clear and documented outline that shows what you aim to achieve to attain better fulfillment and growth. A personal development plan does not have to be restricted to your career alone, as it also concerns your finances, education, relationships and other interests.

What is a personal development plan example?

A personal development plan could simply be 'Get a promotion at work next January'. To achieve this, you need a detailed plan to guide (documented) and steps to get the promotion. Such steps will include: taking a management training course, requesting a performance appraisal with HR, networking better with the line manager, etc.

What are the key elements of a personal development plan?

A personal development plan should include the following elements:

• A clear reason showing why you want to achieve your plans.
• A defined vision of where you want to be.
• A defined timeframe to help you prioritize the different areas of your PDP.
• The skills and resources you need to meet up with your plans.
• Your expected milestones to keep you on track.

What are individual development goals examples?

Some of the most common personal development goals include learning a new skill, developing a positive attitude, breaking bad habits, effectively managing your time, etc.

What are the 5 areas of personal development?

These are the 5 main areas of personal growth:

• Mental (working on your mindset, learning new skills)
• Social (working on your communication and networking)
• Spiritual (inner peace, meditating)
• Emotional (emotional intelligence, personal boundaries)
• Physical (physical health, proper self-care, fitness)

What are 3 goals for your career development?

The following 3 goals can influence your ongoing professional development: becoming a better communicator, enhancing your networking skills and learning leadership skills.

Make a little progress every day

How to Create a Personal Development Plan – Template Included

Do you ever feel like you’re spinning your wheels day in and day out? A personal development plan might be exactly what you need.

You are working really hard, but you can’t really see the progress that you hope to.

You expect a lot out of yourself. More than most of the people who surround you, but you’re not sure how to get to that next level.

I know how you feel. I’ve been there.

Before I understood the value of planning my personal development, I felt like I was just kind of wandering aimlessly towards some far out goal.

A personal development plan doesn’t really have to be very elaborate. It’s just creating something for you to follow every day.

Why planning your personal development is important

The phrase “personal development” always sounded really formal to me. It’s a lot easier to think about it as just making a little daily progress.

But to make progress, you really need to know where you’re going. That’s why a personal development plan is important. It helps you to determine what direction you should be headed.

A major part of personal development is determining what you value the most in life. Understanding what drives you is the key to your happiness and success.

What does being great mean to you?

Does it mean having 3 kids who adore you more than anything in the world?

Does it mean being the youngest VP in the history of your company?

Does it mean getting invited to the Boston Marathon?

All 3 of those examples are wonderful goals for anyone to have, but they all rely on making ourselves better, even if it’s just a little bit, every single day.

Each of us have our own unique backgrounds and experiences. Those experiences are what has shaped our world view, and what it means to be great.

You’re the type of person who has aspirations to achieve something that most people aren’t driven enough to achieve. It’s an internal desire to be the best. Planning your future will help you decide what the word “best” really means to you.

By creating your personal development plan, you will actually create the steps needed for yourself to achieve the things that you dream about. No longer will you just be floating from day to day without really knowing why you’re getting out of bed in the morning.

Now, let’s get into the example of a personal development plan

If you are working on your personal development and growth, then a plan will help you stay on track. It is a good way to keep yourself from comparing yourself to others, because it only tracks who you are from one day to the next.

You might be asking yourself, how do I write a personal development plan? Your personal development plan template doesn’t have to be complicated; it really only needs to include 3 sections.

1. What will I do each day to progress in my journey with:

2. what will i do this month to progress in my journey with:, 3. what will i do this year to progress in my journey with:.

Sound easy enough, right??

You can’t get it wrong

I’m not saying that just to make you feel better. It’s true. Any plan is better than no plan. Your personal development plan will change over time.

The plan is only one part of your personal development. There are so many other things to keep in mind, but your plan is like your guiding light. You look to it when you aren’t sure what to do.

We only have so much time in a day. We can’t do everything that we want to. Your personal development plan will help you determine what is essential in your life.

If you are having a little trouble coming up with ideas to put into your personal development plan template, take a look at these 25 personal development goals and pick the ones that stick out to you as some of your biggest strengths or weaknesses.

Personal development planning guide

If you use google drive, like I do, for your personal development planner, then you will be able to access it from pretty much anywhere. Sometimes it’s easier to walk through an example of a personal development plan using a worksheet.

If google drive isn’t your thing, then I also have a 6 page personal development planning guide that I like to share with people who would like to quickly review what the most important pieces of personal development planning are. You can download a pdf plan below.

Use this guide hand in hand with your own personal development plan template. It’s just a good reminder to keep around for when you are working through your ideas for what will be included in your personal development plan.

Personal development plan ideas

If you haven’t taken a look at my template yet, let me give you some ideas for actions to include in your own self help plan.

I try to text 2 friends every day. It doesn’t have to be some big elaborate text message. I just like to see how they’ve been doing and maybe send them an update on things that are going on in my life. It’s been a great way to keep up with friends who I don’t see every day.

I like to keep things simple, so in my daily finances column I have “stick to budget.” It’s really that simple sometimes.

Every month I try to make it a point to hang out with my nieces and nephews at least once. That means that for my monthly goals for family, I have a reminder for myself to spend some time with them. You might have something similar for your parents, kids, or grandparents.

My goal weight for this year is to stay between 185-190lbs. That is the weight that I’ve found for myself to feel and perform the best.

Health also includes mental health. I try to journal every day and meditate for at least 10 minutes.

Maybe you’ve been wanting to run a 5k or hike up a small mountain. Make it one of your health goals for this year.

I really want to personally help at least 15 people a month on their personal development journeys. I hope that you’re one of those 15 people!

Sometimes I don’t get 15 people, and sometimes I get more. What really matters is that I execute my plan every day, which includes writing an article, sending an email, and/or putting content out on social media.

And finally, for fun, I want to play golf at least once a month. I’m not very good at it, but it’s fun and relaxing.

Taking action is the key to succeeding

If you spend all your time planning, you’ll never actually get anything done.

Yes, a plan is extremely important, that’s why I developed my template and use it every day!

But a plan is just the first step.

Taking action every day is the real “secret” to success.

Emotions and lack of motivation can try to stop us from getting where we want to be.

Turn yourself into the person that you were meant to be by learning how to overcome emotion and taking action to achieve your goals.

Keep your eye on the prize

When you are doing these exercises, remember that it’s for your benefit. Think of all the years that have gone by when you could have been taking action that you didn’t.

You don’t want to let any more time pass you by without making the most of yourself. All of your aspirations depend on you taking action.

For more personal development articles, check out our ultimate guide to personal development.

You have a starting point. Now, jump!

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• Performance Management

Individual Development Plans Examples and Templates – A Deep Dive

• October 5, 2023

Employees who find and embrace opportunities to learn and grow are 2.9 times more likely to be engaged in their roles. 

This proves the huge impact continuous learning opportunities have on employee performance. Not only this, 91% of employees say that it is important for their managers to encourage them to learn and experiment.

And when employees are engaged they bring profitability. According to Gallup, companies with engaged employees are 21% more profitable. 

Companies that prioritize employee development witness not only a surge in productivity but also a more engaged, satisfied, and loyal workforce. 

This is where IDPs come into action. To help you create an engaged workforce by prioritizing growth and learning opportunities for them. 

But what exactly do we mean by IDPs or Individual Development Plans , and how it can help you harness your people’s potential? 

In this blog, we will share with you everything– a ready-to-use template to help you create individual development plans, tailored to each employee.

What is an Individual Development Plan?

An Individual Development Plan  (IDP) is a framework that is tailored to suit each employee and guide their personal and professional growth. It helps individuals create a clear and actionable plan for driving growth. 

An IDP also helps in filling the skill gaps that are accessed during the process. It lets them create actionable steps so that they can focus on learning and staying equipped with the required skills for their dream role or goal. 

This creates an agile workforce for you which dedicatedly works towards the organization’s success.

It usually contains: 

• The employee’s desired achievements in the short and long run of their career.
• Enhancing existing skills or acquiring new ones, as aimed by the employee.
• Skills that you, as a manager, wish the employee to advance further.
• Precise action items to realize the goals, such as enrolling in courses, participating in workshops, seeking mentorship, and more.

Why do you need an individual development plan?

We already know that investing in employee development yields remarkable returns and is essential not only for employees but also for the company. 

• It facilitates skill development which boosts performance and productivity. 
• Its focus on engagement reduces turnover rates (as we have already seen above) and nurtures a loyal, motivated workforce. 
• It helps create an internal talent pool for new and bigger responsibilities. 

And this is not all IDP has to offer. When you implement IDP and make it an integral part of your company culture , it aligns personal goals with organizational goals. Apart from this, when you commit to employee development you build a reputation for your company that attracts top talent. 

How do Individual Development Plans facilitate employee growth?

1. Tailored Growth: IDPs are not one-size-fits-all.  They are custom-made for each individual. This ensures that each of your employees works on their individual aspirations and strengths and align with the company’s aspirations.

2. Clear Direction: IDPs provide a clear guideline as to how one can create a well-defined career development plan . With a clear roadmap to success, IDP helps employees stay on track, and take actionable steps toward their goals without losing focus.

3. Focused Learning: IDPs are highly focused on what needs to be done and achieved. They highlight areas of improvement, enabling managers and HRs to create targeted training and development initiatives addressing the identified skill gaps.

4. Skill Diversity: Through IDPs, employees are encouraged to diversify their skill sets. This well-rounded approach prepares them to handle multifaceted challenges that may come their way with the new responsibilities. 

5. Motivation: IDPs fuel motivation by showing personal progress. As milestones are reached and skills are honed, employees experience a sense of accomplishment that motivates them further.

6. Continuous Improvement: IDPs are all about perpetual growth. They help foster a culture of learning and ensure that employees remain abreast with the relevant skills and are highly adaptable to challenging situations. 

7. Performance Alignment: With IDPs, skill acquisition aligns seamlessly with job requirements. As a result, employees become skilled and turn into assets for your company. They perform well in their job and contribute meaningfully to the company’s success.

8. Retention: The satisfaction and engagement that stem from embarking on a journey of personal development through IDPs significantly boost employee retention, securing the company’s investment in talent.

How To Create Employee Individual Development Plan Template

Crafting a robust IDP template requires precision and purpose – a blueprint that not only propels personal growth but also aligns seamlessly with team and organizational objectives. Let’s learn what a comprehensive IDP template looks like. 

A simple and effective IDP template includes the following core elements and steps: 

1. Career Goals 

Begin with crystal-clear articulation of the employee’s career aspirations. What are their short-term goals, and where do they envision themselves? This requires a methodical approach, where each career goal is meticulously and clearly defined. This ensures that the roadmap outlines clear action steps to achieve those objectives. 

Now, for a company, this is where the concept of collaborative synchronization of goals comes into play. IDPs foster an environment of shared objectives. It blends individual career goals seamlessly with the broader team and organizational objectives. It is important to recognize that an employee’s professional goals are not isolated plans. They are, in fact, a part of the organizational growth. 

2. Defining Measurable Development Goals

This step involves turning aspirations into specific, achievable goals.  To achieve this, you can use methods like OKR –to create clear goals and define key results. This methodology ensures that the goals set by employees are not vague but are clear targets for them to achieve. 

It is also important to ensure that these targets aren’t set in isolation and align with the company’s objectives. 

By aligning company objectives with individual goals, IDPs serve as a roadmap that guides progress for both.

3. Identifying Development Areas and Training Needs

This is an important part of IDP–identifying areas of development and training requirements. This evaluation requires a thorough assessment of the employee’s current skills, its comparison with the aspired job/role/ goal and finding the skill gap between the two. 

This evaluation highlights areas where skill enhancement and growth is required. For example, a current ongoing project might require a skill that an employee does not possess. An IDP can help highlight that skill gap under short-term goals.

4. Creating Action Plans and Providing Resources

Once the goals are set, the execution takes center stage. This means charting out actionable steps for the set goals . As a manager, it becomes your responsibility to provide the required resources – like access to resources, courses, specialized training, workshops, and mentorship opportunities, etc. 

5. Establishing a Timeline and Milestones

Defining a timeline and significant milestones is a critical step because without this one can just go on without learning and producing results forever. This highlights the blend of planning ahead and taking steady steps, where development goals are not just thought of but they are given a clear timeline for accomplishment. 

This requires breaking down the goals into meaningful milestones. These milestones act as markers of progress which allow real-time tracking of achievement and enable evaluations. 

This ensures that the employee remains on track and the objectives are achieved timely.    

6. Periodic Reviews and Progress Evaluation

Consistent reviews and evaluations involve establishing a schedule for regular meetings where the employee’s progress is assessed in line with their IDP. 

These sessions serve as checkpoints to ascertain how well the plan is being executed and whether the intended growth is being achieved. 

These reviews also provide a platform to critically evaluate the efficacy of the plan itself. 

The review involves a careful examination of what has been achieved and what hasn’t been. Whether the strategies and actions outlined in the IDP are yielding the desired outcomes, if not then why? 

In short, these reviews offer the opportunity to identify and implement necessary changes to ensure the plan’s effectiveness. 

7. Offering Ongoing Support and Feedback

While this might not be a part of the template, it is an important part of IDP. This involves providing guidance and support to help employees maintain a steady trajectory. This includes offering constructive feedback and acknowledging their achievements. 

Acknowledging their positive contributions and offering them feedback acts as a catalyst, motivating individuals to strive for continuous improvement. This dual strategy of guidance and recognition helps transform IDP into a dynamic instrument of growth for individual development and also a corporate culture rooted in perpetual accomplishment.

8. Linking IDPs with Performance Management

By aligning IDPs and Performance Management , you can ensure that employee growth and development are linked to their overall performance assessment.

This integration extends to recognizing and rewarding their achievement in executing their IDPs. As individuals make tangible progress in their personal growth as outlined in their IDPs, their achievements are reflected in the company’s growth as well. 

This not only motivates them but also solidifies the notion that as a company you take the professional development of your employees seriously.

To facilitate this process, features of tools like the Peoplebox performance management tool can be leveraged. It offers comprehensive tracking and goal-setting capabilities which streamlines the connection between IDPs and performance management . The tool makes it easier to monitor progress, offer timely feedback, facilitate regular check-ins in the form of 1:1 and generate insightful progress reports and analytics.

9. Encouraging a learning culture where employees feel motivated to pursue development opportunities

Encouraging a learning culture simply means fostering an atmosphere where learning is not just a requirement, but an intrinsic part of the company. Provide access to resources such as online courses, mentorship programs, and skill-building initiatives to your employees. You can also tailor the resources based on their IDPs. 

As a manager, you play a pivotal role in promoting learning initiatives–leading by example, and offering guidance to your team. This not only benefits individual employees but also fosters innovation, adaptability, and a workforce that is always ready to meet evolving challenges.

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Questions to answer in the idp’s– for employees .

It is crucial to address that an IDP is not an isolated plan but is a strategic initiative to help employees grow. In order to ensure that employees are fully a part of IDP and are invested in it, you will have to ensure that they contribute to defining each aspect of the IDP. 

These questions will help them and you to create an IDP aligning with their interest the most. 

Long-Term Career Plan

• What do you want to change in your life, family, community, or work?
• Where do you feel most comfortable? What things do you care about?
• When you retire, what would make you really proud?

Short-Term Career Plan 

• What opportunities are available in your current job, team, company, field, or location?
• What challenges do you face that hinder your development? 
• What qualities do you want to overcome the challenges and grow in your present or future opportunity?

Identifying strengths, weaknesses and learning opportunities

• Which skills do you find easy to use or require less work to do well?
• What do your performance reviews or feedback often highlight about you?
• When do you feel sure about teaching others? Where have you made a difference?
• What helpful suggestions have you gotten from recent reviews or projects?
• Are you aware of the latest certifications and improvements in your field?

As an organization, embracing a culture of nurturing your employee’s growth is crucial. It is a partnership where you help individuals take active control of their own development while subsequently contributing to the company’s development. IDP is an important contributor to bringing this harmony between individual growth and company objectives. 

Peoplebox helps you achieve this seamlessly by combining IDPs with organizational objectives. It assists in aligning goals, providing constructive feedback through 1:1 meetings, 360-degree feedback and performance insights. 

To find out how Peoplebox helps you with IDPs, take a demo today. It’s easy, it’s free!

What should an IDP look like?

An IDP is a personalized growth plan outlining career goals, skill development and strategies. An IDP provides a format for identifying short and long-term goals, skill assessment, gap analysis, and action steps to achieve the goals and timelines, feedback and review.

What are the objectives of IDP?

The objective of IDP is to help individuals identify and work towards career goals. It helps identify skill gaps and offers a structured approach to acquiring new skills. It increases employee engagement and helps prepare leaders. 

What is an example of an individual development plan for employees?

A simple example of IDP looks like: 

Employee Name: Employee’s Name

Position: Marketing Specialist

Supervisor: Supervisor’s Name

Career Goals:

Current Skills Assessment:

Skill Gap Analysis:

Development Objectives:

Action Steps:

Resources and Support:

Progress Tracking:

Reflection and Review:

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Your Foolproof PDP Template & Checklist

Free PDP template

Plan efficiently and reach your goals

A goal without a plan is just a wish. - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. - Benjamin Franklin

Plan your work and work your plan. - Napoleon Hill

There are countless quotes about planning. A simple Google search will reveal that. As you scroll through the words of great achievers from history, it becomes clear that as people, we place a lot of value in planning and that when done correctly, plans work.

The potential to be great lies within all of us. With the right tools, guidance, support and action plan, we all stand a chance to fulfil that potential, maybe even landing ourselves in the history books along the way. By having a personal development plan at work, you and your people are equipped to do just that.

Training and progression have become one of HR’s top five priorities for the first time, with more HR leaders willing to train and upskill under-qualified candidates than in years prior. It’s great that HR professionals are acknowledging that growth, but their people won’t progress unless they can introduce a structure to help them do so.

Here’s a guide to help you support your people when implementing personal development plans at work along with a bonus PDP template for them to identify their development needs.

👉 Download our PDP template now 👈

What is a personal development plan.

The key word in ' personal development plan' (PDP) is personal .

PDPs need to be specific to the individual it is made for. You can’t take on someone else’s PDP and expect the same results. The motivations that went into the plan, the learning preferences and the existing skills and experiences are all different. Success lies in how catered it is to you.

A personal development plan sets the course for your growth and allows you to know the whys and hows of your journey. The first step of any PDP is to establish where you are so that you can get where you’re going. Think of it as your cars GPS which can only guide you to the best route if it knows where you are. The reflective nature of these plans will lead you and your people to success.

Personalised personal development planning should:

• reflect your aims and goals for the short, medium or long-term
• take into account your individual reality
• revolve around the skills and knowledge you currently lack
• outline development activities to meet perceived needs

Why should personal development exist in the workplace?

In a lifetime, the average adult spends 90,000 hours at work . 🤯

That means two things. One, personal time is sacred. Two, who we work to become benefits ourselves and the business we work for.

My growth in and outside of work hours will make me a better person, employee and writer. All three of those contribute to how I perform in my role and how I impact the company that I work for.

You’ll find it's the same for those at your company. What they want to achieve will make them better at their job too.

Companies also have a responsibility to help their employees grow. In a healthy relationship, both parties give and take. An employee and the company they work for are in a relationship.

Employees give their skills and abilities to the company and that company benefits as a result. Good companies make sure that the relationship is healthy by providing the opportunity and support for their people to grow.

A checklist to get your workforce to engage in personal development

To make sure that employees pursue their goals, people functions can introduce the personal development plan and support the process of achieving the goals set out for them.

[ ✔️ ]  Establish Psychological safety

People often feel that they should already possess all of the skills they need to do their job.

That’s unrealistic. If it were that way, we would have no need for staff development at all. People must feel that they can acknowledge where they have blind spots and where they have weaknesses. They also need to feel safe in taking the time to find out what it is they want to achieve if they don't already know.

They can only do this if their workplace has established psychological safety . Without it, employees may feel threatened by their need to cultivate the skills they lack and any plan they do make becomes a performative exercise. The goal isn’t to have the PDP in place; it’s to have them act upon it.

[ ✔️ ]  Provide the tools and frameworks to build PDPs

You want people’s PDPs to be built to deliver successful results. To achieve this, your people need to know how to set SMART goals and more specifically, how to identify their North Star goal when personal development planning.

Introducing training sessions where the whole team attends is as essential as having the PDP in the first place. Make the information digestible and actionable by having multiple sessions that focus on different parts of the goal-setting process.

PDPs are cyclical. The journey of learning never ends, and the progress never stops because when you get where you’re going, you find you now have somewhere new to go. Facilitate regular re-visits to the frameworks and tools you implement so that your people know and trust that you’re always there to take them further.

[ ✔️ ] Make the time for them

Finding time for learning is notoriously difficult.

Employees either feel guilt over taking time away from their tasks to engage with learning, or they feel that the learning they are being offered isn’t worth their time.

The solution for the first instance is to schedule learning into workdays the same way that you would schedule a meeting. The solution for the second is Learnerbly 😉.

You can’t wait for employees to find the time, you must make it for them. With enough repetition, it becomes akin to muscle memory, where learning will happen without much effort.

It can be helpful to institute ‘learning hours’ where employees take an hour every week to learn whatever they want. That might look like scheduling an hour to learn a language, read a book or nurture skills to achieve career progression. Every week could focus on different learnings.

[ ✔️ ] Encourage them to share their goals

As our People Operations Manager Marie says, ‘sharing is caring.’ It’s important to know that this step can only come once psychological safety has been established.

Sharing goals and career plans can be a source of accountability, inspiration and support. When colleagues and managers know what you’re working towards , they can recommend resources and opportunities to you to help you on your journey.

Make sure your employees have a way to communicate their goals and their progress. This can be a Slack channel dedicated to celebrating what they achieve, a portion of your whole team meeting dedicated to sharing learnings or a place for small and random groups to meet virtually or in-person with the sole purpose of sharing.

All of these options create opportunities for sharing but also to help each other with recommendations, tips and even insights into how they plan and process their own PDP.

[ ✔️ ] Have managers share their PDPs & goals

Managers have goals, too. They have skills they could improve. They have shortcomings that if worked on, could make them better leaders.

Learnerbly CEO, Rajeeb Dey MBE stresses the importance of leading by example, “At Learnerbly, I take the opportunity to share my 360 feedback with the whole company at least once a year and focus on the things I feel I need to work on. If you want to encourage others to take ownership of their development, then it starts with you.’

When a manager shares their PDP and goals, they are showing that career progression is possible even before you tick every box for the role. It’s inspirational to know that, to see how those above you on the career ladder are working to better themselves and that they’re open and receptive to upwards feedback.

What can managers do to support an employee's personal development plan?

Beyond sharing their PDP as inspiration and relatability, a manager has a place in driving the PDPs of their people. You may have read my piece on self-managed learning, where I talked about how a manager can support employees on their path to lifelong learning. Consider this section a follow-up, because a self-managed learner with a personal development plan is built to achieve both short and long-term goals. Working on filling in the personal development plan template with direct reports is a great way to ensure support is given and transparency is achieved.

Managers contribute to an employee’s Personal Development Plan in these three ways:

• Finding the targets . Often, employees aren't quite sure what their long-term goals are, and if they have them, it's difficult to envisage a path to getting there. Part of being a manager is spotting talents and abilities in your team members that they may not know themselves, and highlighting ways they can either improve on them or spot how they can be put into action to move them from potential to practical use.

• Holding them accountable . Having a written PDP means you've set specific targets that you're holding yourself to, but if only you are looking at them, it's easy for deadlines to slip as other things come up. Managers can play a role in regular check-ins, encouraging their team members towards ensuring targets are met. The employee is the one who owns and sets the destination; a manager is there to question, challenge, direct and nurture them on the journey of life-long learning.
• Sourcing help . A significant part of Learnerbly's Personal Development Plan tool is being able to link resources to specific goals. For managers, they can help direct employees to things they've found useful themselves or things which will help with the roadmap ahead.

The ultimate PDP template

A personal development plan template is what your employees need to make their development personal. We've built our own Personal Development Plan template to help you and your people find and achieve the goals they want, the way they want to.

Why? Because it’s not enough to know what your development needs are, you need an action plan behind them. A personal development plan is the key to acquiring new skills and setting down a prosperous career path.

All you have to do is download our template, share it with your people and embark on your individual journeys!               

                              👉Download our PDP template now👈

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14 Individual Development Plan Examples & Templates

By Michelle Martin , Feb 15, 2023

The terms Individual Development Plan and Employee Development Plan are often used interchangeably, but the outcome is the same: a document outlining a person’s professional and career goals with an action plan to get there.

Does every employee in your organization have an IDP? Or if you’re here to make one, has your manager discussed a plan for your professional development?

If your answer is “no” to either, you can’t afford to ignore individual development plans any longer. Companies that invest in employee development earn, on average, 11% higher profits than those that don’t.

Not to fear: Here’s everything you need to know about creating useful individual development plans plus easy to use professional IDP templates to boost your profits and attract and retain top talent.

Click to jump ahead:

What is an individual development plan?

Why do you need an individual development plan, 14 individual development plan examples and tips, how to make an individual development plan, individual development plan faqs.

An individual development plan (IDP) is a collaborative document between a manager and an employee to define career goals and map out how to learn new skills or improve current ones. It matches an employee’s strengths and interests to key business objectives.

Usually, individual development plans are part of the annual performance review and general  employee development  discussion. But you can make or update one anytime.

You can also create an individual development plan for yourself to pursue career or personal learning goals.

IDPs usually include:

• Short and long-term career goals the employee wants to achieve.
• Current skills the employee wants to improve, or new ones to learn.
• Skills the manager wants the employee to further develop.
• Specific action steps to achieve the goals (e.g. taking a course, attending a workshop, finding a mentor, etc).

Many different formats work well for individual development plans, from plain text documents to elaborate tables and timelines. Mix and match blocks, tables, and more with this flexible IDP template to customize it to your career goals.

Individual development plans are beneficial to everyone, including the company. IDPs encourage your employees to voice their career goals and co-create a plan to get there. Even if they end up leaving for another company in the future, you benefit from their new skills until then.

Your employee will likely also be grateful for their growth with you and happily refer others to open roles. Since we’re in one of the  tightest labor markets ever , referrals and word of mouth can mean the difference between filling your open positions or not.

Individual development plans also address a real business need:  56% of businesses  surveyed by Statistics Canada in 2022 said most of their employees weren’t “fully proficient” at their jobs. If your company has over 100 employees, that most certainly applies to you as 93% of large companies responded that way, whereas only 33% of companies with less than four employees did.

IDPs help your employees learn the skills they need to achieve their own goals, but they’re also key to ensuring your business needs are met.

Components of an individual development plan

Remember, an IDP is a flexible tool. As your goals and circumstances change, so should your plan. It’s all about taking ownership of your career development and reaching your full potential!

Here are the key components of an effective IDP:

1. Self-assessment:

• Strengths:  What are you good at? What do you enjoy doing?
• Areas for improvement:  Be honest – what skills could you use some work on?
• Values:  What matters most to you in your career? What kind of impact do you want to make?

2. Goal setting:

• Short-term:  Set specific, achievable goals for the next few months that align with your overall career aspirations.
• Long-term:  Think bigger! Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years? Set some aspirational goals to keep you motivated.

3. Development activities:

• Identify activities  – Think training courses, workshops or taking on new challenges – that will help you reach your goals.
• Create a timeline  that’s realistic considering your time and resources.
• Figure out what resources you need  – financial support, time off or specific tools.

4. Monitoring and evaluation:

• Have regular check-ins  with your manager or advisor to discuss your progress.
• Track your progress  and make adjustments to your plan as needed.
• Celebrate your successes  and learn from any setbacks.

Individual development plan examples for supervisors

Individual development plans (IDPs) for supervisors serve as roadmaps for team growth, tailoring skill development to specific roles in the team and organizational goals.

These plans aren’t just about meeting company goals; they also help supervisors achieve their career aspirations while supporting the growth of their team members.

Are you (or your employee) a visual person? Just because most individual development plans look like traditional documents doesn’t mean yours has to. Try out this creative and colorful quadrant template to prioritize goals and actions by their importance, due date, or any other criteria that make sense to you.

This template is structured as a corrective action plan but could also work well for an IDP. As a reminder, IDPs aren’t a disciplinary tool or for underperforming employees. Everyone should have an individual development plan focusing on their strengths, while also acknowledging weaknesses that may impact the achievement of career goals.

Give this worksheet-style template to your employee before your IDP meeting to find out their goals and how they view their progress so far. By getting their ideas on paper first, you’ll make better use of meeting time to discuss actions and solutions.

Another great template for visual folks, this serves well as a progress tracker for the action steps in your IDP. The simple, one-page format is quick to update and makes it easy to see progress toward your goals.

Individual development plan examples for leadership

Imagine a leadership-focused IDP as your personal roadmap for tackling the twists and turns of leadership roles. It’s not just about growing your own leadership skills, but also about making a real impact on the success of the whole organization.

A leadership IDP may include targeted training programs to enhance communication, decision-making, and strategic thinking skills.

A stylish table format is effective for communicating career goals and action steps which are both important parts of an IDP. List the goal category on the left, the action step in the middle and a target due date on the right.

For example, a goal category could be “improving public speaking skills.” An action step could be joining a local Toastmasters group or hosting a Lunch and Learn for the office.

If you’re a manager assessing your team’s leadership skills, this template could be another self-evaluation tool for your employee to fill out prior to your IDP meeting. Or, use it as a progress tracker by listing out the actions and ranking them from “Not Started” to “Complete.”

Individual development plan example for career

Think of your Individual Development Plan (IDP) for your career as your personalized roadmap to success.

For instance, your career-focused IDP might include short-term goals like acquiring new skills through workshops or online courses. Long-term goals may revolve around taking on challenging projects to showcase your capabilities and climbing the professional ladder.

An individual development plan is a lot like a product roadmap, except with your career goals instead of new features. This simple timeline template is a good way to work through the order you’ll need to accomplish action items in and set target deadlines.

It’s also useful for visual thinkers to see a simplistic overview of their trajectory on one page. You can detail each goal or step in subsequent pages.

Using a 30, 60, and 90 day timeline is an effective way to break down large goals into achievable steps per quarter. This can also work as a one-page quarterly plan — just add an extra column — or a multi-year plan.

This template serves as a compact yet detailed action plan that’s perfect for goal tracking in your individual development plan.

Individual development plan examples for managers

Often, an IDP has a big goal in mind, like being the head of a division or something else several steps ahead of you. In order to get there, you need to break it down into smaller goals along the way.

Growing into a C-suite position could mean first managing an important project, then a small team, and then a larger team, and so on. By visually planning the smaller goals along the way, you (or your employee) have realistic expectations of what’s needed to get to the ultimate goal and a focused approach to get there.

This multi-page template is highly flexible so every page of your IDP will look professional and on-brand. Easily add tables, lists, and more to the content pages as needed to create a detailed and aesthetic development plan.

While this is set up as an orientation plan, you could easily customize it as an individual development plan.

If you like a quarterly planning approach, this template is helpful to detail the action steps you need to take for the rest of the year.

Individual development plan example for government employees

Feeling like your career in a government agency could use a refresh? Individual Development Plans (IDPs) can be a helpful tool for that.

IDPs are a great way to take ownership of your career development, gain valuable skills and contribute even more effectively to your government organization’s mission.

For example, as a government healthcare worker, your IDP might involve specific activities like attending relevant workshops, seeking mentorship from experienced colleagues or even shadowing other professionals in your field.

Here’s what it might look like:

Individual development plan examples for IT professionals

Individual Development Plans (IDPs) can be a valuable tool for IT professionals to navigate the ever-changing tech landscape.

When drafting your IT individual development plan, try to find out beforehand if your company offers internal training programs, tuition reimbursement or professional development opportunities.

You could also consider attending industry conferences, workshops and webinars to stay up-to-date on the latest trends and technologies.

Too much to take in? That’s exactly why you need an IDP – It helps you map out goals and the steps to reach them. Check out this quick development plan template to discuss with your manager or colleague.

Any of the templates above can be your starting point for creating your organization’s IDP template, or choose from all our  business templates . Some templates are available only to our paid subscribers, but all the options above are free for everyone to use.

Starting with a template saves time and ensures your finished IDP looks polished and professional. It’s easy to customize any of these with our free online editor in just a few clicks.

Step 1: Sign up for a free Venngage account

All you need is an email address to  sign up for a free Venngage account .

No free trials, credit card numbers, or any of that. You can edit any of our free templates with your free account… for  free , okay?

Step 2: Choose an individual development plan template to customize

Pick one of the templates mentioned above or browse our full database of  Human Resources templates , including  letters ,  plans ,  presentations , and more.

Step 3: Edit the template for your IDP

Once you’ve picked a template, the fun part begins: Making it your own. Click  Create  on any template to enter the editor where you can change colors, text, graphics, and more.

I’m using this IDP checklist template as an example:

I like to match a new template to my brand first as this saves a lot of time if you want to duplicate the page to add more content later.

Our Business and Premium subscriptions offer  My Brand Kit  to store your colors, fonts, and logos for easy template customization anywhere for your entire team. But no worries for our free account holders: Editing is just as easy.

Click on any text area or graphic to edit it. Type new text, or use the top menu to change color, font, size, spacing, and more.

You can replace existing graphics with one of our  3 million+ free stock photos , over 40,000 illustrations and icons, or upload your own.

Explore the left side menu to add a background or a new layout, like a graph or table. You can also click and drag objects around the page to your liking. Use the right side menu to duplicate the current page or add a new blank one to your document.

Step 4: Share or save your new IDP

Once you’re happy with your new individual development plan template, click on the  Share  icon or  Download  button to save it to your computer (Business or Premium accounts).

So easy, right?

What are good IDP goals?

There aren’t “good” or “bad” goals as each IDP is as unique as the individual it’s for. However, effective IDP goals have a few things in common, like being:

• Related to the employee’s career path.
• Achievable in the specified timeframe. (You can list out big goals but ensure the action steps to start with are reasonable to accomplish, or at least start, within the next year.)
• Collaboratively planned between manager and employee, with both having input.

If your employee wants to lead their department one day but hasn’t managed anyone before, some good IDP goals to set for the upcoming year could be:

• Taking a leadership course or program from a nearby or online business school.
• Leading a big project, including supervising their peers and providing feedback.
• Finding a leadership mentor within the company and regularly checking in with them.

How can I support my employee’s IDP goals?

This depends what your employee’s goals are, but a few general ideas are to:

• Offer time to try new roles and responsibilities to learn new skills.
• Reimburse or partially cover courses, seminars, and other educational tools.
• Encourage your employee to start a side hustle or passion project to learn from.
• Offer professional development days, separate from vacation time.
• Create a mentorship program to connect junior and senior staff.

Unsure what would be most effective? Ask your employees what would help them the most, and check our guide to employee development for more ideas .

What should I put for areas of improvement?

Individual development plans encourage and motivate your employees to achieve their dreams. However, as their manager, you may have some insights they don’t about skills they’re lacking to get them to the next step.

It’s best to bring these up during the planning meeting, so your employee can hear why you think these skills are important and how you’d suggest working on them. Together you can add action items to address them in the IDP.

It’s key to frame these developing areas in a positive and constructive light. You don’t want your employee to feel like they’re doing badly at these things, or their job. After all, no one’s perfect! Be open and honest and chances are, they’ll be grateful for the feedback and eager to improve the skills you’ve identified.

Create a professional IDP today with a customizable Venngage template

Whether you’re preparing for an employee’s annual review or creating an individual development plan for yourself, we’ve got the free templates you need to knock it out of the park.

Get started now and have your new IDP finished by the end of the hour. While you’re at it, why not also create a branded  offer letter  or  onboarding guide ?

For everything in your business, we’ve got a template for that.

Personal Development Plan Sample

A personal development plan is a process that individuals use to reflect on their own learning, performance and/or achievement. It is a way to document and track progress over time, and can be used as a tool to identify areas of strength and areas needing improvement. Individuals can use personal development plans to set goals and identify action steps for achieving those goals. They can also be used to reflect on past experiences and learn from them. Personal development plans can be created for any area of life, such as personal, professional, or academic.

Personal development plan sample

File types: PDF (47.7 KB), DOC (110.5 KB) Number of pages: 2

Personal / professional development plan template

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Personal development plan template

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Individual development plan document

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Career development plan form (Delaware)

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Career development sample

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File types: PDF (76.2 KB), DOC (81.3 KB) Number of pages: 2

Personal development plan

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Personal Development Plan Template

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Personal development plan (PDP) template

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EXAMPLE personal development plan

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Website development agreement template

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Database software development agreement template

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Development plan of an organization

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36 Personal Development Goals Examples for Work and Life

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If you’re like many other people, you probably make a resolution or two at the beginning of each year to try to improve yourself in some way– get a promotion , start a family, get in shape–things of that nature. And if you’re like many other people, that resolution probably becomes history by January 15th.

However, this common focus on self-improvement derives from our desire to be in the driver’s seat of our own lives and be successful in all of our endeavors.

And it’s true that focusing on continuous personal development will greatly improve your chances of being successful in every area of your life, however, simply having any type of goal will not do you any favors unless you follow through by acting on it.

Having clearly defined personal development goals ( as opposed to only having resolutions ) is a great way to start improving your performance in any area of your life, yet the benefit that you derive from it depends on the effort you put forth in achieving it.

I know that once I stopped making vague intentions (lose weight, save money, spend more time with the family), and started to make specific and actionable personal goals, not only did I start achieving my goals and noticing improvements in my life, I also realized the importance of tracking my progress and measuring my success to keep myself motivated to consistently better my life.

In this post, I am going to give you 36 examples of personal development goals both for your career and personal life that will help you cultivate widespread success.

If you'd like a few resources that can teach you all the skills on this page, then I recommend checking out these platforms to learn any skill.

• Masterclass (You can read the review of it here .)
• Skillshare (You can read the review of it here .)
• Udemy (You can read the review of it here .)
• Coursera (You can read the review of it here .)

Let’s get started.

Table of Contents

What are Personal Development Goals?

Personal development goals are those that are made in an effort to improve your outcomes and overall experience in life. 

A personal goal can be any milestone related to improving yourself through skill acquisition , character building experiences, interacting with other people, improving your perception of yourself and your abilities, or how you envision the possibilities for your future.

The purpose of having personal development goals is to continuously create a better life for yourself.

These life goals impact you in both tangible and intangible ways. While some personal development goals may relate to improving your ability to be patient with other people, others may have to do with advancing your education in some way.

Some of your personal development goals may clearly fall into a “personal” or “professional” category, however, many can easily overlap into both categories because ultimately, who you innately are as a person remains the same whether you’re at work or at home.

Your “soft” skills –such as your ability to motivate yourself and your capacity to feel empathy toward others–will help improve all areas of your life.

Now that we've defined personal goals, let's talk about the specific ones you can work on developing to improve your life.

Personal Development Goals Related to Your Career

1. build and improve professional relationships.

You spend a lot of time with your colleagues, so it is important to build good relationships with them. After all, team cohesion relies on mature working relationships, as people typically work better together if there’s a personal element to their relationship .

Having positive professional relationships can lay the foundation for your ultimate success. Because each person’s role in your organization either directly or indirectly affects your performance, it’s important for you to nourish these working relationships so you can work in harmony with others.

To improve your professional relationships, help other members of the team whenever you can, and engage in open and honest communication with your colleagues. (And if you're not an effective communicator, these 11 strategies can help improve your communication skills .)

Doing so will help you build trust and strengthen your relationship with the people at work, which will make your professional life much more enjoyable.

While it is also important to develop positive relationships with people in your field who work with different organizations (which we will address later), don’t neglect those who are on your own turf.

How to Achieve This Goal

To build and improve your professional relationships, you will need to practice good workplace habits . Not only will this help you develop better relationships with your colleagues, it will also help increase your level of work satisfaction. Be sure to welcome diversity , both in cultures and ideas, by listening to what others have to say in your workplace.

Factor various insights into your decision-making processes and recognize that you can learn something from everyone . If the people you work with can see that you value them and what they bring to the table, you will be more likely to have a good relationship with them.

2. Improve Your Time Management Skills

Throughout your professional career, you’ll face deadlines and competing tasks that fight for your attention every day. As your workload increases, it may seem impossible to be able to get everything accomplished.

In these instances, your ability to manage your time will be tested. Having effective time management skills will help increase your productivity and efficiency, decrease your stress , and  allow you to have more time to dedicate to other endeavors .

Make sure that you’re keeping track of how you spend your time if you feel like time management is an issue for you ( this app can help you do this).

Schedule a specific amount of time for every item on your to-do list and don’t allow interruptions during these times. This will help you be more efficient, and once you get the hang of working this way, it will become second nature.

Now, if you'd like to discover additional resources related to time management and productivity, then I recommend checking out the other articles we've published on this site:

• The Eisenhower Matrix: How to Use 4 Quadrants to Make Important vs. Urgent Decisions in Your Life
• The 80/20 Rule: How to Apply This Principle to All Areas of Your Life
• The Pomodoro Technique: How to Manage Your Time in 25-Minute Blocks
• 27 Best Books on Productivity and Time Management
• The Rock, Pebbles, and Sand Story About Time Management

We’ve provided you with the tools you need to improve your time management, but having these tools without having the skills to properly use them doesn’t quite cut it.

Think of it like this: you could have the highest quality set of knives and most innovative oven on the market, but if you don’t know how to cook, those tools won’t automatically make you a master chef.

So what underlying skills do you need in order to effectively manage your time? Research shows that there are three skills in particular that will make your time management efforts successful, including:

• Being aware that time is a limited resource and being realistic with how long it takes to accomplish a task
• Having the ability to organize your daily tasks, schedule, and goals in a sensical way
• Being able to monitor the use of your time on an ongoing basis and adapt to changing priorities as needed

With this in mind, take these steps to improve upon these three skills:

• Time yourself at work for every task you do for about a week. Keeping track of how you spend your time can be a huge eye-opener.
• Put your most important tasks at the beginning of your daily schedule and fill in the rest like Tetris. If you have a really short break somewhere, throw that 5 minute task right there into your schedule.
• Have a backup plan in case your day gets a little jumbled… which it often will.

3. Improve Your Emotional Intelligence

When emotional intelligence (EQ) first hit people’s radars, it was the answer to a puzzling question: How do people with mid-range IQs outperform those with the highest IQs almost three-quarters of the time?

People originally thought that one’s IQ was a direct indicator of their success. However, decades of research uncovered that a high EQ is an element that brings star performers to the top.

This means that your EQ has a huge impact on your professional success. When you have a high EQ, you are better equipped to understand your own feelings and the feelings of others, which helps you relate to people.

Not only does this improve your communication skills, but it also gives you the social competence that’s needed to understand other people’s emotions, behaviors, and motives so you can respond appropriately and successfully manage your personal interactions.

One interesting thing about people with a high EQ is that they have a large emotional vocabulary. While everyone experiences emotions, very few can accurately identify them as they happen, which becomes a problem because unidentified emotions are easily misinterpreted, leading to irrational decisions and ineffective actions.

However, those who have high EQs can understand their emotions, and they have a large vocabulary of “feeling words” to do this. So, while others may say they feel bad, a person with a high EQ would be able to identify if they’re frustrated, hurt, overwhelmed, etc.

The more clearly you can define your emotion, the more insight you have into what caused your feelings and how you can address them.

To learn more about this topic, here is a seven-step process on how to improve your emotional intelligence.

Additionally, having a good sense of self-awareness is the most important component to being able to develop a high EQ. With a high level of self-awareness, it will be easier for you to recognize how other people perceive you and adapt to social situations as needed.

One effective way to increase your self-awareness is to keep a mindfulness journal , which will help get you in the habit of living in the moment and being aware of yourself and your surroundings.

4. Define Your Own Success

You don’t have to abide by everyone else’s definition of success . You can define what being successful and happy mean to you , which will help you clarify what you need to do to achieve it.

Once you dig deep to uncover your values and purpose and career aspirations , you will recognize that if you try to chase everyone else's idea of what success is, you won’t achieve it. ( Discover your core values with the help of these core value quizzes. )

In doing this, you have to make it a point to not compare yourself to other people . The things that you see other people have don’t define or impact your success. You’re the only one who can decide if you have achieved your goals thus far.

And if you want to be more successful, here are 12 rules to live by.

There isn’t one universal definition of being successful. To define your own success, you need to observe and recognize the characteristics that make you unique from everyone else in the world and celebrate them. The Huffington Post offers three steps to defining your success:

• Figure out what makes you, YOU. What makes you unique? One way to reflect on this is to write your personal mission statement .
• Remove your limiting beliefs and open yourself up to taking risks and reaping the rewards.
• Keep doing whatever you have to do to help you be your best self. This involves practicing self-care , increasing your love for yourself (and here are some more tips for loving yourself more ), and living an authentic life to your true self .

5. Find New Challenges

Finding new challenges in your current position will help keep your job interesting and fulfilling.

This personal development goal shows your ambition and can be especially helpful for your organization if they’re frequently coming up with new ideas that are never acted on or no one supervises to ensure any type of follow-through.

Finding new challenges could be as easy as revising that employee handbook that hasn’t been touched since 2005, or as complex as proposing and creating a prototype for a new product.

Finding new challenges for yourself will also help you show your leadership abilities and could lead to further progress within your organization.

If you need a jumpstart, here are 129 30-day challenges you can use to improve your personal and professional life.

The first thing you need to do to find new challenges is to take the initiative to talk to your boss about your current responsibilities.

Inquire about other projects you can get involved with and try to provide a fresh perspective on issues as they arise. Doing so could lead to job advancement in the future, which will certainly offer new challenges.

Secondly, find new challenges by focusing on yourself rather than constantly trying to impress your employer . If you are always in the mindset that you’re working for someone else, you may become bored and lazy with your work.

Remember that your work reflects on you , not just your employer, and when you think of your work as being for yourself , you’re more likely to challenge yourself to continuously improve .

6. Don’t Be Passive

Passive behavior occurs when you put other people’s preferences or needs ahead of your own. While sometimes this is necessary to build relationships, it can become a problem if you are consistently passive in a way that allows it to become a barrier to your success.

If you like to avoid conflict, you probably tend to be passive. If you simply allow things to happen without standing up for yourself or offering a logical argument in return, others will see this and start taking advantage of your willingness to please.

In doing so, you may accept an offer that would be unacceptable by other people’s standards, which could negatively impact your performance and even your organization.

While being passive in the short-term may make you feel good because you are getting other people’s approval, it is damaging in the long-run because it will require you to make larger sacrifices to maintain these relationships.

If you want to take a more active approach in your career, start by writing your career goal statement . This will give you a clearer vision of the professional life you want and how to achieve it.

Also, you can avoid being passive by communicating directly with people ( don’t be shy! ) and being genuine when you’re talking about how you feel about things. You can certainly be assertive without being aggressive by being clear and straightforward with people.

7. Develop a Growth Mindset

People who have a growth mindset believe that they can continue to develop their talents throughout life.

These people are often able to achieve more than those with a fixed mindset, who believe that they were born with their abilities already set into place and therefore don’t invest time or energy into learning new skills.

People with a growth mindset are continuously aiming to better themselves, and are therefore able to break away from complacency and achieve their goals.

Watch the video below for a quick overview of growth mindset, how it can help you and the 11 actionable strategies you can use to develop it.

In a professional environment, people who have a growth mindset often share information, collaborate well with others, look for feedback, strive for innovation, and are able to admit their mistakes.

On the other hand, those with a fixed mindset are less likely to take risks for fear of failure or embarrassment. They don’t look forward to the potential learning opportunities from trying new things because they think they were born with the maximum amount of talent they will ever have.

Those with a fixed mindset can develop a growth mindset by embracing imperfection and altering their viewpoint on challenges. This is advantageous in the workplace because it offers a greater opportunity to become successful.

If you'd like to develop this quality, there are many resources out there that can help you. First, here are 7 exercises that can help you develop a growth mindset , and h ere are 27 habits you can adopt to support you on this journey as well.

By cultivating self-awareness, seeking out learning opportunities and challenges, and being mindful about valuing the process of everything that you do rather than just the end result, you can stop your limiting beliefs that your talent and abilities are finite.

Additionally, h ere are 20 growth mindset examples that will help you fully understand the importance of having this trait, which can help motivate you to make a genuine effort toward adopting it. You can also check out these growth mindset journal prompts if you're already journaling.

Finally, check out these growth and fixed mindset quotes to encourage you to continue to learn throughout your life. And–if you have children–you can get them started on the right track by teaching them how to develop a growth mindset .

8. Grow Your Network

People do business with others whom they know and trust. And the truth is, “companies” don’t make business decisions, people do. Having a strong professional network can help you advance in your career in ways that you would not be able to do alone.

Not only can networking lead to connections with people who can help you enhance your expertise and knowledge, it can also help you stay on top of potential opportunities for advancement in your career.

In order to grow your network, you need to be willing to put yourself out there in new situations, which may feel uncomfortable at first.

However, once you do it a few times, not only will you get used to it, but you will start running into the same people multiple times at networking events, which will help you strengthen your network as it grows.

Actively look up networking events in your area and GO. Even if you have to bring a co-worker so there is someone there you know, GO.

You can also grow your network through social media , however, having that personal face-to-face time is invaluable when you’re trying to learn about someone and really attempting to make a valuable connection.

Read this post to learn how to create SMART goals that focus on networking.

9. Tweak Your Work Life Balance

Having a healthy work-life balance is an important part of living a happy life . Not only will taking sufficient breaks from work have a positive effect on your wellbeing, but it will also influence your productivity by improving your performance while you’re working.

Create boundaries between your professional and your personal lives that are strong, yet realistic.

To you, this may mean sticking to an 8-hour work-day, or it could mean leaving work at work and leaving home at home (i.e. not checking your work email while having dinner with your family).

Having a healthy work-life balance will help you maintain your professional motivation and allow you to work smarter , not harder .

One of the first steps to achieving this goal is to work efficiently while you’re at work so it doesn’t have to spill over into your personal life. Here are 26 smart hacks to help increase your work productivity.

It’s also smart to go into each week with a plan so you don’t end up wasting time wondering what you should do next–or feeling so overwhelmed that you just sit there and do nothing. Here are 7 steps to help you plan out your week so you can stay focused.

10. Improve Upon Your Weaknesses

Make your biggest weakness into your biggest strengths by being aware of areas in which you can improve and focusing directly on them.

Being able to recognize your weaknesses shows self-awareness and strength in your character. But what do you tell potential employers when they ask about your weaknesses? Do you tell them the solid steps you’re taking to improve upon them?

You won’t improve without accepting that your skillset isn’t perfect and then creating a strategic plan for improvement. ( A personal development plan template can help you! )

If you can take concrete steps to turn your weaknesses around, not only will you be a role model for other professionals, you will also be engaging in self-improvement.

This is not to say that your biggest weakness has to turn into your biggest strength, but being aware of the areas in your work where you have room for improvement and trying to bridge that gap is a constructive personal development goal.

First, practice some activities in self-awareness so you can gain this important characteristic, such as:

• Asking yourself “Why?” three times
• Label your emotions
• Go for a walk
• Keep a journal

Secondly, it is important to get guidance from someone you trust . In doing so, you may be able to learn about some weaknesses that you have but may not have noticed.

And for some things? You really just need to get good enough . It’s alright if you’re never an expert at every task involved in your company–but some tasks are important enough to gain minimal competence, just so you can understand the comprehensive work of your company.

For example, let’s say you’re an internet entrepreneur…but you have very few technology skills.

You can trust your employees to take care of the technology piece, but you’ll still want to learn just enough so you can tell if they’re doing their jobs as they’re supposed to and you know if your expectations for their outcomes are realistic.

11. Pursue Ongoing Professional Development

This is another personal development goal that will keep you on top of your game at work.

Employers are often reluctant to invest the money in sending their employees to seminars or conferences, but engaging in professional development will help you maintain your competence in your field and excel when faced with the competition .

This continuing professional development can take the form of listening to the best business podcasts and reading the best business books .

Ensuring that your professional skills remain up-to-date in our rapidly changing world is critical to your long-term success . Think of your five-year plan .

Your education certainly doesn’t stop with your diploma, and staying abreast of changing trends in your industry will help you be an in-demand candidate for prospective future employers.

You can engage in continuous learning on your own by seeking out opportunities for webinars and new research and things of that nature.

You can also look for senior executives at your job whose job may be your goal to obtain one day and ask if you can spend some time shadowing them to learn what they do on an everyday basis.

But if you want to be able to attend and participate in more intensive trainings, you may need to learn how to ask your boss how your company can fit that into their budget.

And to convince anyone of this you have to have a strong argument as to why or how your attendance at this conference will benefit the entire company and what kind of knowledge you can bring back from it.

So do your research first and approach your boss with a strong argument in mind as to how spending this money will benefit the company.

12. Learn How to Motivate Others

If you want to be a leader in your industry, it is important to know how to motivate your team members. Otherwise, your organization will go through periods of struggle with productivity and overall morale.

If you aren’t in a leadership position, you can still look for opportunities to bring to your leaders’ attention that address motivation if you feel that this is an obstacle in your workplace.

If you are able to enhance the motivation of your team or have a positive impact on the work ethic of the employees, you will be helping to maximize the effectiveness of your organization.

Here are 9 ways you can motivate others. Part of doing this is to challenge people and be encouraging when they start to make progress .

You want to set others up to be in a position where they’re ultimately motivating themselves, and sometimes this requires prompting them to do some self-reflection as to why they are doing the job that they’ve chosen and what they’re ultimately working toward.

And if they’re still not quite sure, try to get the person to create a vision for their future so they can have a more clear picture of what they want out of life.

You can teach them about making vision boards to help them think about their future or add some inspiration to their current work as they make connections to where it may be taking them for the future.

Personal Development Goals for Self-Growth

13. enjoy life more by taking it less seriously.

A lot of people fail to keep the bigger picture in mind on an everyday basis. The majority of us are fortunate to have been born healthy and into families that could provide us with our basic needs. However, many still get caught up in the small things that happen and completely forget about how well-off they are.

Think about someone you know who earns a large salary, but still gets mad at small inconveniences. Taking life less seriously will help you be happier, reduce stress, and make you a more enjoyable person for other people to be around.

If you’re able to move past the small and insignificant things that happen, you will get more enjoyment out of life. Laugh at unexpected inconveniences, laugh at yourself when you make a mistake , and laugh because it will reduce the amount of stress that you’re putting on your body.

“Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.” — Elbert Hubbard

There are several things you can do to take life less seriously. Practicing gratitude is a great place to start since it will help you focus on the good things in your life. This will also help you m aintain a positive attitude in the face of adversity.

Try to let go of any stress, worry, or anger so you can live in a more relaxed state of mind. Be mindful of the stress in your life and do your best to rise above it. As you know, there a lot of things in life that you have no control over.

Align yourself to a brighter and lighter version of you by adding humor to your life , learning to be comfortable with feeling vulnerable, and spending more time enjoying life.

14. Engage in Self-Care

You can’t be an effective partner, mother, cousin, or friend to anyone if you don’t take care of yourself first. Too often, people fail to take care of their own basic needs, either because they’re too busy or they’re not making it a primary concern.

Learning how to engage in proper self-care and making it a priority in your everyday life will greatly improve your life and the lives of the people with whom you interact. You can’t take care of anything else in your life to the best of your ability until you take care of yourself.

Check out 274 self-care ideas here . Some of my personal favorites that I feel apply universally are:

• Find a creative hobby that you enjoy
• Write in a journal
• Reward yourself when you do something positive
• Spend time drawing in an adult coloring book
• Declutter your living space
• Learn vital self management skills

15. Be Proactive

Things will go wrong in life–it’s inevitable. These negative situations can either have a large impact on your life, or they could be a bit inconvenient. This all depends on whether you’re pro active or re active .

If you always wait to react to problems until after they have already presented themselves, it expands the associated challenges and adds additional stress to your life.

On the other hand, if you’re proactive, it will minimize the issue and give you more stability because you will be facing a challenge that you were prepared for. It’s easier to remain relatively undisturbed if you’re proactive because you’ll always feel like you’re in control of your circumstances.

Being proactive is about being a good problem solver and being solution-focused. It’s about not wasting time and getting things done ahead of time by anticipating issues that may arise or being ahead of the game when it comes to an emerging trend in your industry.

Surround yourself with other people who are driven to increase your probability for success.  You cannot have people around you who drag you down and expect to keep the motivation to be proactive, rather you need to associate with like-minded people who also want to stay ahead.

Doing so will also keep you abreast of new research or best practices in your field because you will be able to learn from the people you’re around, and they will be able to learn from you.

16. Practice Patience

It can be tough to be patient, especially if you tend to be short-tempered. However, this is something that can be managed with practice.

It’s beneficial to maintain your patience during times of despair because it will help you keep a calm state of mind, which will allow you to effectively problem-solve without being impacted by frustration.

Also, having continuous patience will help you make decisions that will be beneficial for you in the long term because you won’t rush yourself into making decisions that will suit your needs for instant gratification.

One way to ensure that you are practicing patience is to stop to think critically before making any decisions . Taking the time to do this will help you avoid having to re-do work, make corrections, or do something that you later regret.

Here are some concrete steps you can take to become more patient. A big part of practicing how to be patient is exactly that– practicing .

I know this may sound like a unique thing to work on because it’s not really tangible–you’re not practicing how to play the piano or practicing perfecting a perfect recipe of some sort. However, practicing patience is not as passive as it sounds.

You can practice by focusing on your breathing, finding the silver lining in the extra time that you’ve been given while you’re waiting for something, and learning to battle feelings of anger and frustration that really are the negative aspect of being impatient.

Looking for some inspiration? Here's a collection of our favorites quotes about patience .

17. Say “Goodbye” to Toxic People

Do you have negative people in your life who drain you of your energy and confidence? Or, can you think of some people who are constantly complaining or judging others in some way?

These people are known as being “toxic” and you should avoid having them in your life as much as you can .

Toxic people will hold you back from achieving your goals. Because putting an end to any relationship is difficult, and you may not want to completely cut ties with a friend from childhood (for example), you can make a concerted effort to spend a minimal amount of time with them rather than completely cutting them off if you feel that would be more appropriate.

Instead, surround yourself with uplifting people who will inspire you and support you in being the best version of yourself . Spending your time with like-minded people will make it easier for you to achieve your ultimate goals in life.

Don’t sit around waiting for toxic people in your life to change. Rather, establish boundaries and maintain them by being comfortable with saying “no” to them . Don’t allow yourself to be pulled into someone else’s crisis just because they’ve been in your life for a long time.

Sometimes it’s ok (and necessary) to let go of the past and old relationships and move on with your life rather than holding onto them because the person has been a friend since childhood.

People grow in different directions and while you may be able to have a mutually beneficial relationship with someone at one point in your life, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the relationship should last forever.

Keep in mind that toxic people have a tendency to keep coming back into your life if you let them, so once you decide a relationship of any kind is over, make sure to be firm with that decision.    

18. Accept Your Reality

You may feel like you know yourself, but have you accepted yourself and your life? Have you settled for “less than” what you hoped? Failing to connect with reality may keep you stuck in jobs, relationships, or even living situations that are just not right for you.

You will always be a work in progress and it is perfectly acceptable for you to make mistakes, but in order to make some sort of progression in your life, it is important to accept your reality if you're not living your dream.

Accepting your reality is one of the best things you can do for your future. Even if your current situation is awful, the first step to making positive changes is acknowledging and accepting it in its current state and then identifying the specific things you can do to improve it. Otherwise, you will remain unhappily complacent.

Dealing with the bad stuff takes a lot of practice, but you have to do it in order to make it to the good things.

To accept your reality, you have to own responsibility for your mistakes and acknowledge any role you played in getting to where you are today, whether it’s good or bad. What have you done in the past to foster success? What about failure?

You don’t have to beat yourself up about your past mistakes, just look for lessons in them . And make sure to give yourself credit wherever it’s due.

Accepting your reality means accepting all of it–starting with your competencies. Focus on your positive characteristics because even if you aren’t where you want to be right now, you’re sure to have done some good things that have put you ahead of where you could be.

19. Don’t Let Your Past Define Your Future

A lot of us have a terrible past, and you may believe that your goals are out of reach due to your undesirable history. Perhaps you’re discouraged, you feel unworthy, or you may even be embarrassed by your past.

But it doesn’t take too much research to find success story after success story of people who were able to overcome their past struggles and become very triumphant .

Don’t let your past be an obstacle to achieving the future that you dream of. Rather, commit to your goals and realize that change can occur at any point, and you have endless opportunities for transformation.

Sure, it can be hard to let go of the past, especially if you believe it makes up such a large part of your identity. However, it can be done.

If you’re trying to deal with negative emotions from a past trauma and you want to be heard or understood, you can talk about your experiences with people, but you also have to identify how those experiences are now causing emotions that are holding you back.

Once you identify your limiting emotions, you can think about what positive motivating factors you may have to help you move past those feelings.

Then, create new, positive experiences to replace the negative things that have happened in the past so you can reinvent yourself and live a happy and fulfilling life.

20. Let Go of Your Limiting Beliefs

Holding onto limiting beliefs will delay your progression because you will be stuck inside of your comfort zone, unwilling to try new things or take any risks.

While you may have a fear of failure or you are scared you’re going to get hurt in the process of working toward your goals , these thoughts cannot mark the end of the road to your success.

You could have limiting beliefs about a variety of things, ranging from finances to relationships to your own abilities. The key is to identify the beliefs that are holding you back, overcome them, and replace them with positive thoughts that support your path to success.

To learn more, here is a step-by-step guide on how to identify and overcome your limiting beliefs . You will first need to overpower your limiting beliefs with empowering thoughts that can help you move past these roadblocks.

Do this by questioning your beliefs. Are you sure they’re true? Do you have any evidence or are you making an assumption? Are you thinking in “ all or nothing ” terms?

Being honest with yourself about your beliefs and thinking outside the box to find potential new solutions can help you realize that your beliefs probably started out as being ideas, then turned to opinions, then cemented themselves in your belief system.

It takes a lot of self-reflection and challenging your own thoughts to move past your limiting beliefs, but doing the work is worth the reward because whatever is holding you back has tangible consequences, whether it’s preventing you from pursuing the job of your dreams, keeping you in an abusive relationship, or anything in between.

21. Set Personal Boundaries

If you’re like me, you have a hard time saying no to people. You want to please those who come to you for help or who need you to do them a favor. However, it’s important to remember that you’re not an endless resource to be used by other people.

You have to know your limits so you have enough time and energy for the things that you need to accomplish. Once you know where your limits stand, set strict boundaries for others and stick to your guns.

This could mean boundaries in romantic relationships, with your family members, friends, or even in the workplace. Setting clear personal boundaries is an important part of ensuring that your relationships are mutually supportive and respectful.

If you have weak or undefined boundaries, you will be left vulnerable and others may take you for granted. However, with strong boundaries, you’re setting the limits for what’s acceptable behavior from the people with whom you associate.

Learn to recognize when the boundaries that you have set are being pushed and be direct about that.

With a strong sense of self-awareness, you will notice when your boundaries are being pushed because you will feel yourself becoming resentful toward the other person .

When this happens, if you have a proper sense of self-respect, you will not feel guilty about sticking to your boundaries.

If you want to learn how to set boundaries, you can start small. For example, let your friends and extended family know that you’re turning your phone on silent every night at 8pm and won’t look at it again until 6:30 the next morning–at the earliest.

This is a good first step to learning how to set boundaries with your time. A next step to consider may be to stop checking work emails when you’re at home. Work at whatever pace of progress feels right to you.

For more on this, here is a 7-step process for saying “no” to people and the requests for your time .

22. Become an Active Listener

We listen to people talk every day, so you would probably think that everyone is pretty good at it. However, this is not the case–in fact, research shows that we only remember about 25% of what we hear.

So when you’re talking to your boss, coworkers, family, and friends for, say, 20 minutes—and you’re speaking for 10 of those minutes–they will only remember 2.5 minutes of what you said. This also means that when someone is telling you something that’s important, you’re most likely going to miss parts of it.

Learning how to actively listen is a skill that pretty much everyone could benefit from. When you improve your listening skills, you can improve your productivity , your influence on others , and your negotiation and persuasion skills.

Also, part of being a great communicator is being a great listener. You give off a good impression to others when you lend them a listening ear, which helps you earn trust.

When you are actively listening, not only are you showing the speaker that you want to understand what they’re saying, you’re also offering empathy and support, which builds stronger relationships.

To improve your active listening skills , mimic the speaker’s body language and ask questions to make sure you’re understanding what they’re saying .

You don’t want to interrupt the person who is speaking, but nodding along in agreement and repeating back to them what you heard are effective ways to show the speaker that you are engaged in the conversation.

Also, maintain eye contact and ask clarifying or follow-up questions so they know that you’ve been paying attention to what they’ve been talking about. Try to have some empathy while you’re listening so you can feel what the speaker is trying to relay.

23. Learn to Let Go

Holding on to the past will prevent you from becoming the person that you want to be. But, letting go of things that have happened is much easier said than done.

In fact, I think we have all heard someone say at some point in our lives, “let it go” and, if you’re like me, it makes you even madder than you were before.

While it seems counterintuitive, Psychology Today reports that painful feelings can ultimately be comforting, especially if most of your past is painful, because these unpleasant emotions become part of your identity, making them nearly impossible to let go.

However, if you carry the negative things from your past around with you for the rest of your life, it will only act as a burden and ultimately hold you back from living a fulfilling life. Remember the lessons that you take away from your hardships, but let go of the emotional weight that you’re holding on to .

A large part of letting go involves learning how to forgive . This doesn’t mean that you have to forget what someone else has done to hurt you, it simply means that you will not allow their actions to have a negative impact on your future. 

Offering forgiveness is therapeutic when you’re trying to move past something, and if you share this forgiveness with the offender, it may motivate that person to seek moral growth, and improve themselves as a result of your forgiveness.

Aside from learning how to forgive, it’s important to always remember that the only thing you can control are your own actions and feelings .

Don’t waste your energy trying to dictate the paths of other people, and don’t worry about what other people’s opinions are of you. Just focus on being your best self and living the life that you want to live from start to finish.

24. Build Resilience

Even for those who are relatively self-aware, life’s challenges can come at a surprise. But learning how to move through these painful times in a healthy way can help people bounce  back more quickly–or at least start moving in a positive direction.

When you’re resilient, you are able to cope with adversity and adapt when a situation doesn’t go the way that you expected.

Having resilience is the difference between feeling powerless and being able to stand up to your problems with confidence and bravery. When you can recover quickly from a problem , you will come out on the other side a stronger person.

Having resilience is what helps you cope with whatever comes your way and just focus on what you can learn from the experience. 

This personal development goal can help you in any area of your life, as it will prevent you from becoming easily overwhelmed and allow you to use your strengths to recover from challenges.

Many people use journaling as a way to build resilience, as this exercise helps you explore your thoughts, stop ruminating on past experiences, and it gives your thoughts structure by organizing them on paper. This can help you gain a new perspective and a sense of control over your past.

Journaling can also help you find the silver lining in things as you have the opportunity to purposefully think of positive things that may have come out of an upsetting experience.

For example, if you got in a fight with your partner, it may have brought some significant issues to light , allowing you both to open up to each other’s points of  view. 

25. Wake Up 30 Minutes Earlier

Waking up early, energized, and with a purpose is a huge key to success .

The most successful people are known for waking up early and getting a strong start to their day. Because of this, a great personal goal that could really enhance your life in all domains is to start waking up earlier than  you’re used to.

Set your alarm to get up early –at least 30 minutes before usual. There are many benefits to being an early riser, such as giving yourself time to eat a healthy breakfast , get some exercise , or complete some productive work before other people are awake and the chaos of your day begins.

Waking up earlier than is necessary gives you quiet time to focus on anything that is important to you.

If you're aiming for waking up at 5A, watch teh video below to learn about the 7-step process for training your body and mind to wake up at that hour.

Studies have shown that people who wake up early tend to procrastinate less and get ahead of the game as opposed to their later-sleeping counterparts. So, if you want to get ahead, this is one simple change you can make that can give you a head start.

The first step to being able to wake up early is to make sure you’re going to bed at a reasonable time and getting a good night’s sleep .

If you try to go to bed at the same time every night, you will eventually start to wake up at the same time each morning, without needing an alarm clock.

If you need to, you can make this change gradually by starting to set your alarm 10 minutes earlier than usual, and then 20, and so on.

Once your body gets into this routine, you will become a natural early bird and wonder why other people waste so much time in the morning staying in bed or hitting the snooze button.

If you're having trouble with your morning routine in general, then this step-by-step resource can help .

Personal Development Goals for a Performance Review

26. improve operation processes.

While operations processes can look quite different depending upon the industry in which you work, the underlying concept is the same for all organizations of any size.

The operation process involves turning inputs (raw materials, information, labor, money, etc.) into outputs (products, services, customer satisfaction , etc.)

Companies that can figure out how to do this well end up with a competitive advantage. Because of this, every component of an operations process has to be closely monitored so management can determine if their team is working at an optimal level of performance.

Well-designed operations process goals can help teams stay informed of all necessary information, standard operating procedures, and training.

And, ultimately, when these processes are done well, they are what make an organization successful. If you’re at the helm of this, you’re on the right path toward professional success.

The best way to improve operation processes is to streamline them . Look at how your organization works and identify if there are any areas where you can improve efficiency. It’s important to not stay stuck in your old ways because that’s what has “always worked” before.

Technology and businesses are constantly evolving, meaning there are new methods and tools available to streamline operations to increase workers’ productivity .

Another thing you will want to keep in mind to improve business operations is to fix small problems before they become big ones. Some seemingly insignificant glitches in your system can turn into a setback that can end up wasting a lot of time and being expensive to fix.

So, make an effort to reduce any issue that you can identify within your organization. One way of doing this would be to create a new protocol guide for your team and then review its impact on a regular basis, tweaking the processes as needed.

Here are some specific examples of how a business can improve their operations processes.

27. Improve Clients’ Service Experiences

Goals related to clients’ service experiences with your organization involve greater engagement and client satisfaction.

These types of goals may involve elements such as creating more self-service online features on the organization’s website, reducing phone hold times, or improving the timeliness of client follow up.

This type of goal will be highly individualized based on your industry, but whether you are dealing with retail clients in a small business setting or your clients come in the form of the kindergarten students that you teach, you can always find a way to improve others’ experience when they’re on the receiving end of your organization’s services.

Here are a variety of ways to improve clients’ service experiences that can apply to a diverse group of industries.

But, in addition to this, it’s important to make sure that the employees are able to show that they truly care about their work and stand behind the company especially when they’re interacting with those receiving your services or buying your products.

To do this, you need to ensure employees have a sense of intrinsic motivation to do their job. When employees are intrinsically motivated to do their job, they will:

• Respect and enjoy the process of the work rather than simply receiving a paycheck
• Find pleasure in their everyday tasks
• Show a sense of enthusiasm for their work
• Seek opportunities to learn
• Welcome challenges
• Live up to their potential

For more information, read our examples of SMART goals for small business .

28. Improve Employee Morale

You don’t have to be in a leadership position to boost employee morale. When employees have a positive attitude about their environment at work and believe they can be successful in their job, employee morale naturally increases.

When working among other people, you can have an impact on the working environment and encourage a positive morale. For example, you can:

• Praise your fellow co-workers for their hard work or success
• Avoid using negative language or expressing complaints without offering a possible solution
• Do something as simple as keeping your office door open or putting a bowl of candy on your desk to make fellow employees feel welcomed when approaching you

The culture of an organization cannot be changed by just one person, however, without at least one person making an effort to improve employee morale, no changes will ever occur. Do your part in creating positive general norms in your workplace.

The most effective way to improve employee morale is to demonstrate it yourself. Your own positive attitude about your work will be contagious to everyone around you. Go out of your way to point positive aspects of your job out to other people– no matter how small they are.

For example, if the company buys a new Keurig for the breakroom, make the effort to point that out to someone in passing. Add as much positivity to your workplace as you can to negate any negative attitudes that tend to hang around there .

This video offers some more great ideas on how to improve employee morale.

29. Offer Solutions to Problems

Pointing out problems that are occurring within your organization time and time again gets exhausting for those who have to listen to you.

Instead, be proactive about coming up with solutions to challenges that arise before complaining about the problem in the first place.

For example, let’s say that you’re finding frequent mistakes in your coworkers’ reports and you’re having to spend time going back and fixing them.

If your method of attempting to deal with this problem involves complaining directly to your boss about your coworkers’ mistakes, you’re just going to sound like you’re whining or speaking poorly about others with whom you work.

There’s not much worse than sitting around wasting time talking about problems without planning on doing anything about them.

If you notice a problem at work, have an honest conversation with the offending coworkers about these mistakes, what can be done to improve their work, and what (if anything) you can do to help.

This way, when you do talk to your boss about the problem, you can report the action you’ve already taken to try to ameliorate the issue.

Don’t play the blame game , because remember, you’re a part of a team. This means that ultimately, everyone is responsible for the company’s success.

This video talks more about the importance of offering solutions rather than just problems.

30. Make Your Boss’s Job Easier

You were hired to make your boss (and their boss) successful. And the first step to making that happen is to understand exactly what is expected of you and how you should deliver on those expectations. Get to know your boss and his or her preferences so they don’t have to go back and correct your work.

In doing this, it’s important to maintain a sense of personal responsibility and stay accountable for your work . If you commit to something, make sure to follow through with it. By doing so, you’re letting your boss know that they can count on you.

One way that you can make your boss’s job easier is to stay ahead of your work. When you’re given a deadline, be sure to have your work completed at least one day in advance .

This will allow your boss to have some time to go over the work on their own schedule rather than waiting until the last minute when you finally turn it in.

Some other ways to make your boss’s life easier include:

• Learn how he/she operates, what they need from you, and how they want it done. Doing so will help you meet their expectations.
• Know your boss’s goals so you can help ensure they’re met.
• Be resourceful and respect your boss’s time. For example, if you have a question about health insurance, ask someone in HR. Save your time with your boss to talk about work-related issues that involve collaboration between the two of you–not questions that should be directed toward someone else.
• Stick to your promises. Better yet– under-promise and over-deliver.

Here are some more useful tips on how to make your boss’s job easier.

31. Expect Change

Being flexible and accepting of change is critical in today’s job market. In fact, it’s estimated that by 2030, the average person who is entering the workforce will have to learn entirely new job skills between eight and ten times before they retire.

As jobs evolve, the uncertainty regarding what skills will be needed in the future also changes, which makes it hard to be able to predict an organization’s future needs.

Because of this, it’s critical to be flexible and prepared to change paths at any moment. It’s important to be aware of the inevitable changes that are yet to come and the fact that the responsibility of keeping up with trends and new technology has shifted to workers rather than employers.

Being a lifelong learner allows for personal employability, which is important to focus on now since it will be a principal component of employment moving forward in this age of rapid automation.

Having a personal goal of continuous skill development will become increasingly important as some of the more traditional jobs become replaced by emerging technology.

Being successful in the future job market will be less about current knowledge and more about your willingness and capacity to learn and evolve while your role is potentially redefined .

This is where the importance of being able to easily adapt to waves of disruption is already extremely important. Furthermore, you need to stay on top of your skillset and always be on the lookout for anything new happening in your industry.

To “level up” your skills, we recommend three resources:

Finally, here are some growth strategies for being more flexible and adaptable in the workplace.

32. Be Resilient

Being resilient is important for a variety of reasons.

Being able to bounce back from adversity helps you develop the tools you need to protect yourself from overwhelming situations and it helps you stay balanced when times get tough. 

Resiliency can also help with the prevention of mental health issues down the line. 

Having resiliency and cognitive flexibility is also important for your short-term success at work. While some are born with a better ability to deal with unpredictable change than others, this skill can be learned .

And, through your learned resilience, you will be able to develop an internal toolset to help you manage stress and find ways to use your inner strength that you may not have even known you had during the times that you need it the most.

Resilience can be built up with time as you make your way through difficult experiences in life.

It’s beneficial to be able to develop the ability to determine when you can draw from a difficult life event and then be able to use that experience to your advantage during future stressful times.

You can work toward the goal of becoming more resilient by increasing your self-awareness , getting exercise, and switching up your normal routines.

Getting daily exercise encourages your body to release chemicals such as dopamine, opioids, serotonin, and endorphins that not only make you feel good, but also increase your ability to learn .

Also, adding some variety to your routine promotes cognitive flexibility because doing new things makes your brain have to quickly adapt to and work with new stimuli.

Here is some helpful information on the importance of having resilience in the workplace.

33. Develop Transdisciplinary Skills

This term is often used in school settings, but it also applies to your career performance . Having an understanding of your entire organization from various perspectives as well as understanding the synergy and alignment between all of the departments is becoming progressively important in businesses.

There are a few ways you can improve your transdisciplinary skills at work.

One would be to schedule coffee dates with people who work in other areas of the organization where you can talk about each of your responsibilities and how you contribute to the success of the business. Or, you could spend some time shadowing a coworker who has a different job title than you do.

Knowing more about how your company works as a whole can help you understand and appreciate how your efforts fit into that puzzle.

One thing you will recognize while you’re working on this goal is the four stages of learning . There is probably a lot that goes on in your company that you’re unaware of, which also means you’re unaware that there is even so much to learn.

But once you start talking with other people and getting to know how processes work in the business, you will likely uncover a huge gap in knowledge that you would have otherwise never realized you had.

Here are some good ways to learn about other areas of your organization , such as:

• Volunteering for projects
• Joining informal work clubs or groups (like a sports league)
• Researching about the history of your company

34. Improve Your People Management Skills

An important component to generating innovation in your workplace is being able to collaborate with your team .

Despite your assigned level of leadership within your organization, being proactive in leading by example in your willingness to be a team player and actuate progress in the people working with you is essential to the success of your team.

Therefore, being an influential employee who can manage people–even if it’s not done in an “official” manner–is a significant skill to have in today’s work environment.

Effective people management skills are necessary for both current and future leaders who want to improve efficiency and communication at work. Building the skills that are required in order to effectively manage others can help you uncover your strengths as well as find areas in which you could improve.

Here are a few examples of how you can practice your people management skills, even if you aren’t their designated manager:

• Have empathy for your coworkers during periods of conflict by imagining yourself in their shoes in order to assess how they may feel and consider what your behavior may look like if you were in their position
• Give your colleagues positive (and constructive negative) feedback
• Recognize your colleagues when they do work that’s beyond what is expected of them
• Encourage an inclusive work environment by involving everyone and allowing all team members to have the time and space to share their ideas and opinions
• Create an environment of cultural humility ( formerly known as cultural competence ) to improve communication, respect, and encourage collaboration

Here is a video that explains some more ways you can improve your people management skills.

35. Stay Informed and Teach Others About Emerging Communication Channels

Having clear channels of communication and creating a culture of welcomed feedback is a critical element of having a successful organization.

Innovative apps, social media avenues, and new methods of communication are steadily surfacing in today’s workplace–and many companies have started to reduce their overhead costs by having their employees work remotely if it isn’t necessary to maintain a large office space.

The increase in physical distancing among team members on an everyday basis that was trending even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated the use of new modes of communication, productivity apps , and video conference calls.

To stay ahead of the game, it’s essential to stay informed and literate with new communication tools and be a pioneer in educating your colleagues about which new technologies can increase (or decrease) the efficiency of your unique work .

Doing this will demonstrate your commitment to excellence to your employer.

Here are some actionable steps you can take to keep up with emerging channels of communication in the workplace:

• Do some research every two to three months on new communication channels available
• Outline the current productivity and communication tools your company uses and assess what’s working and what areas could use some improvement
• Present new options to your team if you believe there is a tool that could increase your communication or productivity
• Lead training sessions on any new tools that are implemented

To learn from those who are already successful in keeping up with these trends, here is how some top CIOs stay up-to-date with technology .

36. Be Confident in Your Decisions

It’s difficult to develop strong decision-making skills, but it’s essential to your performance in an organization. If you think about the thousands of decisions that you make every day , you can recognize their positive or negative consequences.

Having the skills that you need to increase the positive results you achieve is a fundamental part of being productive in your job.

Developing strong decision-making skills will offer you that chance to increase positive outcomes and decrease the consequences of your mistakes. However, there is a learning curve to gaining this skill– it takes time to learn from your mistakes so you can make better decisions in the future.

There are a few things that you can do to increase the confidence in the decisions that you make, such as:

• Limit your choices. Having too many options for any decision is overwhelming, so narrow them down as best as you can.
• Do a cost-benefit analysis (weigh the pros and cons) before coming to your final decision. This will help you uncover any potential opportunity costs that you may incur if you decide on one thing over another.
• Set a time limit for making a decision. This will prevent you from mulling over a decision for 10 hours that should take 10 minutes.
• Do as much research as you can before making a decision– including talking to other people who have some more experience than you do. For example, I recently had to purchase a new dryer so I called the company in my town who fixes appliances and asked them what machines they get called on the most and the least often to work on. That narrowed down my options really fast.

Here is a video with some more information to help you improve your decision making skills.

Final Thoughts on Personal Development Goals

Your brain and thinking methods both have an impact on every aspect of your life. The personal development goals discussed in this article are all dependent on your ability to retrain your brain to think (and therefore act) in new ways.

Your brain is flexible and can quickly adapt to reaching your new goals when you use the right approach and become more goal-oriented . Take a moment to think about your personal development goals and which of the aforementioned are the most important to you.

If you have had some other goals on your mind, how can you incorporate some of these personal development goals into your own to leverage your success?

Reaching one goal can easily open a door to work on another of its kind or help you recognize another area of improvement you may be able to work on in your life.

To tie things up, writing down your goals in the form of professional goal statements can help you stay focused on your purpose . For specific examples, check out these posts:

• 8 SMART Goals Examples for Your Nursing Career
• 9 SMART Goal Examples for Teachers
• 7 SMART Goals Examples for Administrative Assistants
• 15 Leadership SMART Goals Examples for Your Workplace

Finally, if you want to take your goal-setting efforts to the next level, check out this FREE printable worksheet and a step-by-step process that will help you set effective SMART goals .

Connie Mathers is a professional editor and freelance writer. She holds a Bachelor's Degree in Marketing and a Master’s Degree in Social Work. When she is not writing, Connie is either spending time with her daughter and two dogs, running, or working at her full-time job as a social worker in Richmond, VA.

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If there are such things as business plans and strategic plans a business can use to foster growth and expansion, for the individual, there is a personal development plan that would allow one to create an action plan for a person’s personal development sample .

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Creating a Personal Development Plan:

Step 1: define your goals, step 2: set a timeframe, step 3: swot analysis, step 4: develop new skills, step 5: action plan, step 6: measure progress, individual personal development plan.

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Personal Development Plan Basics:

• Personal development plan is important because it will provide you clarity on the things that you really want to do in your life.
• It defines why’s in your mind, and will allow you to set a goal for yourself.
• You will have something to look forward to in your everyday life if you start your day or week with a fixed plan in mind. There are many plan templates in Word document for you to edit and customize as you like.
• What you want to do with your life (includes long and short term goals)?
• Why do you want to do it?
• How will you do it to achieve it?
• A personal development plan follows a plan format that could be found in any of the plan templates.
• Create an outline first, with the help of some outline templates , as this can help you organize your document.
• You can also use tables that contain labels for strengths, weaknesses, potentials, and resolution (basically what you can do to improve your strengths).

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How to Create a Personal Development Plan?

• Be specific – So you will know which aspects in your life you want to be improved;
• Be easy to measure – For easier evaluation of the progress;
• Contain goals that are realistic – You would not want goals that are impossible to attain;
• Be time-bound – So you will have a specified time frame to follow in achieving those.
• Writing a mission statement that helps you evaluate your contributions to meet your goals.
• It is very crucial to determine both long-term and short term plans.
• Assessing and reassessing plans should be done to further help you create better decisions and develop appropriate responses to present developments.
• Taking action is the most integral part of personal development because this is the actual execution of your personal development plan. Therefore, do not forget to be committed to the plans you’ve created.

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Soft Skills

10 minute read

How to Design Your Own Professional Development Plan

Saikat Basu

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Alvin Tofler once said:

Tomorrow's illiterate will not be the man who can't read; he will be the man who has not learned how to learn.

He will also be unemployable. The author of Future Shock imagined how vital learning will become to the survival of the 21st Century professional.

Artificial intelligence will create more jobs than it will destroy, but it's always better to hedge your bets by staying on the path of continuous professional development. It's also worthwhile to design your own learning path and take ownership of your future . 

Thanks to the information-rich internet, it's an easier task than you could have imagined a decade before. But where should you start? In this article, we’ll explore how to design your own professional development plan.

Use our free professional development plan sample template to help guide you in mapping out your career goals and how to achieve them.

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1. Carry out a personal SWOT analysis

Companies tend to look at career development as one-size fits all. But your own learning goals can include skills that aren't a part of your job description. You can continue to add muscle to your strengths, and plug weaknesses. 

When you are undecided about your path, a personal SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis is a good starting point. This basic business tool can be turned into one for finding your blind spots. It can help you gauge where you are and where you could be. 

Tip: MindTools has a toolkit and worksheet that can help you know yourself better. Other sites like Template.net also carry free templates you can download.

2. Do a passive job hunt for skills in demand

A passive job seeker waits for employers to come knocking. But let’s tweak this definition a bit. Let’s say, you don’t want to leave your company but just want to find out the skills in your own industry. Job boards are a great way to check out the skills with increasing demand and benchmark yourself in the market.

You should look within your own company first because it’s an easier opportunity for a lateral movement, to network with peers, or just to find a mentor who will support your learning goals. 

Tip: LinkedIn is a good place to start. You can use the Salary Insights feature as a yardstick. Check endorsements of your peers to find gaps in your own skill sets. Premium features get you more personalized insights like your job rank and company hiring trends. 

3. Research learning paths

A professional development plan can be short term or have a longer horizon. Either way, you have to identify your learning needs and develop a roadmap. A structured course does the work for you. But what if you want to design your own learning? 

Spend as much time as it takes to research the learning path. In simple words, you must find the best material to learn from and structure it into a discrete step by step plan with schedules and feedback tests built in. 

You don’t have to find everything in one place. Use multiple resources like videos, textbooks, tutorials, and articles. Your personal curriculum shouldn’t deluge you but suggest the direction. 

Tip: Industry certifications often mention the things you need to study before the exam. Subreddits like Find a Path also work like recommendation sources.

4. Become an expert in an emerging technology

The 21st Century has seen a lot of technology disruptions. Every disruption is also a ripe opportunity to get ahead of the pack by quickly upskilling in that area .

You might want to learn web development , and focus specifically on a particular language that is skyrocketing in popularity and job listings, like Python. Or, you might focus on a set of complimentary skills that relate most to your ideal job.

It might be a niche, but subject-matter familiarity can help as your bosses might respect your initiative and make you the key person in a team.

Don’t wait for the disruption to arrive. To improve your binocular vision, attend conferences, read industry journals, and keep tabs on venture capitalist investments among other things. 

Tip: Get your hands on any publicly available training first. Follow key influencers on social networks like Twitter to understand the scope of the game changer. 

5. Enroll in the right courses

You have explored and narrowed down your criteria. Now, you want to support your personal development with some training. Online courses give you more flexibility and wider options than in-person training. But how can you be certain that this is the right course for you? 

Look at the course content and decide if it supports your learning goals and if it is up to date. 

Do due diligence on the platform — subject matter tutor, cost, and student feedback among other things. If it’s an accredited course, check the claim with the awarding body and industry feedback if any.

Tip: Take a free trial if it's available, or take a short free course first (maybe from the same instructor) and see if the topic and pedagogy suit you. 

6. Use the power of microlearning

The best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. It is the same with learning a new skill. Microlearning and the handiness of mobile apps allow you to learn on the go in the little snippets of time you have in the day. It’s not great for focused study, but microlearning can be a good tool for revision and practice. 

Is there a gamified app for your subject? Or can you find an on-demand course with short units? The good news is that companies are recognizing the benefits of microlearning and blending them into their enterprise LMS . 

Tip: You can use microlearning to support your learning path by taking in information in bite-sized chunks whenever you have time. GoSkills offers bite-sized courses as a microlearning option. Infographics and short modular tutorials are also well-suited for learning on the go. 

7. Promote your new skills

Putting your skills into practice will not only make you more visible but also work like a feedback loop. You can quickly correct what’s going wrong and save yourself a lot of time with your learning project. 

You can apply for roles that support your learning goals. For instance, you can volunteer to give a presentation and then use it to ask for advice from your audience. 

Remember, people won't know what skills you have unless you tell them. Add any certificates you've earned, skills you have gained, and volunteer experience to your LinkedIn profile, website and resume to make sure you're promoting your talents to those who need to know.

Tip: Want to know about a surefire way to cement your learning? Teach what you know. Find opportunities to teach others and you will not only fill the gaps in your own understanding but also look at the material in a new way. 

8. Keep a journal

A journaling habit can help you reflect on your learning experiences as you move from one topic to another. You can start by charting your learning roadmap and the competencies you need to acquire. This can be cross-referenced against the SWOT exercise you did in the first stage.

Then see how you fare and use that to spot any weaknesses. The checkmarks on the wins can serve as a motivational tool for your solo learning journey. 

Tip: You can even create a lightweight journal in Excel or Google Sheets . Search for journal templates online and then tailor them to your learning plans.

9. Seek a mentor

Where would Luke be without Yoda? We all wish for a Mr. Miyagi in our lives. The role of a mentor can help to clear the way through all the points mentioned above. 

Mentoring works best when it’s part of the company’s own developmental programs, but you should proactively seek someone out yourself. Look into your own network first. And don’t be afraid to ask. 

Tip: Look for a connection between your work and what they are doing right now. 

10. Forge a growth mindset

Taking responsibility for your own learning can fill you with doubts. Training a growth mindset is critical here because you should now learn to fall in love with learning, regardless of the outcome and the setbacks you might meet on the way.

Carol Dweck coined the term “Growth Mindset” and promoted it in her well-recommended book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success . She says:

[...] it’s not about immediate perfection. It’s about learning something over time: confronting a challenge and making progress.

People with growth mindsets also believe that interests aren’t inherent, but they can be developed. 

Tip: As she advises in her book, approach every problem as a challenge and think that you just haven’t solved it yet. 

Bonus tip: keep learning from your peers

Don’t forget that your peers are the daily touchpoints for incidental learning. They can help you gather more input for your professional development plans. 

Maybe, some of them are on the road just ahead of you. Maybe, those who haven’t started can be brought on to your “collaborative learning team” and that’s definitely more fun. 

Learn in-demand skills to future-proof your career

Alvin Tofler also said, “If you don't have a strategy, you're part of someone else's strategy.”

So, make time and move to the first step of your action plan today. 

GoSkills has an award-winning library of courses in subjects like Excel, project management, coding, lean six sigma and more to help you upskill and gain the right knowledge for your professional development plan.

Try GoSkills courses today for free and gain the skills you need to get to the next level of your career.

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Saikat is a writer who hunts for the latest tricks in Microsoft Office and web apps. He doesn't want to get off the learning curve, so a camera and a harmonica claim an equal share of his free time.

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Did you know you can make your dreams and aspirations a reality by focusing on your own individual  personal development plan ?

Your potential is limitless, and investing in personal development is a way to harness your many talents.

Establishing goals for what you want to achieve — where you would like to go in the short term or long term — can improve your personal development.

In this guide, I’ll help you understand what personal development means and its importance, what a  personal development plan  is and why you should make one, and how to write a personal development plan.

I’ll also share with you my personal development plan template to get you started on your path to reach your personal development goals, complete with helpful examples and resources to support you.

What Is a Personal Development Plan (PDP)?

A personal development plan is a guideline for your life and your future success.

Personal development is an ongoing process of improving oneself through conscious habits and activities. It is the pursuit of personal growth to enhance your quality of life and to achieve your dreams and aspirations.

When you create a plan, you start to define the kind of person you want to be, the skills you want to have, and the accomplishments you want to achieve. And then you map out your long-term and short-term goals to realize these aspirations and set timelines for when you want to reach them.

Many people underachieve in their careers because they do not realize the areas of personal development that can help achieve mastery in any field.

Effective leaders focus on continual self-improvement and know there is no substitute for hard work.

When you  practice self-discipline  by setting a goal, making a plan, and working on it every day, you will see personal development and progress within your career.

The Importance of Personal Development

Most of the time, what you think about is what you become. From the moment you wake up until the moment you close your eyes at the end of the day, everything you experience plays a factor in your development.

When you take greater control over your experiences, you can guide your personal development and accelerate toward what you want to become instead of leaving it to chance.

Setting, striving for, and meeting personal development goals opens up a world of new possibilities for you to increase your quality of life.

For example, as a result of creating and following your personal development plan, you may gain more responsibility for work and open up opportunities for higher pay. This growth could qualify you for a better career trajectory to increase your overall happiness, job satisfaction, and ability to provide for the life you want for you and your family.

Focusing on your personal development also gives you better decision-making abilities so you can avoid problems that may have plagued you in the past or are holding you back now.

At the end of the day, personal development helps you create more positivity and  harness the power of positive thoughts , which can transform your life.

When you give time to yourself by focusing on your professional and personal growth, you are better able to achieve  your version of success  because of personal development opportunities.

Personal Development vs Self-Improvement

Recognizing the difference between self-improvement and personal development can be a little tricky.

While they are similar in that they are both very instrumental in achieving your goals and improving yourself, there are key differences between a self-improvement plan and your own personal development plan.

Personal development is the work you are putting in to transform yourself on a daily basis. It’s the efforts you’re making to advance in your work, lifestyle, attitude, physique, and sociability.

Setting personal and professional development goals and creating a plan helps you take full advantage of any opportunity that may come your way and make the most of your potential.

Self-improvement is an inner transformation. It is a self-motivated study to improve one’s character, status, or knowledge by their own efforts.

Self-improvement is a lifelong process  of constantly searching for ways to change your habits so you can reach your fullest potential.

The specific efforts you put into personal development lead to self-improvement.

Start Achieving All of Your Goals Today! Download my FREE Personal Development Plan Template

The 7 Categories of Personal Development

Focusing on personal development categories such as personal skills, personal growth, and  personal power  can create habits for personal improvement.

Personal growth is founded on education and skill. Through education and experience, you increase your skill level and your ability to succeed in your field.

There are seven main categories of personal development.

Personal Skills

Personal skills can be ones you were born with as well as those you gain through deliberate practice. They’re often referred to as soft skills.

Examples of personal skills are decision-making, teamwork, organization, and communication.

If you’re looking to develop skills at work, try working on your personal skills. The highest-paid, top individuals in their field are the ones who focus on growing their personal skills.

Knowing what areas you excel in and which need development is very useful in your personal and professional life.

Personal Growth

Having a personal growth plan is one of the first steps toward bettering yourself and stepping out of your comfort zone.

Humans and the human mind are constantly evolving. Think about it: you are not the same person you were a year ago. You’ve learned more, grown in many different ways, and have experienced more life events to further shape your personality, beliefs, and world outlook.

To experience personal development and have a growth mindset, strive to be a better version of yourself today than you were yesterday.

Personal Power

Personal power is the authority others believe you to have in certain situations and is fueled by your contacts, knowledge, and financial status.

Developing an ever-widening circle of contacts, seeking to learn more, and growing financially increases the number of doors that others will leave open for you to step into.

Expanding your network, knowledge base and financial status will also allow you to help others do the same, further increasing your  personal power  and opportunities for personal development and growth.

Personal Improvement

Personal improvement stems from good work habits and having a positive mental attitude.

Thinking before you act is critical to developing a strong amount of personal improvement. To help you think first, try to set priorities on a list and consider the likely consequences before beginning.

Working on personal improvement and generating a positive mental attitude will also reduce the amount of time that it takes you to achieve your goals.

Personal Empowerment

Personal empowerment is similar to Personal Power, except empowerment is the power to reflect what you see within yourself, instead of how others view you.

Promoting a positive image and adopting creativity within your daily life can speed up the time it takes to achieve personal empowerment and your goals.

To help you increase your personal empowerment, consider looking for new, creative ways to finish a project in a faster, easier or cheaper way without compromising the end result.

Personal Analysis

It is very important to be conscious of areas in which you are naturally gifted as well as analyze areas in which you need improvement. This is called personal analysis.

Being truthful about where you currently stand is the first step to moving forward. You should be constantly evaluating where you are when achieving your goals and ambitions.

Personal Objectives

Ambition goes to waste when there are no clear goals in sight. Developing clear direction for short-term and long-term goals is a pivotal step in actually accomplishing them and growing as a person.

Having a set plan will help you have a clear understanding of which strategies are necessary to reach your desired destination.

Why Make a Personal Development Plan?

The reason you need to create a personal development plan is that making a plan will help guide you to better decision-making and remind you of where you want to go.

In other words, good preparation increases the probability of success and decreases the risk of things going wrong along the way.

Creating a plan for personal development helps you get a better sense of control over your life and will make you better prepared for whatever comes your way.

Consider these benefits of having one:

• It brings your vision to reality.
• It ensures you take appropriate and logically planned action.
• It helps you improve your  time management skills  so you can achieve your goals.
• It’s a plan to keep track of progress, which serves to motivate you when you want to give up.
• It’s been proven to reduce stress, improve balance in life, and increase self-confidence.

Developing your personal development plans and goals for work can make the difference between success and failure. Creating a self-growth plan for your personal life can mean the difference between life-long happiness and regret.

Skills & Objectives

The objectives of personal development are continuous personal growth, increased potential for success, and capitalizing on potential opportunities.

You can practice your personal development skills by setting aside time for the important people in your life, performing action exercises that force you to perform at the highest level, and studying growth performances to help ensure you continue to climb the ladder of success.

An action plan has to include measurable objectives so you know the exact steps it will take to reach your goals. Objectives break your larger personal goals into bite-sized pieces so you can know where you are headed and check off your progress along the way.

There are no limits except for the limits you place on yourself with your thinking.

Commit yourself to a life of constant learning. Even if you are at the top of your field, there is always something to learn.

Once you have mastered a new skill, move on to learning another one. Constantly learning new skills keeps your mind fresh and active and opens doors that would otherwise be closed to you.

You will become unstoppable and you will see your entire future open up in front of you if you live a goal and growth-oriented life.

How to Set Personal Development Goals

Before you can set up a plan, you need to do some self-reflection and answer personal goal questions.

A few questions you should develop before laying out an idea for a specific plan of action are:

• What do I want to make out of my life?
• What are my goals and ambitions?
• What is currently standing in my way of achieving these goals?

After answering those questions, you can create a personal plan that contains a few key components.

The key components you should focus on are having a specific outcome that you are constantly working towards, planning and paving a path towards achieving it, being mindful of the obstacles, and understanding the bigger motivation behind your actions.

When developing a personal development plan for work, you should focus on SMART goals. SMART stands for “Specific”, “Measurable”, “Achievable”, “Relevant”, and “Time-Bound.”

By following this easy-to-remember acronym when goal setting, you can improve both your personal and professional life:

• Specific:  Write goals that are detailed and clear instead of broad and general.
• Measurable:  Set milestones that will let you know you are achieving your goal.
• Achievable:  Make goals that are challenging yet can realistically be achieved.
• Relevant:  Align your goals with your personal self-improvement plan.
• Time-Bound:  Pick an end date by which you want to achieve your goal.

Set Goals for Professional Life

To make progress that you can see and track in your professional life, you need to document a detailed plan of action for your personal development.

Some examples include answering the following questions:

• What do I want to learn?
• What do I have to do?
• What support and resources will I need?
• How will I measure success?

Be as specific with your answers as possible. The more precise, the easier it is to track your progress.

Seeing how far you have come and how your hard work is paying off will give you a boost of confidence and provide a sense of accomplishment.

Some examples of personal development goals for work include the Golden Hour and the 21-Day Mental Diet.

The Golden Hour Rule

The  Golden Hour Rule  steers the trajectory of your day.

Beginning your day early and investing your first hour in yourself will make a tremendous difference in the way you feel, and you will begin to see positive results in your day.

You will begin to see yourself in a more positive light and improve on your self-awareness and personal development.

The 21-Day Mental Diet

The  21-Day Mental Diet  personal leadership plan example means waking up early and investing at least the first two hours of your day in yourself.

With this extra time, set clear goals you can work to achieve in the workplace. This can improve your productivity and efficiency to help you get that promotion or earn a raise.

Your goals may also include education. You need to learn more to earn more.

Try setting a goal to read something educational, motivational, or inspirational every day before you go to work.

Set Goals in Your Daily Life

Outside of the workspace, it’s important to focus on some personal goals as well. Similar to your work plan, your personal plan requires you to focus on key points to achieve your goals.

Here are some sample questions to ask yourself:

• What are the important goals that you want to achieve?
• When is your set deadline?
• What are your biggest strengths?
• Who or what are your biggest threats?

There are several aspects of personal development disciplines that will make achieving success possible if developed correctly.

A few of these disciplines include goal setting, planning and organizing, and concentrating on high-value activities.

Goal Setting

Goal setting can be done in the early morning and take only a few minutes of your day.

It can be as simple as purchasing a spiral notebook and writing out your ten goals at the beginning of each day. This will program them deep into your subconscious mind and help you actually follow through on accomplishing them.

Planning Your Day

Planning and organizing at the end of the day can help you better prepare for the coming day.

When you plan out your day, put it down on paper, you can begin to visualize your important tasks and make sure you are working to complete them throughout the day.

Concentrating On Your High-Value Activities

High-value activities are the things you choose to do throughout the day that will give you the biggest return on your efforts to get you closer to your goals.

Concentrating on your high-value activities will help keep you focused and contribute to your success as much as any other discipline you can develop.

Promoting the highest value activities will make a powerful difference in how quickly you achieve them and the goals they relate to.

Personal Development Plan Template

Creating a plan for personal development will help you get a better sense of control over your life and your goals…and it doesn’t have to be a daunting task!

Follow this template to get started and achieve your goals.

There are six core steps in this template that will help you take action and measure your progress.

Step 1: Set Your Goals

Write a list of the top 10 most important goals you would like to achieve. I encourage you to really write them down somewhere — on paper or on your computer — instead of just keeping them in your head.

People who write their goals and have a clear plan are 30% more likely to achieve their goals.

Search deep within yourself and identify the things you really want out of life. Do not be hindered by thoughts of roadblocks that may get in your way. Open yourself up to all the possibilities that would make you truly happy in life.

These are life goals. Life goals are meant to be challenging, so they may seem huge, overwhelming, or even scary. But that’s why they will be broken down into digestible and manageable smaller goals.

For example, providing for your family is an important long-term goal, but figuring out the steps to get there is the challenge. Your smaller personal development objectives will help you identify those steps so you have a clear road map to follow.

With each of the 10 goals you identify, also define your “why:” Why do you want to achieve this goal? What will it mean for your personal life, your career, your mental health or, your loved ones?

Knowing your why will help set you up for success. It will keep you motivated to continue progressing forward until you have achieved what you want to.

Step 2: Prioritize Your Goals

Once you have identified your top 10 goals, write which of those 10 is the most important to you and why.

Starting with your highest priority goal, identify the short-term goals and steps that are needed to achieve your long-term goals.

What needs to happen today so you can move on to the next movetomorrow?

This may require some research on your part, depending on your goal.

For example, say your goal is to become a leader in your field. Some of the short-term goals you will prioritize to reach this personal leadership plan example may include the following:

• Choose a topic or niche in your industry that you want to specialize in.
• Learn everything you can about the issue by talking to people in your industry, reading about your topic, attending seminars and webinars, and so on.
• Educate others by writing regular blog posts.
• Start a podcast and offer valuable information.
• Give interviews on podcasts, local radio and TV stations, and news outlets.
• Write a book  and get it published.
• Become a public speaker  at industry conferences or hold your own conference.

Step 3: Create a Timeline for Achieving Your Goals

Setting goals and deadlines in your process is crucial. Without them, your goals can get lost in the everyday chaos of life or forgotten completely.

Write down a specific timeline for achieving each of your goals, but be realistic in your timing and know the likelihood ahead of time of achieving your goal within a certain timeline to avoid discouragement.

While you may want to become debt-free by next year, you will first need to do what is necessary to earn more income or reduce your expenses. This could involve getting more education, finding a better job, or making major life changes, which could take more than 365 days.

Once you assign a due date to each of your short-term goals,  tackle the hardest goal first . This will help you realize you can actually achieve your goals faster and give you the motivation you need to propel yourself forward.

If you’re unsure of the timeline you should set for accomplishing your goals, speaking to other people who have achieved the goal you are striving for will help you set a realistic deadline.

Conducting online research could also help in defining a timeline to accomplish your goals.

Knowing that it takes four to five years to earn a Ph.D. in business lets you know how long it will likely take you. If you can only attend school part-time, you know it will take longer, perhaps twice as long.

Step 4: Analyze Your Strengths and Weaknesses

Write down your strengths and weaknesses. Remember that skills like perseverance, positive attitude, and creativity are strengths and weaknesses as much as educational level, experience, and having a strong network of professional contacts.

Focus on the attributes that are needed to achieve your goal. Then, write how your strengths can help you achieve this goal and how you plan to overcome those weaknesses.

Use a SWOT analysis to organize your thoughts and develop a strong strategy for achieving your goal. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Ask yourself questions similar to these to help you develop insights for each part of a SWOT analysis:

• What sets you apart from your peers?
• What is your competitive advantage?
• What do others regularly praise you for?
• What do people ask you to help them with?
• What parts of yourself are you confident about?
• What values are important to you?
• What do you usually avoid doing because you don’t think you can?
• What kind of tasks do you procrastinate?
• Where are you lacking in skills, experience, or education?
• What resources do you lack?
• What areas do you feel you need improvement?
• What gets in the way of your work performance or relationships with others?

Opportunities

• What technology can help you achieve your goal?
• What promotions or financial incentives are available at work?
• Who can help you reach your goal?
• What changes are happening or are projected to happen in your industry or personal life?
• What conferences, classes, or networking events are available to you?
• What are your competitors failing at that you can learn from and improve on?
• What obstacles do you face that may hinder your progress?
• Which of your weaknesses could lead to threats?
• Who is trying to achieve the same goal that may get in your way?

Step 5: Write an Action Plan

Write actions that you need to take to achieve your goal. These can be things you need to add to your daily routine as well as things you need to eliminate from it to  achieve the success in life  that you are looking for.

Doing this will help you to achieve each goal faster.

Whether you use a notebook or your computer, just make sure you’re also physically writing down your plan so you can see it every day and hold yourself accountable.

Step 6: Measure Your Progress

The final step in your personal development plan template is to mark your progress.

Write down what has been working well, what you have accomplished, what you still need to improve, and what skills or knowledge you have gained along the way.

People who set up a system to report on their goals weekly achieve 40% more than people who do not.

To help you in this final step, consider using a tracker to take notes, measure progress, and be analytical about what works and what does not.

Sometimes it is necessary to change courses midstream or add a step that you were not initially aware of. That doesn’t mean you should abandon your goal out of discouragement. It just means you need to adapt, and this is where a tracker can help you determine if it’s time to pivot.

Remember it’s okay to be flexible. Doing so will allow you to make changes when needed that will propel you toward your goal more efficiently.

This could be a good opportunity to use another piece of data about how people who write things down/journal are much more likely to be successful.

Personal Development Courses and Programs

Personal development courses, coaches, and programs can also help you hit your goals.

A personal development program accompanied by a personal development coach helps to keep you disciplined and moving forward.

If you are looking to transform your life, check out these courses and programs that include all of my knowledge, distilled into powerful lessons to help you achieve immediate success in your own life. They will teach you how to stop worrying and stressing out and how to take control of your life, forever.

Power Of Personal Achievement

Learn the right way to visualize your ideal future. This course will teach you how to set your goals and methodically achieve them with more efficiency than ever before.

This program will teach you how to ditch the negative emotions that have been hindering your success as well as how to redirect your energy and resources towards your personal mission.

The Science Of Self-Confidence

In this course, you’ll learn just about everything I’ve learned about self-confidence during the past four decades.

I reveal the secret of the four Cs that teach you how to escape the endless loop of failure. You will find your true self and, as a result, finally feel truly confident.

Maximum Productivity

This course will equip you with the skills to discover your special calling. You will learn everything you need to know how to take the shortest, fastest route possible to your destination.

Ultimate success is achievable when you know how to dramatically improve your productivity.

Create Your Personal Development Plan Today

Don’t wait to start improving your life.

Follow a personal development plan for work and your personal life or use a template to start accomplishing your goals and improving your life.

For the easiest way to get started, download my free  Personal Development Plan Template  to organize your goals over the next few months and years and optimize your success.

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About Brian Tracy — Brian is recognized as the top sales training and personal success authority in the world today. He has authored more than 60 books and has produced more than 500 audio and video learning programs on sales, management, business success and personal development, including worldwide bestseller The Psychology of Achievement. Brian's goal is to help you achieve your personal and business goals faster and easier than you ever imagined. You can follow him on Twitter , Facebook , Pinterest , Linkedin and Youtube .

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10 Free Life Planning Templates for Personal Life Planning

Praburam Srinivasan

Growth Marketing Manager

February 13, 2024

There are two kinds of people: those who like to go with the flow and those who prefer to have a plan.

Which category do you fall into? ⚖️

If it’s the second, you’ll love what a life plan template can do for you. And if it’s the first, a life planning template might just change your mind—and your life. 

A personal life planning template gives you direction and motivation, helps you establish priorities , and tells you what to focus on at any given moment as you move toward your ideal life. 🙌

Sound good?

Read on to find out how a life planning template helps you achieve your goals, create more meaning, purpose, and joy in your life, and simply get more done. 🤩

What Is a Life Planning Template?

What makes a good life planning template, 1. clickup life plan template, 2. clickup free end-of-life planning template, 3. clickup daily planner template, 4. clickup daily action plan template, 5. clickup personal development plan template, 6. clickup personal habit tracker template, 7. clickup personal productivity template, 8. clickup personal productivity report template, 9. clickup getting things done framework template, 10. clickup daily to-do list template.

A life planner template helps you set life goals (or shorter-term ones), plan your action steps, and then evaluate how you’re doing against that plan.

Use this kind of template to achieve professional goals , make changes in your personal life, or keep the different areas of your life in balance. 

You can also apply it to any time frame.

For example, perhaps you have a long-term, 10-year plan for your dream life that includes a successful career, a happy family, and a perfect home.

Or maybe you have a short-term goal, like saving to buy a house or improving your health and well-being over the next year. You might want to move premises or improve sales in your business over the next three months.

Or perhaps you simply need a task management or time management tool to help you be more productive every day. Whatever your aspirations, a goal planner helps you make better decisions at every turn as you weigh your choices against your goals.

And with a clear vision to focus on, self-discipline comes more naturally. Essentially, a life planning template is project management for your life, made easy. 🙌

Whether it’s a plan for your life or a plan for your day, a personal life planning template gets you from your starting point—right now—to your goal. ✨

To do that effectively, a life planning template should help you:

• Set SMART goals in line with your core values—goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (i.e., with a specific deadline)
• Lay down a roadmap to follow, with clear milestones to aim for and smaller tasks to accomplish along the way
• Identify any resources you might need—for example, money, skills, or helpful people—so you have access to them when you need them
• Effectively manage your tasks every day according to your highest priorities
• Proactively anticipate obstacles—whether those are physical or in the form of limiting beliefs—and create a plan to overcome them
• Track your progress against your action plan as you move toward your goals

10 Life Planning Templates to Use in 2024

Now that you know how a life planning template helps you set goals and achieve them, you’ll be happy to discover that there are many different types of free life planning templates available online. So even if your budget is limited, pricing won’t be an issue. 

To help you decide which one would work best for you, consider your goal and the time frame you’re working with. Are you aiming for a long-term goal, like creating a life that matches your vision board?

Maybe you need a year plan template to use as a business plan or to accelerate your personal growth. Or perhaps you want to go much more micro and manage your daily productivity or life plan. 🛠️

No matter what your goal-setting needs, we have a free life planning template for you. Let’s look at some options.

The ClickUp Life Plan Template is for those with big aspirations. You could quite simply call this personal project “My Life Plan.” 🤩

The process starts with identifying your life vision and your values. Aligning those two helps you stay motivated and ensures that you’re working towards the right goals for you.

From there, break your plan down into specific SMART goals, do a self-assessment to see where you are right now in relation to those goals, and set your priorities.

This free life planning template also allows you to specify the area of your life for each goal—for example, relationships, wellness, or mental health—and to identify an accountability partner to help you stay motivated and on track.

Once you’ve set it all up, track your progress using colored status markers that tell you whether a task is Complete, In Progress, or still To Do.

And depending on your preference, look at your plan in List view or as a Life Board. 

No one likes to think about leaving this life behind, but the truth is that death and (of course) taxes are inevitable. Rather than leaving your life in chaos and forcing your loved ones to clean up after you while they’re still grieving, get organized with the ClickUp Free End-of-Life Planning Template . It’s never too early to start this kind of planning.

Organize similar tasks into categories, for example, Medical Documents, Financial/Legal Items, Legacy Information, or Funeral Items. Each task has the options of listing subtasks, attaching documents, and specifying any other resources your loved ones might need. 📚

As you work through setting everything up, easily keep an eye on whether a task is still to do, in progress, needing revision, or approved using the status icons.

If you’re a fan of daily planner apps , you’ll love this free life planning template.

Get ahead of your day, reduce your stress levels, and boost your productivity with the ClickUp Daily Planner Template .

Start by listing your goals for the day, then break them down into smaller tasks if necessary. Then organize these tasks into categories like Work or Personal and invite others to collaborate on them too.

Prioritize your tasks so you know what needs to be done first, then allocate each task a time slot in the day. Be sure to be realistic with your time estimates and leave some buffer time—things often take longer than expected, and unexpected tasks will sometimes interfere with your plans. 👀

Then as you work through your tasks, keep track of your progress by marking them as Open or Complete. This helps to give you a sense of achievement and creates momentum that keeps you going. At the end of the day, review how your plan worked out and decide on any tweaks you need to make to your process for the next day.

Designed to help you collaborate with your team as you plan events and programs, the ClickUp Daily Action Plan Template also works well as a life planning template. It breaks your bigger goals down into daily action steps that need to be completed to make sure you meet the personal deadlines you’ve set for yourself.

Categorize each task according to Type—for example, whether it’s a goal or an action step towards a goal—and Level of Complexity, and measure progress for that task on the Goal Progress bar. Status icons identify tasks that are still on the To-Do list and those that are in progress or complete. See at a glance which items are done, which are due that day, and which are overdue.

Then step back to look at the whole timeline to track your progress as you move towards your personal goal. ✨

Not surprisingly, the ClickUp Personal Development Plan Template is designed to help you achieve your personal goals. It organizes your progress toward self-focused goals, like improving your relationships or self-care. It also helps with work-related ambitions, like learning a useful new skill or even a second language.

This free life planning template helps you identify your goals and assess exactly where you are with them now. Then put together a step-by-step guide to get where you want to go.

Use this template to set up tasks per quarter and time block them in your calendar, as well as to plan for any resources you might need—like workbooks, online tutorials, or one-to-one coaching. It also encourages you to consider any roadblocks you may encounter and identify an accountability partner to support you through the process.

Track your progress and log any realizations you have as you work through your tasks. And of course, don’t forget to acknowledge and celebrate your Wins and Accomplishments along the way by highlighting them as you go! 🙌 

Trying to change an old habit that’s not serving you or put a healthy new one in place to help you move forward in your life? If so, the ClickUp Personal Habit Tracker Template is for you.

As always, you’ll start by identifying what you want to achieve, like getting more exercise or studying for an upcoming exam. Then create your tasks: Get specific about exactly what you need to do to reach your goal and set a timeline for it.

For example, you may decide to take a walk at lunchtime on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, or study for 30 minutes after dinner every weekday. ⏲️

Check your tasks off as you do them to keep track of your progress against the month’s progress bar. Also, assess how you’re doing each week and make adjustments to your weekly goals as necessary. Access this template below or check out our other habit tracking templates !

The ClickUp Personal Productivity Template can be used to achieve personal goals as well as to improve your productivity. Perhaps you want to eat healthier, or you’re a freelancer who wants to deliver more client work each day.

This simple free life planning template helps you decide on your goals, set priorities, lay out tasks, and flag any dependencies that might slow things down. 

For example, if you’re trying to eat better, you may choose to set aside 30 minutes every Saturday morning—before you do your weekly grocery shop—with a printable meal planner to plan your meals for the following week so you have the ingredients you need on hand. Then track whether you did your meal planning, bought the ingredients, and finally prepared that healthy meal each day. 

And if you’re a freelancer, you might plan to set aside time to prioritize tasks and then create a worksheet schedule to help you work through them in the right order. Then gather your resources, set aside distractions like social media, and monitor how you’re doing. 👀

Designed to improve the output of your team by measuring the productivity of each of your team members, the ClickUp Personal Productivity Report Template works for your own productivity goals too.

Log every task and categorize it according to a Task Type, for example, whether it’s Deep Work, Coworking Time, a Recurring Task, or Break Time. Then track lead time and progress on that task using status fields. 

Choose between Calendar view or List view to see all your tasks at a glance so you don’t miss a beat.

If you run your life with To-Do list apps , then the ClickUp Getting Things Done Framework Template is for you.

Get organized by capturing all your tasks, meetings, and random thoughts on this personal life planning template. Categorize everything as you see fit. Maybe you’ll create categories for ideas, calendar items, longer-term projects, or things that need to be done right away.

You can also specify whether an idea is actionable or simply for reference, and if it’s actionable, estimate the amount of effort a task requires. Then list any dependencies for that task and URLs you might want to refer to when dealing with it.

Handy status fields include Someday/Maybe and Trash options, as well as the usual To Do, In Progress, and Complete fields, so you never lose an idea—unless you want to. 💡

The ClickUp Daily To-Do List Template helps you stay on top of all your tasks, supporting you to do more every day, which also contributes towards your long-term success. It reduces overwhelm and helps you stay focused on what’s important—not to mention the satisfying feeling of accomplishment that comes from ticking off items as they’re completed. 🤩

Start by brainstorming all the tasks you need to do, bearing in mind you might need to break some of them down into smaller, more manageable chunks. Then categorize and prioritize them. Estimate how long each should take and give it a deadline.

You’ll immediately see where to start, and keep track of your progress by checking off items as you go. You can also set up notifications of upcoming deadlines and easily collaborate with others by inviting them to join your workspace. 

Manage Life Better With Free Life Planning Templates

Simply getting through your daily task list can feel like a chore, never mind achieving long-term goals. Luckily there’s help at hand. 👋

Using a personal life planning template helps you think through your long-term goals, as well as shorter-term projects, then plan and prioritize your tasks and stay focused as you work through them.

To find the right template for your needs, look no further than ClickUp . Our extensive range of templates helps you achieve your personal and business goals—as well as do anything else you need to. It’s a one-stop shop that gives you all the tools you need to live your best life. ✨

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24+ Free Personal Development Plan Templates

Download multiple Personal Development Plan Templates here for your help. Personal Development Plan is an action plan based on various factors that takes you from where are you now to where you want to be in future. Personal development plan is a way of reflecting on your current skills and accomplishments, and using this as a basis to plan for your development in the future. It involves different factors such as, awareness, values and goal setting. A perfect personal development plan enables you to learn new capabilities, skills and competencies in your current role. You can learn, develop and practice new skills and knowledge to make you ready for another special task. It is very easy to write a personal development plan with the help of internet, because there is large number of tips and guide lines that can help you a lot to prepare a perfect personal development plan for yourself. Free Personal Development Plan Templates can be downloaded here.

This plan is developed by department of human resources for identifying the needs of an employee about set of learning activities designed for performing tasks. The purpose of personal development plan is to create an awareness and reflection in regards to career and education. This plan is required by an employee to accomplishments of goal and tasks appointed by an employer. Due to this activity an individual can perform his/her tasks with accuracy and efficiency. The relations of the person with the manager, colleagues and clients will be better after planning. It is necessary for an employee to involve himself in activity such as planning so he will be able to locate all the solution of the problem. This plan shows the priorities and analysis of opportunity and risk of person making it. It enables the person to be professional in any field of life. We do hope that you will like these personal development plan templates at this page.

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Personal development plan Excel templates

How to create a personal career development plan in Excel?

A Personal Development Plan template is a simple plan that outlines the steps needed to achieve specific individual targets.

Such a development plan is the best way to create fruitful conditions for employers and employees within an organization, because such a plan focuses mainly on the employees' needs for growth and development and at the same time takes the organization needs in consideration and explores how the organization can provide for the employee. This enables the employee to grow his or her career.

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Planning plying a crucial role in every field of life. A personal development plan is prepared to knowing the weakness of the person. You can get free Personal Development Plan Templates here. A personal development plan can really help person to change his attitude and make his performance better. Preparing this plan template you can get your goals and objectives efficiently. Now we are offering you our created personal development plan template free of cost. Underneath you see the image of our creative well designed template. It is developed in Microsoft word so it is easily editable. Find below we provide you download button with a quick download link.

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