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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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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

High response

• 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.

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Personal development plans and how they can benefit your organization

June 8, 2022 by MindManager Blog

“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” Benjamin Franklin’s quote applies to many choices we make, including personal development. Personal development is a term used for the lifelong process of actively improving your skills and gaining knowledge and experience.

Without a plan, however, it is difficult to stay focused and reach your goals. Studies show that only 8% of people who set goals actually achieve them. One primary difference between these individuals and the other 92% is that they have plans in place to meet specific, measurable goals.

Personal development plans ( PDPs ) are not only a roadmap to success for individuals—they also help improve an organization’s overall performance. As people achieve their goals and acquire new skills, businesses benefit from their improved skills and productivity .

This article will help you learn the importance of planning your personal development to achieve your goals and cover the steps involved in making personal development plans for business needs. It will also give you tips on how to create a PDP using the visual productivity tools in MindManager® .

Benefits of personal development plans

From entry-level workers to seasoned career professionals, everyone benefits from strengthening their abilities, learning new skills, and becoming more effective in their role. This is because PDPs help individuals map out their growth path to achieve an overall goal, such as learning new hard skills or developing soft skills.

Personal development plans hold the following advantages for businesses and employees alike, as they help you or the organization to:

• Increase profitability. Establishing an overall goal provides a clear sense of direction and purpose , which helps keep motivation and productivity levels high. When employees are highly engaged, businesses are 21% more profitable and 17% more productive on average.
• Minimize employee turnover. Personal development plans help organizations reduce attrition rates . This is because PDPs help to identify disengaged individuals who might be in the wrong job or role, providing an opportunity to re-engage them in their existing position or move them to a new role.
• Promote career development. PDPs demonstrate a commitment to enhancing an employees’ value and confidence in their work. Surveys indicate that a lack of learning and development opportunities are a leading cause of job resignations, highlighting the importance of investing in employees’ job satisfaction and fulfillment.

Steps to create personal development plans for business

A personal development plan outlines the skills and personal attributes individuals need to work on to support sustainable business growth. This is why many companies incorporate PDPs as a standard component of the performance management process.

Personal development opportunities keep people motivated , which in turn increases engagement and reduces employee turnover. As employees expand their skills and advance their careers, they are better positioned to achieve business-related objectives .

Keep the following steps in mind when making personal development plans:

1. Start with self-assessment

Most PDPs start by compiling a list of a person’s strengths, weaknesses, areas of development, and goals. One effective way of organizing this self-assessment is by using a SWOT analysis . SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats:

• Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors , such as your existing skills, available resources, bad habits, and areas for improvement.
• Opportunities and threats are external factors , such as events, projects, and activities that can help you attain your goal, as well as obstacles that could derail your success (e.g., lack of resources, skill deficiency, a large number of competitors seeking to achieve the same goal).

A SWOT analysis helps individuals evaluate their existing knowledge and skills and identify factors that could impact their ability to meet their goals. This is achieved by answering questions relating to each component of a SWAT diagram.

A thoughtful, well-organized SWOT analysis helps provide clarity when creating the goals of a personal development plan. By understanding their strengths and weaknesses, as well as any threats or opportunities, employees are able to identify what they want to accomplish.

2. Set SMART goals

Once team members understand how their knowledge, interests, and skills relate to their career goals, each individual can identify areas for improvement . Start by talking with employees to gain insights into their career goals. This helps you assess how their goals can be aligned with the requirements of your company’s objectives or business plan.

The goals set in a professional development plan should be SMART , which means they are:

• Specific. The goal should state precisely what you want to change or achieve .
• Measurable. Making goals quantifiable enables you to monitor your progress and set milestones.
• Attainable. Goals should be challenging but still achievable given your current timeframe and available resources.
• Relevant. Each goal should contribute to the broader objective of the PDP, keeping you focused on activities that support your development and are aligned with the company’s overall goals.
• Time-bound. A PDP should include a deadline as well as incremental milestones to keep you motivated and working to reach your goals.

SMART goals are more realistic and attainable than generic, loosely defined ones. For example, a weak goal might be something like “I will help my team communicate better” or “I will help my team close more sales.” By using the SMART goal framework , you have defined steps to take, understand what resources are required, and have milestones to track your progress along the way.

A PDP breaks down SMART goals into manageable action points and structures them as short-term objectives. This makes it easy to achieve goals by completing one small step at a time, keeping PDP followers focused on the benefit of realizing their larger end goal.

3. Develop goal attainment strategies

There are various resources and strategies that can be used to achieve the goals of a personal development plan. According to the 70-20-10 model , employees perform best with a combination of informal, formal, and social learning strategies:

• 70% of learning should be experiential. Experiential learning is informal , self-guided, and gives the individual control over what they are learning. Mentoring, podcasts, on-the-job experience, and discussions with coworkers are just a few examples of experiential training and development.
• 20% of learning should be interactive. Social learning is an effective way to receive guidance and mentoring from others, such as coworkers and managers. Adding a social element to the learning process promotes collaboration as individuals gain knowledge by interacting with their peers.
• 10% of learning should be formal. Structured training such as enrolling in a certification course, participating in workshops, and other educational programs help individuals learn and practice new information or behaviors. Formal training has defined learning objectives and applies an evaluation or exam at the end of the training to assess the participants’ performance.

By leveraging a variety of training and development options, personal development plans can be customized to reflect an individual learner’s weaknesses and opportunities .

For example, if an employee needs specific IT certifications to advance in their role, they will benefit from formal learning in a certification course. If another individual struggles with public speaking , they might seek out networking events where they can develop their communication skills.

4. Monitor progress and adapt accordingly

Meeting regularly with employees helps monitor their progress in obtaining their PDP goals. Ask for specific feedback regarding what is going well, where they need support, and if parts of the plan need to be adjusted or improved.

As individuals work on their goals, they can document the changes made and steps taken to achieve their objectives. If they are struggling to complete tasks within the specified timeframe, find out what is going wrong and why .

For example , was the goal not achievable within the given amount of time or did they not have enough support? Then, rectify and update the plan accordingly. A personal development plan is not rigid, and it can and should be adapted as individuals work toward their goals.

How to use MindManager to create personal development plans

There is no one way to prepare a PDP, but whatever format you choose, ensure that it is easy to follow and update. One way to bring clarity and structure to personal development plans is by using the mind maps and other visual tools available from MindManager .

When creating a personal development plan, you can use a visual map to brainstorm potential goals:

As was mentioned in an earlier section, you can also assess your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats with MindManager’s SWOT analysis template.

Mind maps are useful when establishing SMART goals for the PDP. Thanks to MindManager’s SmartRules ™ feature, you can easily view how changing certain elements in the map affects others. For example, if you extend the timeline of one goal, how will that impact the availability of resources?

MindManager features pre-built templates in several categories, including personal productivity , strategic planning , and other options. Thanks to the ability to combine multiple map layouts on a single canvas, PDPs can be customized to suit an array of individual needs.

Personal development plans for business are detailed roadmaps that guide you along the journey to successfully achieving your goals while benefiting the organization as a whole. Using mind maps for your PDP helps you expand your creative thinking to better connect your ideas to actionable insights.

Ongoing learning and personal development are key to individual and business growth.

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Career transition, get certified, building a personal development plan: a comprehensive guide for employees and managers.

• Dec 22, 2023

In any recent study on retention and engagement , companies’ perceived investment in employees’ personal development is one of the top factors in employees’ investment in the company. Organizations that actively support employees’ personal development are more likely to retain top talent. Employees appreciate employers who invest in their growth, fostering loyalty and a sense of belonging.

Recognizing the importance of individual growth, both employees and managers are turning to Personal Development Plans (PDPs) as a strategic tool to align personal aspirations with organizational objectives. When employees can discuss what matters to them now and in the future and match it with what the organization needs, both have a win-win. And when those discussions result in documented steps and an action plan, they are much more likely to succeed.

What is a Personal Development Plan?

Pdps: a strategic framework for growth.

Personal Development Plans (PDPs) outline an individual’s goals, aspirations, and actionable steps for continuous personal and professional improvement. These plans are dynamic, evolving with changes in an individual’s career, skills, and organizational needs. PDPs serve as roadmaps, guiding employees through their professional journey by providing a clear vision of where they want to go and how they plan to get there.

Key Components of a Personal Development Plan:

• Delineate the long-term vision – what is it that matters to the employee to achieve? What motivates them?
• Establish short-term and long-term objectives that align with both personal ambitions and organizational needs and strategies.
• Define specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals.
• Identify current skills and competencies and those needed for future roles or responsibilities.
• Develop plans to acquire new skills through training, mentorship, or hands-on experiences.
• Outline specific activities such as training programs, workshops, conferences, and courses that contribute to skill enhancement.
• Include both technical and soft skills development to ensure a well-rounded professional growth.
• Establish a realistic timeline for achieving each goal and milestone.
• Break down larger objectives into manageable tasks with associated deadlines.
• How will the manager support the plan? What other people need to contribute?
• Define a process for obtaining feedback from peers, mentors, and managers.
• Regularly evaluate progress and adjust the plan as needed to address changing circumstances or priorities.

The Relationship Between PDPs and the Performance Review Process

Certainly, performance reviews provide feedback useful to individuals in assessing their skills, contribution, employee brand and strengths. However, an increasing number of companies separate Personal Development Plans and discussions from the Performance Review process. The intention for those firms is that PDPs provide a structured and forward-looking approach to individual growth and should be focused on future development, motivation, and what matters to the employee. Separating those from evaluation can allow for more wide-open discussion. When an employee is new or not performing up to speed, then the performance evaluation informs a more immediate term PDP.

In either scenario – whether the discussion is part of the performance review or separate- by aligning personal aspirations with organizational goals, PDPs contribute not only to the professional development of employees but also to the overall success and sustainability of the organization. Recognizing and investing in the potential of individuals during performance reviews is a strategic move that pays dividends in terms of employee satisfaction, engagement, and long-term organizational success. Using the PDP is beneficial to the performance review process in the following ways:

Focused Discussions:

Entering a performance review also having had prior development planning conversations and PDPs allows both employees and managers to assess areas where job crafting (changing some of the duties, the approach to the role, or who they work with) could improve motivation and performance. It also improves their ability to focus on specific strengths and achievements to capitalize on going forward, and learning or changes in approach that can improve results.  

Alignment with Organizational Goals:

Integrating personal development goals into the performance review process can help employees see the impact of their work on the organization’s overarching objectives more clearly, a key factor in engagement.  They and their managers can also discuss business-focused goals for the following year in the context of how they advance the organization’s agenda, as well as how these can be used to at the same time help the individual develop.

Skill Gap Identification:

Performance feedback can be incorporated into PDPs since it can identify gaps in skills and competencies required for current and future roles. This information is invaluable for both employees and managers in crafting targeted development plans that address specific needs. When PDPs are viewed across an organization, they can also provide a view of organizational talent gaps.

Continuous Improvement:

By integrating personal development discussions into performance reviews, or doing both separately, organizations foster a culture of continuous improvement. Asking employees to reflect on their achievements, learnings, and areas for growth, and requiring PDPs can set the expectation that even employees who are high performers and love their jobs can and should develop. contributing to ongoing individual and organizational success.

Practical Tips for Employees

Conduct a self-assessment:.

Conduct a thorough self-assessment to identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. Seek feedback from peers, managers, and mentors for a well-rounded perspective. It is also important to reflect on your long-term career goals during your self-assessment, considering both personal and professional aspirations to guide the development of your PDP. A few key questions to ask yourself:

• What would career success be for you now?
• What aspects of your work excite/interest/ energize you? Has this changed?
• Are you getting enough of those? How well does the current work match your strengths, motivators, or values?
• What skills would you like to use more?
• What do you want to achieve in the next 2-3 years? What long term career goals do you have?
• What difference would you want to make? To whom/what?
• What would you like to do/learn about but have not had the chance?

Set SMART Goals:

Setting goals in any format is great, but to ensure you are setting yourself up for success, it is important to make sure your goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART). It is also helpful to break down larger your goals into smaller, more manageable tasks, creating a step-by-step plan that facilitates progress tracking. It is much easier to check off a smaller goal and being able to see the progress as you go makes it seem less daunting and keep track of the progress you have made, rather than trying to see the big picture while tackling all the small aspects of a large, overarching goal.

Continuous Learning:

Identify and enroll in relevant training programs, workshops, and conferences to enhance your skills. Embrace a growth mindset, actively seeking opportunities for cross-functional training to broaden your knowledge and expertise.

Networking and Mentorship:

Build a robust professional network within and beyond your organization. Seek guidance from mentors who can offer valuable insights and advice based on their experiences, contributing to your holistic development. Join professional groups in your field, go to conferences, and use LinkedIn to identify people who could assist you in achieving your career goals.

Practical Tips for Managers

Encourage open communication:.

Cultivate an environment where employees feel comfortable discussing their career goals and development needs. It is important that you conduct regular check-ins with team members, rather than only discussing development and performance during the annual performance review process. This will provide opportunities to understand their progress, address challenges, and offer support and to keep the lines of communication open, fostering trust and honest feedback/discussion.

Provide Resources:

Allocate resources, such as time, budget, and training programs, to support employees’ development initiatives. It is important to ensure that employees have access to the tools and training necessary for their growth, emphasizing the organization’s commitment to their success.

Recognize and Reward Progress:

It is critical that progress is not forgotten about. Make sure to acknowledge and celebrate achievements and milestones reached through the PDP. It is important to Implement a system for recognizing and rewarding employees who actively engage in their personal development, reinforcing the organization’s appreciation for continuous improvement, as that will ensure it does not get overlooked. It is also a great catalyst to recognize and reward managers who are good at doing these conversations.

Facilitate Cross-Functional Opportunities:

Encourage employees to take on projects outside their immediate roles, providing opportunities to gain new skills and perspectives. Foster collaboration and knowledge-sharing across departments, creating a culture of innovation and adaptability.

Professional Development Plans: Essential for Individual & Organizational Success

Personal Development Plans emerge as essential tools for individual and organizational success. By fostering a culture of continuous improvement and aligning personal goals with overarching objectives, companies not only empower their employees to thrive but also position themselves for sustained growth and innovation. Investing in personal development is an investment in the future, where both individuals and organizations can flourish in tandem. As the saying goes, “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”

Keystone Partners has been helping companies of all sizes in all industries improve their performance review process and conduct successful career conversations. Interested in learning how Keystone can help with your career management and leadership-related needs? Contact us today to learn more ab

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10-step Guide to Creating a Near-Perfect Personal Development Plan

What is a Personal Development Plan?

Why do we need one.

• 10-Step Guide to Creating a PDP

According to LinkedIn's Workforce Learning Report , 94% of employees would likely stay at a company longer if it invested in their careers.

It makes sense, doesn't it?

Companies that make an investment in the growth and development of their employees receive an increased commitment from them. So, how can you achieve this? You can start by creating a personal development plan for your employees. This detailed guide will help you with it.

A Personal Development Plan (PDP) is a strategic tool designed for personal and professional growth. It enables individuals to reflect on their values, goals, strengths, and weaknesses, facilitating a deeper understanding of the path to self-improvement.

The process begins with thorough self-assessment, leading to the formulation of SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals. These goals form the backbone of the plan, outlining actionable steps for skill acquisition, further education, networking, and overall personal and professional development.

A PDP isn't just about setting goals; it's about mapping out a journey towards a long-term vision that keeps you motivated and focused. It's a dynamic blueprint, adaptable to changes in your aspirations or circumstances, ensuring continuous growth and progress towards increased well-being, productivity, and satisfaction.

Companies benefit significantly from implementing PDPs for their employees for several reasons that contribute to individual and organizational success. Here are some key reasons why companies find PDPs essential:

• PDPs clarify career paths, boosting workplace enthusiasm and motivation.
• Tailored training through PDPs enhances skills and job performance.
• PDPs show commitment to employees' careers, reducing turnover.
• PDPs help you identifies potential leaders and prepares them for future roles.
• It encourages continuous learning, making organizations more agile and innovative.
• It facilitates open dialogue between managers and employees.
• It demonstrates investment in employees' growth, attracting top talent.

A 10-Step Guide to Creating a Personal Development Plan

Employees' personal development plan (PDP) is vital for professional progress and corporate goals.

Here's a step-by-step process that you can follow to create a successful employee personal development plan.

1. Establish Clear Goals

Employees should articulate their professional development objectives clearly. Utilizing SMART criteria ensures these goals are achievable and aligned with job responsibilities.

2. Assess Skills

Conduct a comprehensive assessment of technical, soft, and job-specific skills. This evaluation highlights strengths and identifies areas for improvement, guiding the creation of a targeted personal development plan.

3. Find Growth Areas

Following the skills assessment, pinpoint specific areas for enhancement, transforming identified needs into concrete actions.

If communication skills need bolstering, consider incorporating training in writing or public speaking. This targeted approach guarantees the personal development plan is customized to the employee's unique needs, making it more focused, efficient, and supportive of their career advancement.

4. Ensure Career Goal Alignment

Ensure that personal development plans reflect the employee's career aspirations. This process extends beyond setting goals, requiring in-depth conversations about professional and long-term objectives.

Aligning the plan with these goals provides motivation and adds significance to their development journey.

Tailoring plans to equip employees with the necessary skills and experiences to achieve their career milestones makes the personal development plan a valuable asset for both growth and fulfillment.

5. Create an Action Plan

To facilitate goal attainment, divide large objectives into smaller, actionable tasks with specific deadlines. Assign clear responsibilities and set review periods for each task to ensure a structured progression towards the goals.

This approach enables employees to systematically advance their skills and allows managers to track progress and adapt the plan as necessary.

6. Provide Necessary Resources and Support

Implementing a personal development plan involves identifying and allocating appropriate resources such as training programs, mentorship opportunities, online courses, workshops, and educational funding.

Beyond financial investment, offer encouragement, coaching, and acknowledgment to foster employee growth.

A strong support system and access to beneficial resources demonstrate the organization's commitment to its employees' success, promoting a culture of continuous learning and development.

7. Set Milestones and Monitor Progress

Establishing clear goals and scheduled checkpoints is crucial for tracking progress throughout the personal development plan.

Milestones serve as tangible markers of advancement, organizing the plan and enabling both employees and managers to monitor progress, celebrate achievements, and address challenges.

Regular checkpoint discussions promote open dialogue and allow for adjustments to the plan, ensuring it remains relevant to both the employee's and the organization's evolving needs.

8. Promote Lifelong Learning

Cultivating a culture that values lifelong learning is essential, transcending individual development plans. Show employees the importance of staying abreast with industry trends, emerging technologies, and best practices.

Motivate participation in conferences, access to professional journals, engagement in online webinars, and formation of in-house learning communities. Embracing continuous learning as a way of life renders employees versatile, innovative, and equipped for the dynamic professional landscape.

9. Monitor and Assess

Monitoring employee development is dynamic, recurrent, and involves continuous feedback loops. Feedback from management, coworkers, and the employees themselves can clarify progress.

This regular review ensures that the personal development plan adapts to new situations and promotes professional advancement through timely adjustments. Regular feedback encourages transparency and collaboration, helping individuals understand the goals and objectives of the development plan.

10. Adapt and Change

A robust personal growth strategy necessitates flexibility. Adjust the plan as the employee develops and organizational needs evolve. This adaptability calls for individuals to be open to changing goals, schedules, and development activities, necessitating careful monitoring of both personal and professional shifts.

By remaining fluid and responsive, the personal development plan effectively supports professional growth and organizational success, ensuring its relevance and alignment with ongoing professional advancements.

Empower Your Employees' Growth with AI-Based PDP

A personal development plan is mostly created after a 360 assessment is completed.

360 assessments provide a comprehensive view of an employee's performance by gathering feedback from various sources, including peers, subordinates, and supervisors ( 360-degree feedback ). This holistic approach ensures a well-rounded understanding of an individual's strengths and areas for improvement.

ThriveSparrow leverages AI-based technology to simplify the PDP creation process. Our platform utilizes the latest in AI advancements, including GPT-3.5 integration, to generate personalized development plan suggestions. This not only saves time for managers and HR teams but also ensures that PDPs are tailored to each employee's unique needs and career aspirations.

Benefits at a glance:

• Saves time by automating the PDP creation process.
• Provides personalized development suggestions based on 360 assessment results.
• Enhances the efficiency and effectiveness of performance reviews.
• Offers flexibility with optional AI assistance in PDP creation.
• Ensures data security and privacy throughout the process.

This AI-based approach not only simplifies the PDP creation process but also ensures that development strategies are data-driven and closely aligned with the specific needs and goals of both employees and the organization.

With ThriveSparrow, managers can unlock the full potential of their teams, fostering a culture of continuous growth and success.

As Employees Grow, So Does The Company

The growth and well-being of an organization rely heavily on the level of commitment the employees have toward the company.

Investing in a good employee success platform like ThriveSparrow allows you to understand the needs of your employees better, enabling you to create the perfect personal development plan for them!

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9 most popular types of performance reviews in 2024, how to write a performance review in 7 steps, how to prepare for a performance review in 2024, make every day a success story for your employees..

Create an Effective Personal Development Plan in 7 Steps [2024]

• January 5, 2024
• In Career Development

Crafting a personal development plan is a vital step in achieving your goals. Learn how to create a comprehensive plan in 7 steps, including self-assessment, goal setting, identifying development areas, creating an action plan, tracking progress, seeking feedback and support, and reflecting and adapting for continuous growth and improvement.

Table of contents

What is a personal development plan?

Who needs a personal development plan, 7 steps to create a personal development plan, step 1: self-assessment, step 2: set clear goals, step 3: identify development areas, step 4: create an action plan, step 5: implement and track progress, step 6: seek feedback and support, step 7: reflect and adapt, faq: personal development plan.

A personal development plan (PDP) is an action plan that individuals can use to identify their individual goals, strengths, weaknesses , areas for improvement, and the necessary steps to achieve their goals. It is a method of focusing one’s goals into achievable steps, which helps in tracking personal development.

The plan can be aimed at education, career, personal goals, or a combination of these. It provides a clear sense of focus, helps in mapping out a path towards goals, strategizing a plan to achieve them, recording actionable steps, and setting a timeframe for completing them.

The process involves identifying strengths, setting realistic goals, planning the necessary resources and time, and taking action to work on the goals that have been set. 

A personal development plan can be beneficial for a wide range of individuals, including employees, professionals, students, and anyone seeking to enhance their personal and professional growth. Here’s a breakdown of who can benefit from a personal development plan:

• Employees : Employees can use personal development plans to identify areas for improvement, set career goals, and enhance their skills . Supervisors and employees often work together to complete the development plan, but employees are ultimately responsible for taking the initiative for their professional development.
• Professionals : Professionals in various fields can utilize personal development plans to identify strengths and weaknesses, set career objectives, and enhance their leadership and personal skills through activities such as formal training, 360-degree feedback, mentoring, and coaching.
• Students : Students can benefit from personal development plans to set academic and personal growth goals, identify areas for improvement, and develop skills that will be valuable in their future careers.
• Individuals seeking personal growth : Anyone interested in self-improvement , self-awareness, and achieving personal goals can use a personal development plan to focus on their internal state, identify their values and beliefs, and work on weaknesses while playing to their strengths.

Related:  7 Self-Improvement Tips for Personal Growth and Success

Creating an effective personal development plan is crucial for anyone looking to grow and improve themselves. Here are 7 key steps to consider when creating your personal development plan:

Identify your strengths, areas for improvement, opportunities, and challenges. What do you want to achieve in the short term and long term? This self-evaluation will assist you in recognizing areas for growth and establishing achievable objectives.

• Strengths: These are the positive attributes, skills, and qualities that you possess. They could include leadership abilities, communication skills, creativity, adaptability, or specific technical expertise.
• Weaknesses: These are areas where you may need improvement or where you feel less confident. They could encompass skills gaps, emotional intelligence, time management, public speaking, or any other aspect of personal or professional life that you perceive as a challenge.
• Opportunities: These are external factors or situations that could be leveraged to your advantage. They could be career advancement opportunities, chances to learn new skills, networking prospects, or positive trends in your industry or personal life.
• Threats: These are external factors that could potentially hinder your progress or success. They might include economic downturns, industry shifts, personal obstacles, or anything else that poses a risk to your goals and well-being.

This self-assessment lays the foundation for identifying areas for improvement and setting realistic, achievable goals. It provides a clear understanding of where you currently stand and what you aspire to achieve, enabling you to create a targeted personal development plan that aligns with your ambitions and potential for growth.

Once you have a good understanding of where you stand, it’s time to set clear, achievable goals. These goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). Whether it’s improving your skills, advancing in your career, or enhancing your personal relationships, having clear goals will keep you focused and motivated.

• Short-term and long-term goals: Short-term goals typically cover a period of 1-2 years, while long-term goals extend to 3-5 years or beyond. Short-term goals could include acquiring a new certification, improving time management, or enhancing a specific skill. Long-term goals could involve career advancement, starting a business, or achieving a significant personal milestone.

Based on your self-assessment and goals, identify the areas where you need to develop. This could be acquiring new skills, improving emotional intelligence , enhancing leadership abilities, or simply working on your personal well-being. Be honest with yourself and prioritize the areas that will have the most impact on your overall growth.

• Acquiring new skills : Identify specific skills that are crucial for your short-term and long-term goals, such as project management, public speaking, or leadership training.
• Improving emotional intelligence (EQ) : Enhancing emotional intelligence can significantly impact personal and professional relationships, job satisfaction, and overall well-being. This includes developing skills in self-awareness, self-regulation, social awareness, and social skills.
• Enhancing leadership abilities : If your long-term goals involve attaining a leadership position, focus on developing leadership qualities, decision-making skills, and the ability to inspire and motivate others.
• Working on personal well-being : Achieving a better work-life balance, reducing stress, and enhancing overall well-being can contribute to your personal development and long-term success.

Once you know what you want to achieve and the areas you need to develop, create an action plan. Break down your goals into smaller, actionable steps and set deadlines for each. Identify resources, courses, mentors, or support systems that can help you along the way.

• Determine your objectives : Clearly define what you want to achieve and the areas you need to develop. This could be related to personal growth, career advancement, skill enhancement, or any other aspect of your life that you want to improve.
• Break goals into smaller steps : Once you’ve identified your objectives, break them down into smaller, manageable steps. This makes your goals more achievable and helps you track your progress more effectively.
• Set deadlines : Assign realistic deadlines to each of the smaller steps. This creates a sense of urgency and aids in maintaining your focus.

By following these steps, you can create a comprehensive action plan that will guide you toward achieving your objectives while providing a clear roadmap for your personal and professional development.

 Set aside time to work on your development goals, and regularly review your plan to ensure you’re on track. Be flexible and open to modifying your plan as necessary.

• Put your plan into action : Allocate dedicated time to work on your development goals. Regularly working on your action plan is essential for making tangible progress.
• Regularly review your plan : Set aside time to review your action plan regularly. This allows you to assess your progress, identify any challenges, and make adjustments as needed.
• Be flexible and willing to adjust : Flexibility is key. Be open to making adjustments to your plan as required. Circumstances may change, and being adaptable allows you to refine your approach and stay focused on achieving your objectives.

With these steps, you can effectively put your plan into action, monitor your progress, and make necessary adjustments to ensure you stay on track toward achieving your personal and professional development goals.

Seeking feedback and support from mentors, colleagues, or friends is crucial for personal and professional growth. Their perspectives can offer valuable insights, help individuals stay accountable, and provide guidance in setting and achieving goals. Mentors, in particular, play a significant role in encouraging and enabling another person’s professional or personal development by helping them focus their efforts and set goals

Reflecting on your progress, celebrating achievements, learning from setbacks, and using this reflection to adapt your plan and make necessary changes are essential components of a successful personal development journey. This dynamic approach ensures that you stay aligned with your evolving goals and aspirations, and it empowers you to make continuous progress.

Additionally, learning from setbacks and failures is crucial for growth. By reflecting on what went wrong, what could have been done differently, and what can be learned from the experience, you can avoid making the same mistakes in the future.

Related:  8 Effective Ways to Practice Self-Care at Work

Q: Why is personal development important?

A: Personal development is important because it allows individuals to assess their own personal qualities and skills. It helps them set goals, improve themselves, and reach their full potential .

Q: How can I create a personal development plan?

A: Creating a personal development plan involves self-reflection and improvement. It is a written account that doubles as a detailed action plan used to fulfill academic, personal, or career-based goals. It helps individuals establish their aims, recognize their strengths and weaknesses, and identify areas for improvement .

Q: What are some common questions to consider when creating a personal development plan?

A: When creating a personal development plan, it can be helpful to ask yourself the following questions:

• What are my goals and aspirations?
• What are my strengths and weaknesses?
• What skills do I need to develop?
• What steps can I take to achieve my goals?
• How will I measure my progress?
• What resources or support do I need?
• How will I stay motivated and accountable?
• How will I overcome obstacles or challenges?
• How will I celebrate my achievements?  

These questions can help guide your thinking and planning process.

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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.

Learn how you can boost productivity and motivation with Perkbox

Boost productivity and motivation with our reward and recognition guide

We've put together this guide to give you the tools you need to plan, create and review your very own reward and recognition strategy.

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Maximize Your Potential With a Personal Development Plan

Personal development fosters individual growth while enhancing skills and self-awareness. It can facilitate adaptability to life’s changes, maximize your potential and contribute to fulfilling your personal and professional aspirations. The result can lead to a more enriched and purposeful life. But maximizing your potential requires a sound and strategic approach, which is where creating a solid personal development plan and template can assist you.

What is a personal development plan? 

A personal development plan (PDP) provides a structured and strategic approach to reaching your personal goals. It provides you with an opportunity for self-assessment, making the planning process itself an opportunity to better understand your drives, goals and needs.

Moreover, PDPs are actionable. By setting goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound (that is, SMART goals), you develop a proactive means toward personal growth. And paying careful attention to your plan throughout the process gives you the opportunity to assess your success.

Here are eight aspects of personal development to keep in mind while creating your individualized plan:

• Self-awareness and reflection: Discover your true self with greater understanding of your strengths and weaknesses as well as values, drives and goals.
• Skill acquisition and knowledge: Commit to lifelong learning to gain new knowledge and develop new skills and enhance existing ones for greater empowerment and satisfaction.
• Emotional and mental health: Build resilience while managing stress and developing emotional intelligence .
• Physical health: Emphasis on improving health, including a better diet, proper sleep, exercise and other self-care regimens to enhance overall well-being.
• Relationships: Build and expand your personal network through development and better communication skills and empathy.
• Financial literacy : Relieve unnecessary stress and burdens with a personalized money management plan.
• Time management and productivity : The best time management strategies will increase your productivity while freeing up personal time.
• Spiritual growth: Noted speaker Jim Rohn considered spiritual growth key to personal development , whether that’s through religion, meditation or a connection to nature and the universe.

By identifying these aspects of overall well-being, you can embark on a personal development plan suited to your individual goals and needs.

What are the benefits of a personal development plan?

The decision to create a PDP is your first step toward achieving your goals. It shows a commitment to inner growth and a desire to lead a happier and more fulfilling life. As you dive in, you will develop a clearer understanding of yourself. This clarity fosters self-awareness through introspection. Your plan is not a “wish list” but rather a process of designing a more purposeful existence.

Your plan also provides clarity in making decisions that align with your values and goals. This calibration of your inner and outer worlds enhances personal motivation with a renewed sense of purpose. Monitoring your growth in desired areas of personal development likewise builds resilience as you see yourself more confidently clearing hurdles and navigating setbacks.

Furthermore, a professional development plan emphasizes continuous learning. This augments your adaptability skills so that perceived threats seem more like opportunities. You develop a growth mindset that builds your character and makes you more attractive to others, both personally and professionally. Every task becomes easier as you build a more enriched, empowered and purposeful life.

How do I create a personal development plan?

Crafting a PDP requires commitment. You must be willing to devote quiet time to deep introspection of who you are and who you want to become. With this understanding, you can set specific goals tailored to your personal growth. Each goal should be paired with strategic actions that are stepping stones toward your self-actualization.

It sounds like a lot to take on—but embarking on this journey does not need to be difficult. A personal development plan template provides structure, acting as a roadmap to guide you one step at a time on your lifelong journey.

Use this personal development plan template to get started.

Let’s begin with a personal development plan example to use as your own template.

1. Create a vision statement

Think deeply about what you aspire to and what inspires you. Make a list in multiple columns that addresses where you want to go and what truly motivates you on a daily basis. Then, narrow that list down, crossing off items where desire and motivation don’t align. Start from what remains to develop your personal growth vision statement.

2. Commit to a deep self-assessment

Now that you have brought into alignment what you want to achieve and what motivates you to get there, assess yourself. Identify your personal strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats—that is, perform a personal SWOT analysis . Just as these analyses help businesses assess their standing, they also help individuals in developing a plan for personal development.

3. Set SMART goals

Next, set personal development goals for yourself. But remember: Goals are not wishes or dreams. Setting goals for personal development is simple, but it requires discipline. Set your personal goals with the SMART goal strategy in mind—determine goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. To facilitate the ease and success of this stage, consider using a goal-setting worksheet .

4. Determine action steps

Now that you know where you want to go, the challenge lies in getting there. Determine the course of action to achieve what you desire. Some personal development goals may only need a few action steps. Others may require more. The point here is to map out the actions you need to take to achieve your personal goals. Set realistic deadlines that help keep you on track, adhere to them and adjust only when necessary.

5. Use all available resources

Putting step 4 of your personal development plan into action may be the most difficult. Thankfully, you do not need to attempt it without guidance. Experts can assist you. Take time to use available resources such as personal development courses and personal growth books . These proven experts will do more than guide you with tools and strategies; they will inspire you during your growth journey.

6. Track your progress

Tracking your personal development progress is vital to your plan. If you used a SMART goal worksheet to set deadlines, review the tasks regularly to ensure you are staying on track while also setting future goals. You may consider keeping a daily journal. If you choose this method, consider expressing gratitude in your journal, which can provide personal development benefits.

7. Review and adjust

Tracking your daily progress also offers you the opportunity to review and adjust your personal development plan. Go back and look at your worksheet and journal each week with time set aside for a monthly review. If you did not meet your goals, don’t be hard on yourself. You may simply have aimed too high starting out. Adjust your goals and timelines accordingly. And when goals are met, set new ones in incremental steps that adhere to the SMART goal-setting approach.

Ready to maximize your potential but still want help creating your personal development plan? The Win the Day Accelerator, hosted by James Whittaker, can help! The 8-part program is designed to unlock your full potential and help you achieve extraordinary results, personally and professionally.

Photo by mimagephotography/Shutterstock.com

Bryan Lindenberger

Bryan enjoys the digital space where arts and technology meet. As a writer, he has worked in education, health and wellbeing, and manufacturing. He also assists smaller businesses in web development including accessibility and content development. In his free time, he hikes trails in central Florida.

5473 Blair Road, Suite 100 PMB 30053 Dallas, TX 75231

Copyright © 2024 SUCCESS Magazine. All rights reserved.

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 .

Learn more >

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Blog 14 Individual Development Plan Examples & Templates

14 Individual Development Plan Examples & Templates

Written 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 ?

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Personal Development Plan (PDP) plus template

Personal development plan: this article explains the personal development plan (PDP) in a practical way. Next to what it is, this article also the benefits, how do I write it, a The full guide and personal development plan template to create a personal development plan and started and get closer to your goals. Enjoy reading!

What is a personal development plan?

A personal development plan is an approach, or action plan, through which you can determine the following:

• Your personal development goals (development opportunities)
• Strengths and weaknesses
• The areas that need improvement and development to achieve your goals
• What actions are needed to achieve your goals
• How to monitor progress
• Which things can hinder progress

The personal development plan, PDP in short, is a form of self-evaluation and self-reflection that is frequently applied in education, but also in the personal and professional life of many individuals.

Developing and executing a PDP is a useful method of self-development for many people.

Benefits of a personal development plan

The benefits of using a PDP include:

• Developing clear SMART goals both short term goals and long term goals
• Improving your employability in your work environment
• Improving performance
• Increasing your motivation
• Improving your mental well-being
• Reducing stress
• Contributing to your IKIGAI
• Maximizing your potency

Many people see personal development as a train journey from point A to point B. In reality, a career and your development is not at all like a train journey: you stop several times, get off and on again at sometimes unforeseen moments.

Whether it’s your personal career or your personal life, it’s good to occasionally assess your situation and reconsider your goals, strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats. Investing in sustainable development and identifying areas for personal development is perhaps the best investment there is.

How do I write a personal development plan? The full guide

All development plans are different, as it is precisely tailored to your personal situation. In education and work life, PDPs have a certain format. Employers can also customize their own versions for employees and have their own procedures and processes to tailor the PDP to their employees.

Regardless of what a PDP is used for, there are some general steps that can help you write a PDP. In any case, these steps include:

• SWOT Analysis
• Career Goals Analysis
• Competency Analysis
• Action plan
• Personal Development Plan Template

Follow the steps below and keep a record of all the output. The result of each of the steps should be used as input for the final personal development plan template.

Step 1: perform a personal analysis

The first step in the process of drawing up a personal development plan is to do a personal analysis. It is important that you have a clear picture of yourself, because only then can the ideal career direction be determined. The personal part of this analysis consists of two parts:

• Getting a clear picture of your personality
• Gaining insights into your own core competencies through a SWOT analysis

Personality

Before you can start planning a career, you need to know where you want to go. That seems easier said than done for many people. By performing a personal analysis you can find out what motivates you, who you really are and where your strengths and weaknesses lie.

To find out, you can use various self-assessment tools, such as the MBTI test ( Myers Briggs Personality Test ), or the Big Five Personality Test .

SWOT analysis

A SWOT analysis reveals an organization’s strengths and weaknesses and helps identify opportunities and threats to the business. This method can also be applied to your personal situation.

By recognizing your strengths, you can focus your efforts on what you are good at. Understanding weaknesses will help you know what to avoid and what you might need help with.

All input together helps to identify opportunities for your long-term career.

To conduct a personal SWOT analysis, ask yourself a series of questions based on the four quadrants of the analysis. Sample questions are shown below.

• What are you really good at?
• For which skills do you receive recognition?
• What skills do you have that others don’t?
• What do you do better than the people you work with?
• What are you most proud of when it comes to your own skills?
• Do you have access to skills, resources, or connections that others don’t?

Weaknesses in the personal development plan

• What are you less good at? What skills do you struggle with in your professional and personal life?
• What do you do only because you have to? For example because of job requirements?
• What does someone else identify as your weakness?
• Where do you feel vulnerable?
• Where do you miss experience, connections or resources that others have?

Opportunities

• In what ways can you best use and utilize your strengths?
• What opportunities exist for people with the same strengths as you?
• Would you most like to do something that you are good at? What is that?
• How can you minimize your weaknesses?
• If you had no weaknesses, what would you most like to do?
• How do you see the career opportunities in your professional environment? Perhaps in a different industry or sector?
• Which trends influence the course of your career?
• What common threats should you be aware of?
• If you don’t work on weaknesses, can they threaten your career? Or cause problems and new challenges?
• What setbacks are you likely to face in your career development?
• What obstacles are encountered by others following a similar path?

Step 2: determine which goals you have for your career

Now that you have a clear and detailed vision of your strengths and weaknesses, it’s time to think about where you want to go.

This is an important step in developing a personal development plan. Divide the long-term ambitions you have into key career goals that will enable the achievement of these aspirations.

Take the time to decide on the path you are going to walk. Think about the following questions:

• What do you plan to achieve? What ambitions do you have?
• Why are these plans important to you?
• What is at the heart of your decision?
• Does this ambition make you feel like you’re contributing? To other people? To society?
• What emotions come up when you think about these career plans?
• How do you want others to see you?

Formulate the objective(s) using the SMART Goals method. In this way you ensure that the goal remains attainable and realistic. A BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) is difficult to define in a way that is feasible, relevant and time bound.

Step 3: perform a competency / skill analysis

With the development of your objectives, the basis is ready for the personal development plan.

In addition to this, it is essential to have a good understanding of the skills and competencies you need to achieve your vision and purpose.

The next step, therefore, is to think about the skills you are currently missing and which ones you need to develop. It is also important to define why this is important for achieving your goal.

Think about the following questions:

• What specific skills do you need to perform the job you envision?
• Is it possible to gain experience before arriving at the ultimate goal?
• What additional skills do you need to grow in your chosen path?
• For example, do you need a foreign language to function because you are going to work abroad?
• Are there any job requirements in the job description that you are currently missing?
• What can you do to develop these capacities?

Step 4: draw up an action plan

You are now finally at the point of drawing up an action plan . In the action plan you include all the objectives and interim results that you need to achieve the goal.

Step 5: Fill in the Personal Development Plan template

You have collected all the input you need to complete a personal development plan in the previous steps. Congratulations! You can now start working towards the ultimate goal.

Download the Personal Development Plan template

Summary personal development plan.

A personal development plan helps you achieve personal goals and career choices. The complete plan consists of a few tools, such as the SWOT analysis, SMART goals and a personality test.

These techniques are combined to develop a plan that is as personalized as possible, ensuring personal and professional growth.

The use of a personal development plan, or PDP, has many advantages. Thus, it helps you identify your strengths and weaknesses. This knowledge is the basis for your personal growth plan.

In addition, it helps you identify areas where you need to improve, what your precise goal is and what you need to do to achieve it. It also helps to provide insight into what can hinder your progress and how to deal with this.

It’s Your Turn

What do you think? Do you recognize the explanation about a personal development plan? Do you use this plan for your own personal development? Do you find this a clear tool for achieving personal goals? What other things would you like to see added to this method? Do you have any tips or comments?

Share your experience and knowledge in the comments box below.

More information

• Eisele, L., Grohnert, T., Beausaert, S., & Segers, M. (2013). Employee motivation for personal development plan effectiveness . European Journal of Training and Development .
• Beausaert, S., Segers, M., & Gijselaers, W. (2011). The Personal Development Plan Practice Questionnaire: the development and validation of an instrument to assess the employee’s perception of personal development plan practice . International Journal of Training and Development, 15(4), 249-270.
• Beausaert, S., Segers, M., Fouarge, D., & Gijselaers, W. (2013). Effect of using a personal development plan on learning and development . Journal of Workplace Learning.
• Beausaert, S., Segers, M., & Gijselaers, W. (2011). The use of a personal development plan and the undertaking of learning activities, expertise-growth, flexibility and performance: The role of supporting assessment conditions . Human resource development international, 14(5), 527-543.

How to cite this article: Janse, B. (2022). Personal Development Plan (PDP) . Retrieved [insert date] from Toolshero: https://www.toolshero.com/human-resources/personal-development-plan/

Original publication date: 04/15/2022 | Last update: 09/15/2023

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Vincent van Vliet

Vincent van Vliet is co-founder and responsible for the content and release management. Together with the team Vincent sets the strategy and manages the content planning, go-to-market, customer experience and corporate development aspects of the company.

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Are you reaching your full potential? A guide to personal development

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What is personal development?

5 areas of personal development, the benefits of personal development, 6 steps to developing a personal development plan, how personalized development can help.

I’m no stranger to feeling stuck. There are days I wake up and just go through the daily motions. I make coffee then sit down at my computer for a day of work. I’ll usually work out, walk the dogs, make dinner. Then, read, watch a show, go to bed. The next day? Wake up and do it all over again. 

Especially at the height of the pandemic, it started to feel like vicious monotony. Our lives seemingly stalled in bumper-to-bumper traffic. It feels like dreams, goals, and ambitions are buried in thick molasses or honey at the back of our brains. And even as we navigate this new normal , that “stuck” feeling might be stuck with us. 

The good news? You’re not alone — and personal development is here to help. 

I embarked on an intentional personal development journey well before I knew what it meant. I knew I wanted to see personal growth — and had reached a point in my life where I needed real change .

At BetterUp, personal development comes to life in what we call an Inner Work® practice . Inner Work® is deep work, a practice that isn’t always visible to the outside eye. But with the right personal development toolkit, you can build a lifelong practice of Inner Work® . 

My own personal growth journey has seen its series of ups and downs, failures and successes. Any personal development journey is a lifelong commitment, not a sprint or achievable task. It will weather bumps and roadblocks but it can also thrive in other areas of your life. 

If you’re looking for ways to up your personal development game, we’re here to help. 

It’s certainly not as easy as it sounds. Every person is unique. So, it only makes sense that personal development will look different for everyone. But what does it actually mean? 

Personal development is looking inward and focusing on ways to better yourself. Personal development increases your self-awareness, your self-esteem, increases your skills, and fulfills your aspirations.  

At BetterUp, we’re big believers in the practice of Inner Work®. In many ways, personal development is a form of Inner Work® . It is the act of looking inward to achieve a purpose or result, especially in the pursuit of clarity, purpose, and passion in life. 

Personal development is much larger than just career development or self-development. It encompasses all aspects of your life where you’d like to see personal growth — and it doesn’t discriminate on where it shows up for you. 

When it comes to personal development, it’s hard to not reference Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. According to Maslow, your basic needs need to be fulfilled in order to reach your fullest potential. In other words. To reach self-actualization means we’re reaching the highest levels of self-awareness , self-confidence , personal growth, and self-realization. 

Much like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we see five different areas of personal development. Different personal development goals can fall into different categories. 

Mental 

Exercising your brain and staying mentally fit is critical to personal development. At BetterUp, this comes to life in a few ways: coaching, learning opportunities , and career growth. For example, right now, I’m taking a creative writing course to help keep my mental creative muscles going strong. (And BetterUp foots the bill as part of our learning stipend.) 

Mental development can be anything from workshops, training sessions , or even just rest. Rest is just as (if not more) important than mental exercise. And as your mental fitness improves , so does your resiliency, innovation, and self-awareness. 

Social 

Social connections and relationships are also a must-have for any personal development. After all, self-improvement is not a solitary pursuit. Humans are social creatures — we need that connection to learn and grow. And from social connections, we gain important skills. Like communication skills , problem-solving, relationship-building, and the ability to receive (and give) feedback. We also learn from those around us and their experiences. 

Spiritual 

Personal growth and development — whether you’re religious or not — can come through in spirituality. It’s important to recognize that religion and spirituality are not synonymous. In fact, far from it. 

Spirituality means you’re investing in a deeper understanding of your own self in the world around you. It helps you get to know yourself and uncover your values. And in the context of Inner Work®, the spiritual personal development tool can bring greater awareness to self and change. 

Emotional 

Emotional personal development often goes hand-in-hand with emotional intelligence . At its simplest, emotional intelligence is the ability to understand feelings. Beyond feelings, it’s understanding how those feelings shape our thoughts and actions. 

Any number of experiences lends itself to emotional personal development. And those experiences can help you in your pursuit of self-improvement. Take your own Inner Work® journey so far. What experiences have shaped you into who you are today? When you reflect on your journey, what have you learned? 

If you’re looking back at your journey and identifying the growth, it’s likely you’ve fostered a sense of emotional development along the way. This requires emotional intelligence to understand what role your feelings and thoughts played. 

Physical 

A healthy body nourishes a healthy mind. There’s an intrinsic link between your physical, mental, and emotional well-being. 

This aspect of personal development is focused on physical health — like nutrition, sleep, exercise, and movement. When your physical self is nourished, it’s likely your mind is also reaping those benefits. Consider ways you can build this area of personal development and take note of how your body and your mind feel. 

There are plenty of benefits to personal development. Personal growth isn’t easy but the benefits will make the journey worthwhile. 

My friend at Google has worked with a BetterUp coach for the last year. In her own personal development journey, she's shared why working with a coach has transformed her personal growth journey. 

"My experience with BetterUp has transcended the professional workplace. My coach knows me on a personal level, which allows for her to help me set boundaries, manage expectations, and receive feedback. Ultimately, it's helped me reach my biggest goal of having a work-life balance."   A Google employee, BetterUp Member 

• Increased self-awareness and self-esteem. Personal growth requires looking inward at your own thoughts, feelings, habits, and reactions. It requires attentiveness — and awareness — to who you are as a person in a present state. But it also challenges you to look to the future to where you want to go. By investing in yourself, you’re increasing your self-awareness and by default, self-esteem . 
• Increased mental fitness. Becoming mentally fit requires work. And many aspects of personal development aid in building strong mental fitness. With increased mental fitness, you’ll see a ripple effect of positive benefits. We’ve gathered data around the impact of mental fitness . People with strong mental fitness are more productive, are less likely to experience mental illness, and are more creative and innovative. 
• Greater resilience. With personal development, you gain greater resilience . This is another positive symptom of strong mental fitness, too. Investing in your personal growth means investing in your ability to bounce back after rough patches. 
• More knowledge and learned skills. Oftentimes, personal development comes with more knowledge and learned skills. This can come to life in different ways. For example, you may take courses in digital marketing that help you gain the skills you need to further your career development. Or, you may sign up for art or pottery classes, which help you gain skills in entirely different areas of your life. 
• Improved personal and professional relationships. Another personal development benefit is improved personal and professional relationships . This is an area that flourishes when you invest in your personal growth, especially in emotional and social aspects. 

11 personal development skills to work on

If you’re not sure where to start, consider working with a coach . Personalized coaching can help serve as your guide while you’re building your roadmap to self-actualization. 

Your coach will work one-on-one with you to help identify key skills to work on catered to your own experience. You can start by taking the Whole Person Assessment  to help assess where your strengths and areas of opportunity lie. 

We’ve identified some common areas of self-improvement and personal development you may consider investing in: 

• Communication and interpersonal skills 
• Problem-solving 
• Cognitive agility and adaptability 
• Self-compassion, self-care , and self-reflection 
• Conflict and conflict resolution  
• Navigating change and uncertainty 
• Future-mindedness  
• Organizational skills 
• Growth mindset 
• Teamwork and collaboration  
• Self-awareness 

Like any other goal, it’s important to put together a plan. By assembling your personal development plan with some structure, you’re more likely to achieve your goals. 

1. Identify areas where you’d like to improve 

This first step will likely require some Inner Work®. Take a minute to reflect on where you are right now. What are your strengths? In what areas do you want to focus? What growth and development do you want to see in yourself? 

If you’ve taken the Whole Person Assessment, this can help as a useful tool. Once you’ve reflected on your personal goals , identify the areas where you’d like to improve . 

2. Work with a coach or mentor to assemble a plan 

Even if it's your own personal development plan, you don’t have to do it alone. Lean on support systems — like life coaches or mentors — to help frame a plan. With the right structure in place (and feedback along the way), you’ll be better equipped to put the plan into action. 

3. Structure your personal development goals  

Stick to a routine — and build consistency. Start to examine your day-to-day and try to find ways to either build habits or stack new habits onto existing ones. 

In this last year, I wanted to build strength training into my fitness routine. The kicker? I never use weights. I decided to put a yoga mat with weights next to my running shoes. Every time I go for a run, I have to think about those weights sitting next to my shoes. It helps to remind myself to do a quick 5-minute exercise with some dumbbells.  

4. Find an accountability buddy 

Sometimes, having someone holding you accountable makes all the difference. If you and a friend are both setting intentions and goals, consider ways you can support one another. 

Every new hire at BetterUp gets a stack of great books during the onboarding process. My teammate reached out today to see if we could create an accountability plan . We’re each holding each other to 100 pages of reading a week. 

5. Be honest and aware of your progress 

Your personal development plan requires integrity. Be honest with yourself about your growth and progress. This also requires a level of self-awareness. You can also gather feedback from friends, family, and colleagues to help gather insight on how you’re progressing in your goals, too. 

6. Factor personal development into your mental fitness plan 

How does personal development factor into your mental fitness plan? Consider ways you can work with your coach on building aspects of personal development into your overall mental fitness. 

Personal development is just that: it’s personal. 

Every human is different. If our society cracked the nut on personal development, every self-help book would help everyone. Or every learning process would benefit every student. 

But we know from our life experiences that there’s no “one-size-fits-all” solution to anything when it comes to human nature. 

It’s important to lean on personalized support like coaching to help craft a catered plan that works for you. You won’t have the same needs, strengths, opportunities, and skills as your neighbor. So why would your personal development plan be the same? 

Push yourself outside of your comfort zone. By doing so, you'll be on the path to reaching your full potential .

While self-actualization and Inner Work® is a lifelong process, your personal development goals shouldn't be daunting. Start small — like building a new skill or even investing in work-life balance . By doing so, you'll set yourself up for success in all areas of your life.

If you're ready to make a change to improve the quality of your life, consider how personal and professional development coaching can help. With help from BetterUp, you can awaken your full potential .

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Make meaningful changes and become the best version of yourself. BetterUp's professional Coaches are here to support your personal growth journey.

Madeline Miles

Madeline is a writer, communicator, and storyteller who is passionate about using words to help drive positive change. She holds a bachelor's in English Creative Writing and Communication Studies and lives in Denver, Colorado. In her spare time, she's usually somewhere outside (preferably in the mountains) — and enjoys poetry and fiction.

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A personal business plan, sometimes called a personal development plan, is guided by the same principles as a corporate business plan. You write a personal business plan to review your personal goals relating to your career, family and financial development. But writing a personal business plan is only the first step in a process. Once it is written, execution requires reviewing the plan, modifying it and maintaining the discipline to stick to it.

Write a personal mission statement that expresses your core values and your ultimate goals for balance and happiness. Core values might include having a family and perhaps putting career second to children when the time comes. A mission statement is the basis for establishing goals and measuring your success.

List priorities regarding career and personal relationships and the responsibilities involved in each. For example, work is essential for providing a particular lifestyle, but how much are you willing to sacrifice time with friends and family to advance in your career?

Read through the priorities and look for ways to balance different components of your life. Write down goals for areas where you can improve balance between work, family, physical and spiritual growth and development. For example, if your life is running between work and family obligations, you might set a goal of having one hour of personal time daily.

Set deadlines for each goal, breaking it down into smaller components if needed. For example, if you want to compete in a triathlon, you may need to first establish smaller training parameters to work up to your ultimate goal. Break larger goals into smaller goals like running three miles per day and then increasing to five per day in four weeks.

Review the plan to ensure you are being realistic regarding your goals and steps. Make adjustments to the overall plan if you feel overwhelmed, but don't hesitate to raise your standards stage by stage. It may sound wonderful to increase income, have more personal and family time and start training for a triathlete, but all these together may be too much to incorporate into any one period. Take a step back and make baby-step adjustments.

• Fiscal Fizzle: Forget Business: Do YOU Need a Business Plan

With more than 15 years of professional writing experience, Kimberlee finds it fun to take technical mumbo-jumbo and make it fun! Her first career was in financial services and insurance.

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5 Steps to Creating a Successful Leadership Development Plan

• 27 Nov 2019

Leadership development is a key initiative for many businesses. Organizations not only try to recruit candidates with leadership potential but cultivate their current employees’ leadership skills.

In a survey by global research and advisory firm Gartner , 60 percent of human resources executives said they’ll focus on cultivating leader and manager effectiveness for their company in 2023. In doing so, they intend to nurture the professional development of potential leaders by developing specific leadership qualities, such as authenticity, empathy, and adaptiveness—representing a new kind of “human” leadership.

Additionally, a report by the World Economic Forum projects leadership and social influence to be among the fastest-growing workplace skills through 2022, which ties into a burgeoning trend for all workers to become lifelong learners to address emerging skills gaps.

For motivated professionals who want to advance their careers and assume leadership positions, creating a leadership development plan is vital to staying ahead of the curve and rising to the demands of the job market. According to Harvard Business School Professor Ethan Bernstein, the path to effective leadership is more fluid now than in the past.

“Once upon a time, you would enter a leadership development program in a company that might put you on a 20-year track to becoming an executive,” Bernstein says. “Many of us can’t even fathom that today. But that should be freeing in that it gives us license to develop ourselves and create our own individualized leadership development plans.”

As you plot your career trajectory and consider how you can maximize your professional influence and impact, here are five steps to creating a successful leadership development plan.

How to Design Your Leadership Development Plan

1. assess where you are professionally.

Mapping your leadership development starts with understanding yourself and where you stand professionally. Taking stock of your strengths, weaknesses, and workplace tendencies can help identify areas for improvement and anticipate pitfalls that could arise on your journey to becoming a more capable leader.

“In the process of identifying how what you’ve done before may or may not make you successful going forward, you raise your awareness about how what you already know will contribute to, or undermine, your capacity to successfully lead others in the future,” Bernstein says.

Completing an assessment can be a valuable way to reflect on your motivational drivers and limitations and gain a more holistic view of your personal leadership style . Pairing self-reflection with a 360-degree assessment enables you to solicit feedback from colleagues and peers, which can provide greater insight into how others experience you. In turn, you can build and leverage a keener sense of emotional intelligence throughout your leadership development journey.

Related: 4 Tips for Developing Your Personal Leadership Style

2. Set an Attainable Goal

Goal setting is an essential component of any leadership development plan.

“Just like anything else: If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re probably not going to get there,” Bernstein says. “It sounds overly simplistic, but that summarizes why goals are important."

Bernstein teaches the PACE model, an acronym for:

• Pick a leadership goal
• Apprise others in your inner circle of the goal
• Collect specific ideas on how to improve
• Elicit feedback on how you’re doing

PACE is employed by learners to select leadership development goals and chart a course of action for achieving them. The first step in the process, Pick, is centered on identifying and prioritizing a goal you can strive toward to boost your professional effectiveness. When setting this goal, take an agile approach and consider both the short and long term.

“You can’t lose sight of where you’re trying to go over the span of a decade—or even a career—which is why making long-term goals is important,” Bernstein says. “But we can’t, as human beings, make progress if we make the milestones so grand and far away that they seem unachievable. A little bit of progress each day keeps the frustration at bay.”

As you define and establish your key goal, consider how you’ll measure progress along the way to ensure you stay on track.

3. Engage in Leadership Training

Leadership training can benefit you no matter your career stage. Beyond the opportunity to gain and practice the technical skills needed to empower employees and influence others , you’re exposed to faculty and peers you can lean on for support and learn and grow from. It can also equip you for future leadership roles.

According to Bernstein, honing your leadership abilities in a classroom setting is advantageous because it provides a low-risk environment for reevaluating and fine-tuning goals when you encounter setbacks.

“It’s helpful to have a group of people—we call it your ‘inner circle’—who’ve heard and embraced your leadership goals, and whose conversations helped inform how you would go about achieving them,” Bernstein says. “In moments of challenge and relapse, you can go back to them for encouragement and courage. You can revise your goals in a safe environment because you have a level of openness and vulnerability with those people built into the course.”

4. Interact with Your Network

A professional network is one of the most valuable resources in any leader’s arsenal, so make it a point to grow yours . Throughout your leadership development journey, connecting with like-minded peers can have a positive impact by providing opportunities to employ the knowledge you’ve gained and receive feedback on your progress.

These kinds of interactions are core tenets of the online course Leadership Principles , in which learners practice delivering feedback through video exercises that allow them to evaluate their effectiveness in various business scenarios.

“Ensure your leadership development includes some interaction with other learners and also with the people who are benefitting and suffering from your current capabilities as a leader,” Bernstein says. “We try to teach people to be good protégés, as well as good leaders. It’s an ongoing process. That interaction is important in making things that seem very theoretical ultimately become very practical.”

5. Hone Your Soft Skills

Effective leadership requires a unique blend of characteristics and skills .

“There are skills you need as a leader that you don’t necessarily develop in any other context, at least in a focused way,” Bernstein says. “These include communication; career planning; knowing how to create and evaluate authentic change in a person, including yourself; and negotiating career transitions. These are things you typically won’t do many times in your career, but they will be very important to continuing your leadership trajectory.”

As you chart your leadership development plan, consider how you can bolster essential soft skills like actively listening , practicing empathy , and creating value in a negotiation to ensure you’re prepared to tackle any organizational challenges that come your way.

Developing Your Leadership Skills

Striving to become a strong, capable leader is a commitment you can make at any stage of your career —although doing so sooner means you can reap the benefits longer. By assessing where you are professionally and thinking deeply about where you want to go, you can design a leadership development plan that enables you to channel your passions and build the skills needed to be more impactful in your role.

Do you want to enhance your leadership skills? Download our free leadership e-book and explore our online course Leadership Principles to discover how you can become a more effective leader and unleash the potential in yourself and others.

This post was updated on December 21, 2022. It was originally published on November 27, 2019.

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What is a Personal Development Plan?

Last updated on 20th December 2023

In this article

To achieve success and happiness in your education, career and personal life, you should continuously improve your knowledge, skills and experience. This is known as personal development, which is a continuous lifelong process.

Personal development is beneficial for you as an individual and also for businesses and society as a whole. If you are making the most of your abilities and skills, this will positively impact your life and others around you. According to the NHS , learning new skills can improve your mental wellbeing, as it gives you a sense of purpose and boosts your confidence.

A simple and effective way of keeping track of your personal development is by completing a personal development plan. If you don’t have a plan, it will make it difficult for you to focus, and you are unlikely to meet your goals – whatever these may be. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail”.

It doesn’t matter how old you are or where you find yourself now. It is never too late to start your personal development plan. Most people have completed one at some point during their education or careers. If you haven’t, there is nothing to worry about, and there is no time like the present to start planning.

This article will help you learn what a personal development plan is and how a SWOT analysis can help you identify things that could help or hinder your progress. It will also give you tips on how to write a personal development plan and what to do after you have completed it.

What is a personal development plan?

A personal development plan, which is also known as a PDP, is an action plan that you can use to identify:

• Your individual goals and what you want to achieve.
• Your strengths and weaknesses.
• The areas you need to improve and develop to meet your goals.
• What you need to do to achieve your goals.
• Anything that could hinder your progress.

A PDP is a form of self-evaluation and self-reflection that is typically used in higher education and the workplace. However, it can also be a beneficial exercise in your personal life. For example, you may want to learn a new language before travelling overseas, and a PDP can help you achieve this goal.

In the workplace, a PDP is completed as part of an employee’s Continuing Professional Development ( CPD ), which is defined by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) as:

“A combination of approaches, ideas and techniques that will help you manage your own learning and growth”.

Employers will sometimes use PDPs as part of their appraisal process, which is known as a Performance Development Review (PDR).

Benefits of a PDP

The benefits of a PDP are:

• It provides you with clear goals.
• It helps you to identify your strengths and weaknesses.
• It improves your employability.
• It improves your performance.
• It increases your motivation.
• It helps track your progress.
• It improves your sense of purpose.
• It enhances your mental wellbeing and reduces stress.

Overall, a PDP gives you the best possible chance for success and maximises your potential.

Using a SWOT analysis

You can use a SWOT analysis as a starting point to help you create your PDP.  SWOT  stands for  S trengths,  W eaknesses,  O pportunities and  T hreats. You can use these four areas as a framework to identify what could help or hinder your personal development. If you don’t analyse your SWOT, it is unlikely you will succeed in achieving your goals.

When you are conducting your SWOT analysis, you should look at your current situation and ask yourself various questions relating to these four areas.

Some example questions are:

• What are you good at?
• What advantages do you have over others?
• Do you have any resources available to you that others do not?
• What do others say about your strengths?
• Do you have any achievements you are proud of?
• What skills do you struggle with?
• What areas do you need to improve upon?
• What holds you back?
• Do you have any bad habits?
• Do you avoid certain tasks due to a lack of confidence?
• What do others say about your weaknesses?

Opportunities

• Is the industry you are in/looking at in a promising position?
• Is there an undeveloped niche in certain markets that you can tap into?
• Do you have contacts in your network who could assist you?
• Can you take advantage of the mistakes others are making?
• Is there an opening for a position not advertised externally yet?
• Is there a project you can assist with that will help you develop different skills?
• What could derail your success? E.g. competition, finances, changes in technology and any other obstacles.
• Is there a risk of your weaknesses becoming threats?
• Are there any external changes beyond your control that could be a threat?

It is important to be as honest as possible when answering these questions, particularly when looking at your strengths and weaknesses.

How to carry out a SWOT analysis

The above is just an example, and you are likely to have far more detail in your own SWOT analysis.

  A SWOT analysis aims to:

• Promote your strengths.
• Reduce your weaknesses.
• Exploit the opportunities available to you.
• Minimise threats to your success.

You can learn more about SWOT analysis on the CIPD’s factsheet .

How do I write a personal development plan?

All PDPs are different. How you write yours will depend on whether you are completing one for personal, education or work reasons. A PDP is also specific to you and based on your individual goals. Therefore, your PDP and what you include will be different from anyone else’s.

In education and work, PDPs are likely to be in a specified format. Employers may also have their own procedures and processes for conducting PDPs as part of an annual appraisal (PDR). In these instances, you should follow your employer’s procedures when completing your PDP.

Regardless of the reason why you are completing a PDP, here are some general steps you can follow to help you write yours:

Step 1 – Complete a SWOT analysis

You should complete a SWOT analysis as the first step of your PDP and as a self-assessment.

That way, you can:

• Identify what could help or hinder you in achieving your goals.
• Evaluate your existing skills, knowledge and interests.
• Identify if you have any transferable skills that could help you achieve your goals.
• Use the results when setting your goals.

You can use our free SWOT analysis template to help you. Please hyperlink here if you want to use the template and/or delete this sentence.

Step 2 – Set your goals

Think about the things you really want to achieve in your education, career or personal life. To meet your overall aims, you should set goals so that you can fulfil your objectives.

Make a list of your goals and ensure they are SMART, which means they should be:

• Specific – Your goals should be specific and precise rather than generic. – You should state exactly what you want to achieve or change. – An example of a generic and weak goal would be – I want to be a better public speaker. – An example of a SMART goal would be – I will attend a training course on presenting to help me improve my public speaking skills, as I lack confidence in this area, and it’s holding me back.
• Measurable – Having a quantifiable goal will make it easier to track and achieve. – For example, I will compare three different courses for content and price. I will enrol on my chosen course within one month.
• Achievable – Your goals must be realistic and attainable. – Ask yourself whether you can achieve them in a certain timeframe. – For example, I have got the funds available to pay for the course. I also currently work part time, so I have enough time to study.
• Relevant – Your goals should relate to your overall aims and longer-term ambitions. – For example, a lack of confidence in public speaking is one of my weaknesses, and I feel it is holding me back in my career and personal life.
• Time-bound – Set realistic timescales to achieve your outcomes. – Ask yourself when you want to achieve your goals by. – Split your goals into short term, medium term and long term. – For example, I will complete my course within the next three months. I will also evaluate whether it has improved my public speaking skills.

Having SMART goals makes it easier for you to achieve them and updating your PDP when you have completed them.

Step 3 – Create your action plan

Once you have your clear SMART goals, you should break them down into action points, which will make them more manageable. You can put these points into an action plan with your priority goals at the top.

There is no requirement for your PDP action plan to be in any particular format. It can be handwritten or typed and tabulated or free-flowing text. Whatever format you choose, you should ensure that it is easy for you to produce, follow and update.

Step 4 – Detail the strategies and resources for achieving your goals

You now have your list of goals in your action plan, but how will you go about achieving them? Now you should write down your strategies and resources you need to achieve your goals.

It can include:

• Further training, e.g. enrolling on a course.
• Research, e.g. websites, journals and books.
• Hands-on experience, e.g. volunteering.
• Taking on new projects or responsibilities.
• Professional advice, e.g. from a mentor.
• Guidance and shadowing during supervision.
• Speaking to people in different roles.
• Time needed for the strategy to be effective.

Step 5 – Assessing your progress

Finally, you should note in your PDP how you will monitor and assess the progress of your goals. For example, you may be continually assessed throughout a course, and you would use the assessment results as milestones for achieving your goals.

Checkout our free PDP and SWOT templates below!

Download our free PDP template

Download our free SWOT Analysis template

What happens once I have completed my personal development plan?

Once you have completed your PDP, it doesn’t end there. You need to follow your plan and track whether you are achieving your outcomes or not. If you are not achieving your goals in your specified timeframe, you should identify the reasons why, rectify and update your plan. If you are successful in achieving your goals, you can tick them off and add new ones to your list. Remember, personal development is a lifelong process.

You may find that things do not go according to plan, but you should not worry or let this put you off. Your PDP is not set in stone. It is a flexible guide that you can adapt as and when the need arises. Ask yourself whether you are making the correct choices to get to where you want to be.

It is important to remember that a PDP is not a one-off exercise. It is a continuous process of development, and it should be a working document. You should regularly review and update your PDP to make the most of your personal development.

Personal development (whether it is for education, career or personal reasons) is important, as it helps you achieve your desires and fulfil your potential. If you are achieving what you want in life, it will improve your mental wellbeing and overall happiness, which will have a far-reaching positive impact.

Some, particularly in workplaces, will look at PDPs as an unnecessary exercise that cannot help them achieve what they want. In these cases, it is usually due to PDPs being used as a tick in the box when annual appraisals come around. To prevent this, employers must look at PDPs as an investment, as employee personal development will benefit their business. Employees should also use it as a good opportunity to improve their knowledge, skills and experience.

If you complete your PDP properly and use it in planning and achieving your goals, you are more likely to succeed in your career and life in general. If you don’t have a plan, you are likely to procrastinate and flounder. Remember what Benjamin Franklin once said, “if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail”.

Why not use our free PDP action plan template to help you. Please hyperlink here if you want to use the template and/or delete this sentence.

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About the author

Michelle Putter

Michelle graduated with an MSc in wildlife biology and conservation in 2012, but her career has taken quite a different turn to the one expected. She started in health and safety in 2009 and has worked in several industries such as electrical engineering, aviation and manufacturing. She has been working with CPD Online College since 2018 and became NEBOSH Diploma qualified in 2020. In her spare time, Michelle's passions are wildlife and her garden. She has volunteered for many conservation organisations and particularly enjoys biological recording. Michelle also likes hiking, jogging and cycling.

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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.

How to Start a Personal Development Business

Want to know how to start a personal development business but not sure where to begin?

Look no further.

Because in this post, you’ll learn the steps I took going from being completely stuck choosing a niche, to earning affiliate income and getting my first coaching client.

Let’s get straight to it.

Table of Contents

What is a Personal Development Business?

A personal development business teaches or coaches people to reach the best version of themselves.

Depending on the area of growth, this business model is focused on helping people help themselves.

Through developing better habits, communication skills, productivity, and more, a personal development business offers information through books, podcasts, blogs, or YouTube videos.

More on different niches of personal growth later in this post.

They can also guide a person’s personal growth through coaching sessions and online courses.

What Does a Personal Development Business Look Like? [4 Great Examples]

Here are a few good examples of self-help businesses, all with different business models and monetization strategies.

Develop Good Habits

Develop Good Habits is a blog about achieving long-term success by forming powerful habits.

Founded by Steve Scott, this wildly successful personal development blog has hundreds of articles.

They have an active Facebook group and now publish content on YouTube.

The site makes money primarily through selling books on Amazon, affiliate marketing, and display ads.

Tim Ferriss

Tim Ferriss is an author of the Four Hour Work Week and has published content on his blog since 2007.

Ferriss’ audience is predominantly entrepreneurs who want to get more out of their time by automating most areas of life and business.

By leveraging your mind, habits, and money effectively, you can work less and enjoy a life of early retirement.

His monetization methods include publishing books, podcast sponsorships, and affiliate revenue.

Mindvalley is a membership site, teaching personal development, spirituality, health and fitness, entrepreneurship and more through online courses.

It was founded by Vishen Lakhiani in 2003 who brings together experts to teach the topics we should have learned in school.

The site makes money through their courses, memberships, public events, and festivals.

To learn more, read my list of the best Mindvalley courses .

Grand Habit

Yes, this it the site you are on right now. My mission with Grand Habit is to help introverts escape the rat race and become successful entrepreneurs.

If that sounds like you, you can start by reading these business ideas for introverts .

I grew up in a very hostile environment and was heavily conditioned to please people around me. This developed a lot of fear and anxiety when trying to start a business.

So, I created Grand Habit to help other sensitive souls break out of the mould they were forced to fit into, start believing in themselves, grow their confidence, and live life on their own terms.

What are Some Personal Development Niches?

Personal development is a broad area which can be broken into different areas of life. If you want to start a personal development business, you will find more success by choosing a niche to focus on.

Here are some common personal development niches to know about.

Goal Setting

Goal setting is the active pursuit of defining, planning, and achieving personal or professional goals.

It’s about managing time and energy to actively prioritize one’s goal and dreams.

Communication Skills

Communication skills are essential for maintaining healthy relationships and improving how we communicate with ourselves.

Being able to communicate effectively enables a person to meet their needs, circumvent and resolve conflict, and ultimately get what they want in life, without being passive, manipulative, or aggressive.

Habits are part of everyday life. If we didn’t have habits, we likely wouldn’t have survived this long.

Unfortunately, forming habits that interfere with our health and happiness is all too easy.

They can lower our awareness of what we truly want in life. Therefore, it’s important to learn how to break bad habits and develop healthy ones.

James Clear is the perfect example of a personal development business in the habits niche.

Mindset is the sum of your beliefs and thoughts you have about yourself, which determines how capable you feel when setting and achieving goals.

This will be something I focus on for Grand Habit, because developing a growth mindset has completely changed my life.

The thing I love about mindset is that it covers all areas of growth and transformation.

If you want to start a personal development business and you’re stuck on the niche, mindset is great place to start.

Productivity

We all want to be more productive, right? Especially ambitious people and entrepreneurs.

It’s also a niche that will likely never get old because it can be used in many areas of life.

If this is the niche for you, try starting out by niching down further. For example, productivity for content creators.

How to Start a Personal Development Business in 7 Steps

Here are the steps you’ll want to take to build solid foundations of a personal development brand.

Step 1. Do you need a business plan?

The short answer is, not necessarily, but it will help you stay on track.

However, it will be essential if you plan to seek capital for your business venture.

It doesn’t need to be complex. A simple document defining key areas of your business, such as the product or service you offer, customer research, competitor analysis, and a sales and marketing strategy.

I highly recommend this course by Chris Haroun , which is hosted on Udemy. He’s an award-winning business school professor, Venture Capitalist, and successful entrepreneur.

Even if you don’t have plans to get funding due to bootstrapping yourself, creating a business plan will boost confidence and motivation in your new venture.

Read Next: Best Personal Development Courses for Confidence, Happiness, & Productivity

Step 2. Stuck on your niche?

You’re not alone. This is where most people get stuck. It certainly was the case for me. Heck, it still is!

I spent the first 6 years of my business journey with chronic shiny object syndrome, switching from one thing to the next.

The simple answer?

No matter what type of business you want to start, the niche you decide on doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

As long as there is market potential, meaning there are already brands that exist in this niche and you have some interest in it, that’s enough.

If you’re trying to find the “perfect” niche, you’re already overthinking it . This got me wasting years of my life, when I could have been helping people.

Do yourself a favor and listen to a hypnosis track on black and white thinking or perfectionism a few times and you’ll break out of the trap of trying to make the “right” choice.

You don’t need to be an expert in your niche or the best to succeed. You just need to be passionate about helping others achieve success in a specific area of interest.

Of course, if you have an area of expertise, that’s great. Just don’t get too hung up on competing with other experts and focus on differentiating yourself authentically.

Step 3. The importance of a business name

This step can either be super straightforward or downright difficult.

First you have to decide between a personal brand or a business brand, weighing up the pros and cons of each.

Choosing a business brand is where things can be tricky. Whereas using your name for your business takes no effort.

However, it will be significantly harder to exit a personal brand if that is something you wish to do.

Starting, growing, and selling a business brand will be much easier, for obvious reasons.

So if you opt for a business brand, how do you choose a great name?

I seem to be skilled in this area, because I have close to 20 blogs with excellent brand names I made up myself, Grand Habit being one of them.

You can learn how I do this in my other post on how to start a personal development blog . Just scroll down to the section on choosing your blog name.

Defining a blog name and checking its availability is how I would go about choosing a business name for a self-help brand.

Step 4. Launch your website and blog

Once you know what niche you’re going into and you have a business name and domain registered, you can launch your website.

For a step-by-step guide, read my article titled how to start a personal development blog .

In summary, all you need to do is install WordPress on a web hosting account (I recommend Namecheap).

Then design your site with a WordPress theme (I use GeneratePress), then add pages with content about your business.

These include:

• Coaching (if applicable)
• Products/Services/Courses
• Legal pages

If you’re starting a blog, then I recommend reading the article above.

Step 5. Know how you’ll monetize

There are plenty of ways to monetize a personal development business and blog.

Here are the most common ways I’ve seen:

• Publishing books
• Digital products
• Affiliate marketing
• Display ads

The current methods used on Grand Habit are affiliate marketing and coaching. I soon plan to offer digital products and possibly self-published books on Amazon.

The quickest way to earn is through coaching. The other methods require time to create the content and build an audience to market to.

Finding your first coaching clients could take as little as a couple of months if you’re confident enough to put yourself out there on social media.

I take the approach of growing blog traffic through content marketing to earn affiliate revenue in the long run, taking on coaching clients in the short term, and slowly developing courses based on my audience’s struggles and goals.

Step 6. Develop a marketing strategy

Depending on the business model you decide on will depend on the type of marketing strategy you use.

For example, if you offer coaching and you want to find clients ASAP, focusing on social media or YouTube will typically have a faster response rate than blog content.

However, if your business model is focusing on affiliate marketing and ad revenue, then content marketing on a blog is a better marketing strategy.

It also depends on your target audience. In the early days, it’s best to do some research to see what other business are doing.

Then learn by doing. Publish 30 articles in 30 days, 60 Instagram posts in 30 days, 30 YouTube videos in 30 days, and see which one yields the best results.

Step 7. Define your business goals

Defining goals is essential for long-term growth. Without them, you’ll get lost.

Start by defining a big picture goal of where you want to be in three years. Make it big enough to excite you, but small enough to be attainable.

Then, working with that outcome, where will you need to be in one year from now to make your three-year goal possible?

Make this your one year goal, then break it down into quarters.

Eventually, you’ll have a clear and specific short term goal to work towards for the next 90 days.

To reach this 90 day outcome, break it into 12 weeks with specific tasks that need to be achieved each week.

Get yourself a productivity planner to keep yourself organized and on track. The Panda Planner Pro is a great option.

That concludes my post on how to start a personal development business. I hope you found it helpful.

To summarize, choose a niche you’re interested in, focus on understanding your audience, and develop a strategy to publish content on a blog or social media.

Once you build a following, it will become clearer about how you can serve your clients or readers.

This post was published on Feb 25, 2023

and updated on Feb 25, 2023

Published on Feb 25, 2023

Updated on Feb 25, 2023

4 thoughts on “How to Start a Personal Development Business”

Great article!… I got cool, practical, shorts and useful ideas.. Thanks a lot :-)

Great article, thanks so much for your generosity .

I want to start self Improvement Coaching For School and College going student and Parents

Really great article..Thanks

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