How to Develop a Personal Development Plan: 10 Easy Steps

When you set out to develop a personal development plan, you want to take a few factors into consideration. Here are ten easy steps that give you a good start:

STEP ONE - TAKE INVENTORY OF YOUR LIFE NOW: First thing to do when setting out to make change is to evaluate where you are right now. So, for at least one week (but doing it for two weeks would be better), notice how and where you spend your time. Also, notice if things take longer than you "think" they should take you. Don't place any judgment on how and where you spend time, just notice. Be sure to include weekends so you have a variety between work days and non-work days. Keep this step simple. Don't try to change anything. Just notice your time commitments.

STEP TWO - CATEGORIZE HOW YOU SPEND YOUR TIME: Now let's categorize each area of your life where time is currently spent. A personal development plan sample that I like has the following categories:

1. Dreams
2. Career/Financial
3. Purpose/Goals
4. Love/Family
5. Health

STEP THREE - DREAM ABOUT YOUR PERFECT LIFE: Give yourself permission to take a few moments to dream about your perfect life. While this is only imagination, this exercise opens a portal of inner knowledge that can lead you to your perfect life. Don't judge any of your dreams. These are your true feelings and ones that will guide you in your own proper direction.

STEP FOUR - MATCH UP YOUR IDEAL LIFE WITH YOUR CURRENT LIFE: After visualizing where you would like to take your life, compare it with your current life. Be prepared for this step to cause some pain if there is a big difference between the two. But, this step gives you a "starting point" and an "ending point," both of which are necessary to set out plans to get from one to the other.

STEP FIVE - ASK, "WHAT SMALL CHANGE CAN I MAKE NOW THAT WILL ALTER MY OVERALL LIFE TRAJECTORY?" Many times making a small change in your current circumstances has stronger ramifications as your life unfolds because it changes your focus. For example, if you decide to take a 15 minute daily walk just to "percolate" how to take the next step for your life, this small action will move your current mindset from "I'm stuck now" to "What's next and how do I get there?" Over time, this will gain momentum as your trajectory of life broadens because your "rocket" is now pointed to a new planet - the planet of hope!

STEP SIX - FIND A GOOD PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN TEMPLATE FOR DETAILED PLANNING: There are many personal development plan samples, examples and templates available today. Look for one that keeps it simple because one of the things I have found that is a hindrance when people develop a personal development plan is that they make it too complicated - which, of course, leads to overwhelm and failure.

STEP SEVEN - GET PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN COACHING: When you are planning out a major event such as your life, it's a good time to get an objective view of yourself, which is one of the best things about using a coach. Strategizing with someone in this manner can rapidly increase your success rate when you want to develop a personal development plan. Often times, a coach will also have a good example personal development plan.

STEP EIGHT - GIVE YOURSELF TIME TO MAKE THE CHANGES: Often times what stops people from success when they develop a personal development plan is underestimating the time it takes to set goals and make changes. When this happens, it's easy to get discouraged and give up. So, one of the best things you can do is to give yourself plenty of time to make change.

STEP NINE - VISUALIZE YOUR DESIRED RESULTS: Visualization is very powerful, but there is one important component to doing visualization that many people miss. That component is to actually feel the scenario that you are visualizing. This one portion makes the difference between success and failure.

STEP TEN - HAVE FUN: Many times we get overly serious when trying to make changes in our lives. This serious point of view takes all the joy out of the endeavor and joy is also a critical factor when seeking goal achievement.

By using these ten steps when you start to develop a personal development plan, you are setting yourself up for success, one step at a time.

http://EzineArticles.com/6429341                    Images are courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

3 Questions to Write a Personal Development Plan

We have an amazing team of leaders at Grace Community Church. Part of my role and how God has wired me is to constantly be in development mode, therefore, I continually encourage our staff to develop themselves personally. I realize that as they mature and grow individually; in their careers and personal lives, that the strength of our staff and church will only increase. I put out this encouragement again at a recent staff meeting. Apparently, I said the right words this time, because in the past week almost half our staff mentioned they want to improve their plans for personal development.

Recently one staff member asked me to help them get started writing their personal development plan. Here’s what I shared with him. Perhaps you need this as well.

Take a break from your daily routine, grab a cup of coffee, a pen and some paper, and ask yourself three

questions as a guideline to if you want to improve personally. Keep in mind, I can’t write your plan for you, so these are just tools to fuel your thoughts.

Where am I now?

Be honest with yourself. What are your strengths and weaknesses? Where do you most need to improve? Consider each aspect of your life. Where are you in your career, family, social, financial, physical, emotional and spiritual well-being? Which of these areas are most neglected? In which areas do you excel?

Where do I want to be?

Think in terms of each of the categories above. Think through six months, one year and five years. What areas do you most need to improve? In what areas are improvement most critical? What areas would improve your overall satisfaction with life?

How can I get there?

For every goal you say you want to achieve, write some concrete action steps/a plan to get you there. This is the hardest part, but simply write one or two action steps for each broad goal. You will need to update this plan periodically and you can continually add to and refine these action steps. The key is that you take action to move forward in the direction you want your life to develop. Ask yourself: Where do I need more training? Do I need a mentor? Could I use more practice?

Now work the plans; take action. A piece of paper with plans of them, or an idea in your head, is worth very little until you take steps to achieve them. Get started today!

This sounds simple, but if you will spend a few hours thinking through your individual plan for personal development, the time could make the difference in achieving or not the goals you have for your life. When you finish this plan, you won’t necessarily have a professional looking document you could turn into your college professor and there are certainly methods more complex for writing a personal development plan, but for me the end goal is progress towards my goals, and we are more likely to do something easy and less time consuming. This is a method I can and do use frequently.

Do you need to do this?

http://www.ronedmondson.com/2010/07/three-questions-to-write-a-personal-development-plan.html

Tips To Make The Best Personal Development Plan

Watch these awesome tips To Make The Best Personal Development Plan

How to Create Your Personal Development Plan

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where –” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”

Do you know where you’re going? Where do you see yourself in a year, five years – and perhaps ten years down the road? In the years where I have planned out what I wanted to accomplish, I invariably achieved what I set out to do – and it has consistently been more than in the years when I didn’t plan.

So from my personal experience, it’s true – if you don’t know where you want to get to, it doesn’t matter which way you go.

Do you have hopes and dreams you’re chasing? If you do, but aren’t sure which way to go – perhaps a personal development plan will help you figure that out, and help you get there.

Why Put Together a Personal Development Plan?

“He who fails to plan is planning to fail.”

– Winston Churchill

You may have previously read this discussion on writing down your goals, where I point to research showing that it has a measurable effect, increasing the likelihood of success. In addition to the research, three big reasons I like having a personal development plan include:

• Clarity. Knowing what I am trying to accomplish gives me a clear idea of what I’m working on.
• Define The Why. Oftentimes, along the way I’ll come across tasks and situation that I simply don’t enjoy doing. Having a personal development plan shows me why I’m doing what I’m doing.
• My Compass. I’m a very driven, ambitious person – but if I don’t have a plan of what I’m trying to accomplish, I end up expending energy in many different directions. A personal development plan keeps me headed towards consistent goals.

What Do I Put In A Personal Development Plan?

“Success requires a wel-articulated goal. It is not a product of wishful thinking.”

– 7 Simple Steps by Jonathan Wells

The answers to this question are varied. For me, the broad answer is this: I write down what I want, and I write down how I plan to get there.

That’s the overarching purpose, but I’ll give you some specific examples of what to include in your personal development plan as well. Some of these items I added after recommendations from my mentors. One thing to note though is there are no hard and fast rules – your personal development plan is all about you, and what you want to accomplish.

Personal Development Plan Example Sections

• Your Life Purpose. What were you born to do? What is the meaning of your life?
• Your Dreams. Those far reaching thoughts and hopes that inspire you to action.
• Short, Medium and Long Term Goals. Some people like weekly, monthly, others like yearly and beyond. I like to have a mix of them, but at any given time I like to have at least some goals I can accomplish in the span of a few months. This lets me see that I have measurable progress towards my goals.
• Your Beliefs and Values. What do you stand for? And perhaps, what do you wish your actions showed you stand for?
• Your Ideal Self. I like to write down “Ideal Sid.” I have a description of the type of person I want to be – the way I act around people, the way I spend my days, and I have some specific things such as how ideal Sid responds to criticism, how ideal Sid deals with negative people, and how ideal Sid deals with failure. I don’t always act the way I idealize I should, but it gives me something to shoot for – and most often, this section is not accomplishment or achievement driven. It’s mostly about my interactions with people.
• Mistakes and Lessons. Very often I’ll make mistakes along the way. I don’t write them down to beat myself up over them – I write them down because we learn so much from our mistakes.
• Success and Milestones. Just as I note my mistakes, I also celebrate my successes.

Personal Development Plan Template for Goals

One of the areas many people struggle with is setting goals. That is a whole other article in and of itself on how to effectively set goals, but lets talk specifically in the context of a personal development plan. How can you get a good overview of the direction you want your life to head? Once you’ve settled on your life purpose and your big dreams, you should sketch out some goals in the most important areas in your life, at regular intervals. I like to go ten years out, but three or gives years is great too. A very simple personal development plan template for goals might look like this:

Goal Area	One Year	Three Year	Five Year	Ten Year
Career
Finances
Physical/Body
Social
Personal

For each box, answer these questions:

• What specifically do I want to accomplish?
• Why?
• Who can help me?
• How do I get there? (What actions do I need to take?)

Personal Development Planning Tools

In addition to the information above, consider other tools to help you with your personal development

• Events. Especially for career and education goals, are there seminars you can attend? Conferences? Meetups where people similar to you gather?
• Classes/Books/Educational material. Sometimes the first step is finding the resources we need. You may want to start by checking out some of my personal development product reviews.
• Mentors and Supporters. Who can you reach out to that can help you with your goals? For many of my personal goals, I’ve formed individual mastermind groups towards a specific purpose. If you’d like me to mentor you – you can contact me for coaching, or receive free training below:

http://sidsavara.com/personal-development/personal-development-plan