Time to Get Your Personal Development Plan in Place

A personal development plan is planning for your self development, by putting together a plan of action. You will use some of the techniques developed in goal setting. You will learn and have successes, but you will never finish the path of personal development.

When Creating your Plan, Be Honest with Yourself

When creating your plan get ready to document things that may make you uncomfortable. Creating a improvement plan involves writing down what skills you need to learn, the aspects of your life you need to improve and what abilities you may be lacking along with what is working well for you.

This may seem like setting goals, but there is a difference. If you take a look at your goals you may not have mentioned much if anything, about personal development. Many times when folks set goals it is along the lines of financial goals, health goals, career/professional goals, spiritual goals and relationship goals. Somehow personal development is missing altogether.

That is why you should create an entirely new plan for personal development. It's really impossible to meet your other goals without improving yourself along the way. So make a self improvement plan and follow it.

How to Start a Personal Development Plan

• Decide what it is you want to change or improve in your life.
• Make a list of resources that will be helpful in making those changes. This list can include books, audio CD's or MP3's, websites, software, online courses, etc.
• Schedule a specific amount of time each day to using those resources in pursuit of your personal development growth plan.
• Take notes on what you are learning.
• Take action steps. Usually a good personal development book or course will have action steps included but if not, make up your own.
• Celebrate your success with a reward worthy of your efforts.
• Repeat until you experience the success you desire, but always move toward improvement.

Writing Your Development Plan

Don't let this task overwhelm you. You are just documenting a plan to help in your success. Don't let yourself get stuck, remember ACTION is always the best course of action to keep you from getting stuck. You can always change your plan.

Pre-Writing

Before you start developing your plan make sure you're not tired, hungry, bored or uninspired. If this is the case you will not create a good plan.

Think of positive things and why you are creating your personal development plan. This can be very motivational and you will accomplish what you have set out to do.

Writing

Start writing your strengths and weakness down. There is no good or bad things here and that is true for everyone. We all have different skills. You just want to make sure you are clear about your skills. Ask your self questions like:

• What do I excel at?
• What do I avoid?
• What do folks compliment me for?
• Why do folks complain when I do something?
• What are some good habits I have.
• What makes me uncomfortable?

Take action and write the answers to these questions. Talk to folks you trust and get their input.

What do You Want and Why do You Want It?

You need to understand what you want and why you want it when developing your personal development plan. When doing this exercise look at what will really keep you motivated and moving toward you goals. Answer questions such as:

• Why do I want to achieve that?
• How does it help me?
• What can it give to me and others?
• What can it prevent/stop from happening?
• How does it impact my life and those around me?

What do you need to learn/do (action steps) and what resources are you going to use?

By this time you should have a good idea what you need to learn. You need to make sure you have the resources to help you with your personal development. Again, you can do things like:

• Sign up for self-esteem classes or listen to MP3s
• Read books on developing self confidence
• Join community related activities for interaction and networking

The Big Action Step – Schedule Time and Practice what You are Learning

You will need to schedule time each day to implement your personal development plan. You can read and learn all you want, but if you don't take action nothing will get done. You must take time to implement what you are learning. Keep practicing and you will improve.