Personal Development Plan: an Amazing Staircase Towards Success

Personal development expert Jim Rohn said:

When you look at successful people, you will almost always discover a plan behind their success. It is the foundation for success.

I couldn’t agree more.

You might have noticed that people tend to worry about their future goals, careers and personal development. When river flows incessantly and you are a swimmer of it; you need to halt yourself so you may breathe. Similar case is with the “Personal development” as; you have to take a deep breath.

When you get tired of the SEDENTARY LIFE STYLE, you need take time off for a while, go out for a trip and have some time to ponder over the next moves to be taken in life. You might realize that, Lo and Behold, you have come up with a Personal Development Plan to achieve the skills and excel in the business organizations.

Before moving towards the steps for personal development, you need to understand the importance of the personal development plan. Let’s imagine, you have CALLED ON the contractor to build a house for you. He asks to build it without any prior plan and you wouldn’t bear him for a second. So, why many of us spend the life that way?

Personal development plan and skills are the tools to achieve your goals at the workplace. It guides you where you are headed and how to get there, with certain specifications. It will help you out in being clear at your thoughts, plans and future ambitions.

How to structure your personal development plan?

As the personal development is lifelong process so, it will definitely take time. That is humanly normal and you don’t have to RUSH THINGS. Nevertheless, it’s not a bad idea to hold the deadlines of the tasks in your mind. After all, tasks and activities are like fluid; the more you give space to them, the more they take that space up.

Step 1: You need to have a Clarity in your Mind

A true business leader always bears a strategy in his mind and keeps the end in mind as well. Think about the future, have goals in your mind, keep a close eye on the end, set a time-frame to accomplish the objectives and look at the successful people to get inspiration.

Now, think your life in 3 years and go through your imaginary day:

• What’s the first thought that hits your mind in the morning?
• What’s the reason of your waking up?
• How’s your day planned?
• What’s your Organization? What are your duties over there?
• How much of your time do you spend with acquaintances?
• What makes you feel accomplished at the end of the day?
• What energizes you moving forward and what sucks your energy?

Now stop yourself here, take a step back and just ponder over your plans. This way, you will be able to determine your goals clearly, map out your strategic guide to accomplish your mission. You may use paper notes, app notes or fancy visual boards but MIND MAP is the best of all. To become successful entrepreneur and businessman, you should go for a mind map strategy. Mainly focus on your key areas to develop yourself particularly and your business organization as a whole. You can also use an application, called “Mind Meister”. Consequently, you will see clarity of your thoughts and vision.

Step 2: Draft out your Strengths and Weaknesses

After the mind mapping and extensive planning, you have PUT DOWN A PIN ON where you want to go. Therefore, I have brought you the ways to get there.

Firstly, determine the strengths and skills you have to achieve your goals and become successful in personal development. Ask yourself some question. Such as, “Are my skills are matching to my goals’? Are my strengths in coherent with my ambitions”? This way you will know about your room for further improvement so, you may achieve your business and workplace goals tremendously.

That’s how, things will work for you and you will develop quite astonishing skills for the personal development. This is the time to take action, come out the comfort zones, take the decisions of your life in your hands, have contacts professional relationships and build amazing skills to achieve the targets.

You don’t have to be too specific this time. In the business terminology, it is called a SWOT ANALYSIS, where you draft out your area of strengths and area of weaknesses, and work accordingly.

Step 3: Structure your personal development plan

Now, further, move into the details of the personal development plan. Here, you need to be a bit specific one for the sake of your inspiring goals. How to structure or build the personal development plan? Below are the answers:

• What resources will you require? Books to read, courses to join, instruments to subscribe to…
• What people will help you do it? Friends, family, experts, mentors and so on.
• What will success look like? Set certain criterion for evaluation that.
• What is the time span? Either note down in a general deadline or milestones for various segments of the project.

You’ll end up with a crystal clear plan of what needs to be done, how to be done. Now get going! You can even attach your personal development plan to your annual goals and business strategies for the future.

Step 4: Review and adapt

President Eisenhower once said:

“Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

The integral part of personal development plan is to come up with a clear plan in your mind. But, you cannot ignore the vitality and supremacy of review and adaptations. You can review on various periodic bases. Reread your plans, review your planning, evaluate your actions and make the required changes accordingly.

Then, all you have to do is, focus on what requires to be done over the coming period; otherwise, you might feel inundated and never get along your personal development plan. If there are some tasks which are giving you nothing but a sense of trouble, you should not tolerate it for a second and replace them with better options.

Just minding you, adaptable people always get there where they want to. So, adaptability is not that bad as you think. A good personal development strategy grows as you do. As Tony Robbins put it, 

To spread or not to spread?

You don’t have to tell everyone about your new journey, so don’t have to rent that billboard in front of work just yet. Nevertheless, it’s good to prove your personal development plan with various key people. Such as co-workers, family members, close friends and acquaintances.

A proficient team of guides will be able to aid you throughout your personal development trail. They will pinpoint ways to complete your goals, make you know to new people and resources, or just be there for you when things go south or upside down.

Summing it up, it can be underscored that taking a look around will help you figure out the goals which you are going after in your career. You have to conquer the defeats. It will give you inspirations, motivation and ideas of becoming successful even in your small businesses. You can also check more on the mentioned link to enhance your comprehensions on personal development skills.

So, what are your thoughts on personal development goals? Do let us know in the comments below.

Good luck!