Part 1

Individual Developmental Plan

A Life Consultancy Model

This activity will help to clarify your life goals, improving relationships and choosing
right career path through developing right attitude & behavior. Improvement in all
aspects of life will leads you to live a purposeful, abundant and beautiful life though
realizing “self actualized potential”
 Table of Contents

What is Life Consultancy?............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 3

Difference between Life Consultancy & Psychiatry.................................................................................................................................................................................................. 3

Life Consultancy Model................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 4

Stage 1: Self Awareness..............................................................................................................................................4

Introduction...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................4

Activity # 1: Identifying Lifes..................................................................................................................................................................................................................5

Activity # 2: SWOT Analysis...................................................................................................................................................................................................................7

Stage 2: Identifying Reason for Existence....................................................................................................................9

Introduction...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................9

Activity # 1: Personal Mission Statement – 5-Year Plan.....................................................................................................................................................................10

Activity # 2: Identifying Life Wise Objectives.......................................................................................................................................................................................11

Stage 3: Personal Development Planning..........................................................................................................................................................................................

Stage 4: Developing Strategy.............................................................................................................................................................................................................

Life Consultancy Model - Stage 1: Self Awareness

The first section of this training includes what we understood as self-awareness. Being aware of your
strengths and weaknesses is an important step in understanding what your current personal
development needs are. For many of us, we simply let life develop around us and take opportunities
as they arise. However, if you can master the discipline of developing your own life goals and look
carefully at how you might achieve your aims you stand a much greater chance of achieving them.

Self-awareness is about understanding yourself in a way that allows you to understand who you are
and why you do things in the way that you do. By developing your self-awareness you can gain
control over yourself in certain situations. Being self-aware requires reflection and reflection requires
you to think about yourself concerning your actions, feelings, interactions, and thoughts. Reflection
can be undertaken by yourself or with other people. Oftentimes, people naturally reflect when things
go wrong. We discuss or think about why it went wrong and what could have been done differently
to change what went wrong. It is good practice to reflect when things go wrong but it is also good
practice to reflect when things turn out well, or even better than expected.

There is a lot to learn about oneself in good and bad times through reflection. Through reflection, we
can understand ourselves better and this could allow an individual to:
 Gain more control and make better decisions
 Be more flexible and confident in our approach
 Help ourselves deal with challenges in a more positive and less anxious way
 Interact better, communicate more effectively and understand our relationships with
others more fully
 Reduce our stress levels and get more out of life

Therefore, it could be understood that self-awareness can lead to personal development as an

individual has identified their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats through reflection
and analysis. One method of identifying your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats is to
complete a SWOT analysis. This can help an individual understand what areas need further
Improvement, as well as what assets they might have. All of these things can impact what type of
personal development an individual might want to consider undertaking.

 Self Awareness Activity #2: SWOT Analysis

Guideline
This exercise aims to help you to identify your strengths and weaknesses and to think
about your feelings about the opportunities and challenges you see ahead of you. This
is an exercise which considers your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
(SWOT). This involves assessing yourself not Just in Isolation but assessing your
overall situation.
  Strengths will list particular skills and qualities you have as an individual (e.g.
word processing skills, persuasiveness), but you might also list people and
resources available to you. So it would be appropriate to list, say, “supportive
friends and family” or “good Internet access” as strengths.
 Weaknesses will include skills you wish to acquire and qualities you wish to
develop, but may also include things you don’t have access to but may need in
the future such as information on where to find an unusual evening class or
having Internet access at home.
 Opportunities will again include resources available to you so will strongly link
to your strengths. They might include for example potential part-time work
opportunities, social and leisure opportunities, chances to travel; any potential
situations which could positively affect your personal and professional
development.
 Threats are the factors that have the potential to hinder your progress. They will
be linked to your weaknesses and might include opportunities you don’t have.
Something as simple as ‘lack of time may be a threat, for example, if you want to
develop a skill or get specific work experience, but you already have a lot of
studies, work and family responsibilities which make that more difficult.

Remember to bear in mind that in this exercise you are not just analyzing yourself in
isolation, but your overall situation (your personal, professional, social and family life),
which includes resources and people around you and maybe even political or economic
factors that might affect your ultimate plans after you have finished this course for
example. Experience suggests that this is a very useful exercise to return to at crucial
times in your career/life. We suggest that you do this from time to time.
Note:
 While describing each answer, make sure the clarity of the scenario in a way that
every part must be easy to understand.
 Search from the Internet (Google) and list down an individual’s Strengths,
Weaknesses, opportunities and threats. From that list, choose those traits that
you have experienced in your life and you can explain them with your real-time
life scenarios. Choose your traits by keeping in mind your vision for every
aspect of life and explain it clearly.
 Explain your Strengths, Weakness, Threats and Opportunities in the below
format that you have selected for yourself from that list (Searched from Google).

Strength Example from your past

Weakness Example from your past

 Opportunities Example from your past

Threats Example from your past

Identifying Reason for Existence

Mission and vision statements are relevant to individuals and organizations as they help in building
the framework for success. A personal vision statement can help guide an individual’s life as it
defines your purpose and makes reference to your values. Therefore a personal vision statement can
inspire and motivate an individual to achieve their best. A clear vision statement can also shape how
your work, guide your decision-making process and define how you fit into an organization. It is
also important to remember that personal vision statements can change over time as personal
circumstances and environments are very dynamic.
A personal vision statement will vary between individuals as people can hold different values and
goals. For example, my vision statement is:
“To live a life dedicated to loyalty, challenge, personal growth, happiness and social
development. To build relationships and help people feel better about themselves. To enjoy
my family, friends and my leisure time and to enrich my life through learning and
travelling”

On the other hand, a personal mission statement fits under a personal vision statement as the vision
statement has a broader more general sense of giving purpose. A personal mission statement
however gives focus and direction. For example, a personal mission statement can state what you
would like to accomplish and who you would like to become within a certain period. A mission
statement gives an individual focus so they know where to direct their energy, actions and decisions.
An example, my mission statement is:
“To launch my independent chartered university by 2019 which becomes a preferred choice
for students and parents so that I can apply my training and education within a role that
allows me to develop and lead individuals and contribute to building the nation in the right
direction, based on true Islamic Values.”
 Identifying Reason for Existence Activity #1: Personal Mission Statement - 5-Year
Plan
Guideline
While there is no unique format or formula for creating your mission statement, the
following guidelines may be helpful: (source: Harvard Business Review 2012)
 Keep it simple, clear and brief. The best mission statements tend to be 3 to 5
sentences long.
  Your mission statement should touch upon what you want to focus on and who
you want to become as a person (character) in this part of your life. Think about
specific actions, behaviours, habits and qualities that would have a significant
positive impact on this part of your life over the next one to three years.
 Make sure your mission statement is positive. Instead of saying what you don't
want to do or don't want to be, say what you do want to do or become. Find the
positive alternatives to any negative statements.
 Include positive behaviours, character traits and values that you consider
particularly important and want to develop further.
 Think about how your actions, habits, behaviour and character traits in this area
affect the important relationships in your life.
 Think about how your mission affects the other areas of your life. Is it consistent
with your other personal mission statements? Will it conflict with or contradict
something else? Is it balanced?
 Make it emotional. Including an emotional payoff in your mission statement
infuses it with passion and will make it even more compelling, inspiring and
energizing.

Activity Step(s)
 Step 1:
You need to complete your mission statement by adding your point of view in
brackets ‘[ ]’. Make sure, your points of view are synchronized with your
previous self-awareness activities. You need to combine these sentences in a
manner to design or carve a unique personal mission statement for you.

"To ... [what you want to achieve, do or become] ... so that ... [reasons why it is
important]. I will do this by ... [specific behaviours or actions you can use to get
there] and to develop and cultivate the qualities of ...[two to three
values/character traits]... that I admire in ...[an influential person in your life]...
so that ...[why you want to develop these qualities]."

 Identifying Reason for Existence Activity #2: Identifying Life Wise Objectives
Guideline
Family Life Professional / Academic Life Social Life Personal Life
Definition: Definition: Definition: Definition:
Maintaining and satisfying Maintaining and satisfying Maintaining and satisfying Managing your “ME” time
your roles i.e. as your personal and family your personal and friends' which includes, self-
son/daughter, expectations, related to your expectations, related to analysis, self-awareness,
brother/sister, financial growth and your mutual growth, self catharsis, revisiting
husband/wife, wisdom. sharing, helping and your behaviours/decisions
father/mother etc enjoying. and doing what satisfies
you most; as an
INDIVIDUAL.
Important Stakeholders: Important Stakeholders: Important Stakeholders: Important Stakeholders:
 Blood relations  My Career  My Close Friends  My-Self (My mind,
 Secondary relations  My Company /  My Best Friends body and soul, Self-
 University actualization, health
 My Boss /Teachers and internal bliss)
 My Coworkers /Class  Society
Fellows  Religion

Activity Step(s)
 Step 1:
Identify your annual objectives according to each life (Professional, Social or
Personal) in the light of your defined Mission Statement. You need to make sure
that each year’s objectives should be synchronized with the previous year’s
objectives, coming annual objectives and with overall Mission Statement.
Individual objectives based on;
o Family Life:
o What will you do/learn/share to satisfy each Role and Stakeholders
(defined in the above table) during every year
o Professional / Academic Life:
o What will you do / learn / achieve / explore (company, professional /
academic skills, level, knowledge, degree etc) to satisfy your Family and
Personal Expectations (defined in above table) during every year
o Social Life:
o What will you do / visit / explore / grow together / enjoy (friends,
enemy, crime partners etc) to satisfy your Friends and Personal
Expectations (defined in above table) during every year
o Personal Life:
o What will you do / learn / visit / explore (self analysis, giving right
meeting to life, defining mentor etc) to satisfy your Personal Expectations
(defined in above table) during every year.
Time Your Family Life Your Professional / Your Social Life Your Personal Life
Line Objective: Academic Life Objective: Objective: Objective:
1st
Year
2nd
Year
3rd
Year
4th
Year
5th
Year