Why You Need A Personal Development Plan (And 7 Elements It Must Have) 1/5/20, 10:34 PM

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Why You Need A Personal Development Plan (And 7 Elements It Must

Have)

Do you want to grow as an individual and improve your life?

Ok, I see a lot of hands up.

Do you know how to do it?

No? That’s ok, nor do most people. In fact, you’re one step ahead of most people
because you’ve somehow landed on this page. It just so happens that we are about to
explore a powerful tool that will enable you to make positive and progressive change in
your life.

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Why You Need A Personal Development Plan (And 7 Elements It Must Have) 1/5/20, 10:34 PM

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It’s called a Personal Development Plan (PDP) and it can help propel you toward your
goals far quicker than if you were to approach them without one.

Before we go into more detail about what you need to include in a PDP for it to be
e!ective, let’s "rst look at the reasons why you should write one.

It Provides Clarity

Right now you probably know what you want to achieve… roughly… sort of. And this is
the problem that a PDP can solve: it eliminates the rough edges and lays things out in a
crystal clear format so that you can focus precisely on what it is you want.

It Provides A Roadmap

Knowing where you want to get to is one thing, knowing how to get there is an entirely
di!erent story. It’s like driving hundreds of miles from A to B without a map and having
never made the journey before; getting lost is a near certainty. A PDP gives you that map
and guides you mile by mile to reach your destination.

It Highlights Obstacles/Challenges

No road is without its bumps, and no journey comes without obstacles. Knowing what
these might be in advance of setting out gives you the chance to prepare for them and

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Why You Need A Personal Development Plan (And 7 Elements It Must Have) 1/5/20, 10:34 PM

"nd ways to overcome them. This way you don’t get a shock when one crosses your
path.

It Can Be A Great Motivator

Not knowing exactly how you can turn your dreams into a reality can be hugely
disheartening. You can visualize your ideal outcome, but if you can’t see a way of making
it come true, the chances of you ever trying diminish greatly. Putting a plan together and
referring to it regularly can give you the energy and enthusiasm you need make real
progress.

What An E!ective Personal Development Plan Needs

Simply grabbing a piece of paper and writing down any old thing that comes into your
head is not how a PDP works. It needs to contain certain essential elements if it is to
prove e!ective at driving you forward.

They are…

1. Clearly De"ned Goals

With all the potential paths you might walk in life, if you don’t have a clear idea of where
your destination lies, you won’t know which one to take. That’s why the most important
aspect of any personal development plan is a clearly de"ned goal.

Even better than a de"nition is an objective that is measurable in very speci"c terms.
This way you don’t have to rely on an interpretation of mere words alone. For example, a
goal of “starting my own successful business” is open to debate around the meaning of
the word successful, whereas “starting my own business that will provide an income of
$50,000 a year” provides absolute clarity about what you wish to achieve.

If you are getting stuck on this very "rst step, read our article that helps you to discover
what you want from life.

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2. A Why

Stating a goal is one thing, but knowing why it means so much to you is something else
entirely.

“I want to complete a marathon” is a clear enough goal (although a timeframe would be

helpful as we’ll discuss later), but it says nothing about why you want to do so.

“I want to complete a marathon in memory of my late grandmother to raise money for

the hospice that took such good care of her in her old age” is a much more powerful
statement.

As soon as you attach a ‘why’ to your goals, you endow them with a meaning that was
otherwise lacking. No longer are you just aiming for an arbitrary end point, you are
reminding yourself of the purpose of your endeavors.

3. A Starting Point

Once you know where you are going and why, you have to "gure out where you are
now. After all, you can’t get from A to B if you don’t know where A is on the map.

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Let’s take your personal health as an example. You have clearly stated goals of wanting
to reach a new, healthier weight of 170 pounds and reduce your fasting blood sugar
level to below 100 mg/dL. Your why is to avoid being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes
and the associated risks that come with it. Perhaps you have a diabetic family member
and are fully aware of the complications it leads to.

So far so good, but what are those two measurements now? What is your weight? What
is your fasting blood sugar level? How far have you got to come from your current

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position to reach your desired outcome?

Knowing where you are and where you’re heading to is the only way to create the next
vital element of a personal development plan…

4. Intermediate Goals

Think about why we use maps or GPS systems when driving places we’re unfamiliar with.
Without them, we wouldn’t know when and where to turn o! one road and on to
another. These turns are important because each one is a waypoint on our journey; a
change of direction that is necessary to reach our "nal destination.

Hopefully by now we have our end point clear in our minds and we know where we are
at the present moment in time. Now we need to formulate a rough plan of how we
move from one to the other. This is where intermediate goals come into play. These
break down what might be a very long journey into more manageable segments.

Perhaps you have a goal of buying a house with 3 bedrooms in a particular

neighborhood (your goal) that’s in the catchment area of some good schools (your why).
What are the steps you need to take to make this a reality? Do you need to save up for a
deposit? How much? Do you need to sell your current home? If so, does it need some
renovation work to maximize its value before it goes on the market?

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You can a!ord to be a little less speci"c when it comes to some intermediate goals,
especially where less concrete factors come into play. You might, for example, set
targets to learn a new skill, make/break a particular habit, or alter certain
beliefs/attitudes. These might sometimes be hard to de"ne with precise clarity, but they
remain important nonetheless.

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For a PDP, the size of these intermediate goals is also important; too big and they
remain daunting; too small and you run the risk of losing touch with the overall picture.
Remember, you can – and should – break each of these goals down further to help you
achieve them, but do this outside of your main plan as needed.

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5. Timeframes

Your clearly de"ned primary goal (or goals) and list of intermediate goals are all laid out
clearly on a piece of paper – nice work. But then that piece of paper sits in a drawer or
stays pinned to your notice board ad in"nitum (forever).

Miss this vital step and that’s what will happen. Trust me.

All of the plans you’ve made don’t mean a thing unless you act on them, and the best
way to start working your way through them is to set concrete – but realistic –
timeframes. As soon as you set deadlines for each part of your overall PDP, you focus
your attention on the things you need to do now in order for those deadlines to be met.

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Perhaps one of your primary goals is to learn to speak Japanese and your ‘why’ is
because you’ve always been fascinated with the Japanese culture and would love to visit
Japan. Great. When?

Are you going to visit Japan at some unknown time in the future? Not if you’re personal
development plan is done properly! You should set a speci"c time when you want to visit
– perhaps 18 months from now – and then plan how you can learn the language
between now and then. Maybe you give yourself a month or two to master some basic

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phrases; 6 months from now, you might want to be able to have simple conversations;
and after a year you’d like to be semi-#uent. The "nal 6 months can be to practice and
hone your skills before your trip.

By forcing yourself to think about when you’d like to achieve certain goals, you can then
begin to prioritize tasks to ensure that you meet each of your desired deadlines. If you
have multiple primary goals regarding your health, wealth, relationships, and career,
you’d struggle to know where to begin if your PDP lacked ideal timeframes. These take
what would otherwise be an overwhelming to-do list and break it down into more
manageable chunks. So don’t skip this essential step.

6. A Record Of Achievements

When you manage to tick a goal o! your personal development plan, it is worth
celebrating. The simple act of recording your progress is a sure-"re way of motivating
yourself to keep pushing toward the next step on your journey.

You can either have a blank space in which to write down all of your achievements, or
you can format your PDP to have tick boxes next to each of your goals. However you
choose to do it, celebrating your wins is a must if you want to maintain focus,
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Once a year, sit down with your PDP in your hand and go through it line by line. Make
notes, highlight certain points, cross out others; make the necessary updates so that it
better re#ects where you are now and where you now want to get to in the future.

Some of your goals will remain the same – and that’s a good thing because chopping
and changing too often is a guaranteed way of getting absolutely nowhere – but you

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may wish to tweak some, completely alter/delete others, and add new items to the list,
too.

This process also gives you the opportunity to re-order your priorities and adjust the
timeframes to take into consideration everything that has happened in the past 12
months. Perhaps you’ve achieved a lot and can bring some of your intermediate goals
forward, or maybe unforeseen events have thrown a spanner into the works and mean
you have to push the deadlines further out into the future. Either way, your new
timeframes should re#ect your new reality.

Wrapping It Up

A personal development plan is an essential tool for taking your dreams and forming a
clear roadmap to make them come true. This is why you will often "nd businesses using
a version of them with employees to develop their skills and talent: they work, plain and
simple.

Just remember that each of these elements is needed for the overall plan to be e!ective:
clearly de"ned goals, a why, your starting point, a set of intermediate goals, realistic
timeframes, a record of your achievements, and a regular process of re"nement.

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BY A CONSCIOUS RETHINK - LAST UPDATED ON 13TH AUGUST 2019

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