Many of us create a plan for our finances, ensuring that we have an airtight plan that will lead to our financial success.
But how many of us conduct this same exercise for our personal development?
Author and motivational speaker Jim Rohn once said “Your level of success will seldom exceed your level of personal development”. This is why it is important to develop a plan for personal development. A personal development plan is a tool that enables us to examine key areas in our lives and then pursue growth or change where it is most needed.
As we begin to think about what we want to accomplish in our lives, we must take the time to develop and implement our personal development plan in order to experience personal growth in our lives.
Below are steps that will help you create your personal development plan:
Step 1: Determine what you want. We must figure out which areas of our life that we’re happy with and which areas could use some growth and development…and most importantly, write it down.
Step 2: Bridging the Gap. This involves comparing your ideal situation to your present situation. This helps us to understand how big the chasm is that stands between your present situation and your ideal life.
Step 3: Generating Options. Now that you have identified the areas of your life that you want to focus on and you know what your ideal life is, you can begin to identify options to help you reach your ideal state. This step means that you have to begin to think innovatively and creatively in order to identify viable options to implement in your life to reach your ideal life.
Step 4: Goal Setting. Once you’ve completed all of the planning, it is important to focus on setting the goals and the subsequent action steps to achieve the ideal state in your life. The key to goal setting is to ensure that they are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timebound).
Step 5: Execute. Now that you have identified the areas needing development in your life and determined your goals, it is now time to take the necessary steps to accomplish your goals. This means breaking downy our goals into the necessary action steps or tasks in order to reach those goals. In addition, you success in achieving those goals increases with an accountability partner who will hold you accountable to what you say you will do.
A personal development plan is great in principle but it is only as effective as you make it. If you want to be successful in personal growth and development, it is important that you put forth the necessary effort, commitment and dedication into execution, and you will reach that ideal state that you envision for your life.
Contributed by:
LaTrice Ross, DTM