Personal Development Plan

Define Personal Development Plan

Often people say, “There is always a room for improvement”, and to make it viable there are few things that can be adopted in life. Have you ever thought of Personal Development Plan? It is a roadmap to your personal growth and one can expect to achieve success through proper planning.It is actually a practice that revolves round the goals decided by individual that emphasizes on specific areas of Personal Development. Through Personal Development, it is possible to identify the skills that should be polished and adopt different abilities.It is to be noted that framing such a plan without any basic framework can be quite tiring. Hence, in such a scenario, it is best that a Personal Development Planning template be followed to ensure that there is no glitch in the plan.

What is Personal Development Planning?

Before, getting into depth of Personal Development Planning, it is necessary to understand what it is. It is a process that helps to develop an action plan depending on values, self-awareness, goals and plan that is essential for Personal Development. It is actually adopted in reference to education, career or even for relationship development. With the free template you can minimize the chance of doing mistakes in PDP.Today, most of the people are career-oriented and want to achieve success in their life, so goal setting is MUST. But, there are many who do not believe in setting up of goals for different areas in regard to Personal Development. But, you need to focus on few goals in life:

• Financial
• Professional
• Health
• Spiritual

Personal Development Plan or PDP is popularly known as Individual Development Plan (IDP) or even Personal Enterprise Plan (PEP). It is a statement that includes individual’s aspirations, competencies and strength. PDP may also include the statement related to lifestyle priorities or analyze different risks and opportunities in one’s personal and professional life.How about getting a template to support you? You can surely take help from Personal Development Planning templates that are available. They would surely provide you with a perfect guide.

Reason to write Personal Development Plan

It is said that PDP is a proven technique through which you can attain success and achieve the desired goals in life. Once you write down the plan, there is a possibility of receiving:

• Complete clarity:Once you design the plan, it becomes easier for you to identify the activities that you are presently performing in your life and get to know what you are actually doing.
• Reason for doing specific work:If your plan includes the purpose of setting of goals, then even in lazy and unmotivated days, you will get the purpose of doing the job.
• Course of action:Have proper planning for every day so that you know what you would necessarily do throughout the day.

Professional templates can really act as a great idea for every individual and there is no need to worry about making any mistakes.

Why Personal Development Plan is important?

An Individual Development Plan (IDP) comes up with a proper framework that enables to identify the strengths and weaknesses of individual. This will further help to polish the existing skills and also adopt the new capabilities in life. This actually acts a snapshot of an individual to analyze your current position and assess your ability so that you can proceed to next step.The main objective of adopting this process is to analyze the skills, qualifications, knowledge and capabilities. Through self-assessment you can have a complete clarity on possible development areas. This can be your starting point and just adopt 3 actions that you plan to improve in the next year. Though there is no limit in deciding the number of actions, but the less you adopt, the more chance of staying focused!The implementation of IDP can be easily applied while using the SMART criteria that are elaborately said as:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Applicable
• Realistic
• Time-bound

Therefore, it becomes essential to emphasize on real assessment to strengthen different areas. You need to work on your weaknesses and get ready to perform well in current role. Get a Personal Development Planning template to make following of your plan easier!

Types of motivation in PDP

It can act as a benefit to both the parties: employer and you. Having a proper PDP can definitely give a new dimension to your life. With proper planning there is a high possibility of achieving career success. Therefore, it acts as a value addition to both parties. Usually, you will come across with three important types of motivation for developing a Personal Development Plan:

1. Business related to formal PDP: It can be action plan which is associated with annual interview or any action plan related to training. In regard to motivation, it is necessary to perform along with goals.
2. Personal motivation: This can either be formal or informal planning. If you are interested in turning yourself into professional writer, then it is vital for you to go for formal planning.
3. It is a combination of both personal and business related motivation.

Making use of the Personal Development Plan (PDP) example template, there is a high chance of developing your personality. The template can act as a tool to identify weaknesses and further polish the skills to improve the personal and behavior.

What is the purpose of PDP?

Remember, PDP can be used for different things. Whenever you are planning in your life whether it is career related, education or relationship related, you can adopt the PDP. To stay organized in life and have a proper action plan will make you eligible to adopt new skills that can contribute in self-improvement.But, is your goal long-term or short-term? Decide the tenure of your goal so that you can adopt proper planning process to achieve it successfully. These can be based on specific areas of improvement and comes up with eventual goal in mind.The areas actually revolve around development and learning such as taking up any education courses or may include on job training, networking etc. To be a part of success, you necessarily have to adopt new skills and knowledge. Having followed the vital steps, you can possibly meet up the targets.With the downloading of Personal Development Plan (PDP) template you can plan out the whole thing in a better manner. With the assistance of template, you get to know how to manage the process and have a smooth and successful life!

When PDP is necessary?

You can possibly create PDP at any point of time in your life. This would list out the targets in life based on the situation of life. While being a part of an organization, the PDP will act as a tool to identify weaknesses and finally improve them to gain progress. It can easily assist you in varieties of ways and make sure that the right path is obtained so that you can achieve a success in career.PDP can also be used for educational purpose. Having a healthy communication with tutors, will help to realize the areas that you need to work on and attain excellence. By adopting the right PDP template, you can surely set up goals and keep an eye on your progress.It acts as a useful tool when you are currently playing different roles in life. Having a clear set of objectives, make you eligible for managing time and work on your skills, you can add values to CV and then career it in an interview to show your potential and enthusiasm to employer.

Essential elements of Individual Development Plan

There are three main elements found which can guide you in success. The Personal Development guide will give knowledge about the essential elements:

1. Mindset:This can be the most essential plan of your PDP and having the right mindset will decide how much effort you put to achieve the goal. It is vital to emphasize on the mindset so that you know what you will be doing throughout the day. Having a proper goal in life, will allow you to taste the success of life! Therefore, write down the major goals and then try to attain them! Read them on daily basis and maintain the level of enthusiasm.
2. Action:Personal Development actually helps you to realize that when you are lethargic towards work, there is no chance of reaching the desired goal. Therefore, you need to know how to take severe action that would consist of no excuses. Just plan your daily action and begin the day with positive attitude!
3. Persistence:It is also a key which resist you from quitting. Persistence plays an important role in Personal Development and this should be included in the plan to achieve big results. Without persistence there is less chance of staying motivated during the course of action. You might come across with innumerable obstacles while attaining success. Therefore, do not allow anyone to be an obstruction as try to focus on growth and development.

How to write a Personal Development Plan?

You need to identify the key components that can help in your personal growth plan. There are five important steps that can be adopted. The five parts of PD Planning are:

1. Identifying goals:Once you get involved into personal growth plan, it is necessary to understand the goals that is necessarily be accomplished. There are many people who make major mistakes by not identifying their goals. So, it is important to be realistic in order to achieve the goal.
2. Prioritizing goals:Once you set the goals, it is essential to decide which one to accomplish in the first hand. Prioritize the goals accordingly depending on their logical and realistic basis.
3. Action plan:It’s time to have a step-by-step procedure that may help in better Personal Development strategy. Ask yourself, “What would be the course of action for today?” Identify the sequence of goal into the personal action plan.
4. Stipulated time for action:While going through the Personal Development Plan (PDP) sample, you will explore that each action should come up with time line. This can be created either on daily, monthly or yearly basis that helps to stay on track.
5. Implementation of plan:While developing Personal Development Plan, it is necessary to stay motivated. In the initial stage enthusiasm may be at its peak as you get to know about the advantages of PDP, but after a while there is a possibility of losing interest in it. So, to keep motivation throughout the process, always ask a question, “what if the development plan is not followed?” This will force you to go through the task available in the template and implement them into action.

Ways to make use of PDP template

Once you have the Personal Development goal, it is easy to get an impression on how to go ahead with your life. The availability of free templates, gives opportunity to write down the objective and then follow them to achieve the excellence in different field.

• Track the progress:Once the Personal Development is finalized, it is essential to keep a regular track of progress to understand the ability and performance. Having a proper plan in mind is important, but if you do not check them on regular basis, then it turns out to be useless!
• Celebrate the success:Celebrating success is really very important, but the most important part is to reward yourself once you achieve your objective. An excellent reward will give motivation to accomplish goals faster and you can go some extra mile.

By adopting the right Personal Development Plan template, you get the opportunity to set up goals and then keep a track of your achievement. This is the best way to measure success!

Is professional template necessary?

Human errors do persist in every planning, but to minimize it, you necessarily need to opt for professional and advanced technique. Through a good PDP template, it is convenient for every individual to turn their ambitions into action.The process of development acts as an inspiration to people and help to perform. With the help of professional template, there is a high possibility of becoming well equipped with necessary items that is necessary for growth.The template would help you to structure the thinking and finally create a strategic plan to achieve your goals. A professional template would consider few things which you might miss while developing a plan:

• Defining goals
• Prioritizing the goals
• Set up deadline
• Performing SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunity and threat) analysis
• Adopt new skills
• Turn into action

Handle tough challenges with IDP

Having a Personal Development idea in mind needs complete dedication from individual. An ideal IDP may focus on two vital things:

1. Understanding the strength and talent of every employee
2. Offering new skills and knowledge for better performance

Through proper PDP it is possible to take apt decision in life. Life comes with tough challenges, and there would be many choices in life and work. But, you need to have clear ideas and prioritizes them based on the career growth. Taking informed decisions at right time will definitely lead to success.Always ask yourself what you want to achieve in life. If you have a long-term plan, then stays focused and try to achieve the long term career goals. Sometimes, short-term growth can be alluring, but can have a negative effect on long-term. So, simply improve your analyzing power and take proper decision.