#05 Create A Personal Development Plan
Benefits Of A Personal Development Plan
Having a personal development plan will help you plan your personal learning journey. It will allow you to define your objectives (i.e. to focus on what you want to achieve and when by) and track your progress. Seeing a steady stream of achievements will also motivate you further.
Personal Development Objectives
Think carefully about your development objectives and exactly what it is that you want to achieve.
Remember not to under-estimate the value and importance of business and soft skills as well as the technical skills you wish to learn.
If you have multiple objectives, then you may need to prioritise them. You can then begin to identify the steps you will need to take to go from intention to achievement.
Involve Your Line Manager
Work with your line manager to create and validate your personal development plan. Sharing and working on your personal development plan with your line manager will make you more accountable for it.
He or she can help identify skills and learning needs, point out learning and training opportunities and confirm whether your objectives align well or not with department and business goals.
Expect your line manager to want to set some of your objectives and to challenge you over deadlines. He or she may want to set some objectives that will stretch you and take you outside of your comfort zone!
If you initiated the personal development plan for yourself, you may find it adds stronger backing to any requests to management for access to learning resources, training or attending conferences etc.
Have A Deadline
Setting a deadline can be helpful in adding some urgency to incentivise commitment to your plan. For example, someone aiming to run a marathon might apply to enter a race the same time next year and then use the time in between to prepare and train in order to be ready.
If you are aiming to gain a formal certification then think about the potential exam date. Try not to be too ambitious in your choice of deadlines or they will merely prove unrealistic.
Planning Is Rewarding
Don’t under-estimate the value of the planning part of the learning journey.
The nature of your personal development objectives will determine just how much up-front planning and preparation will be required. Some objectives may require more planning than others although usually you don’t need a detailed plan.
Having a plan will help you work out where to start and what to do next.
Consider Your Personal Development Approach Carefully
Remember that for most of us, 70% of our learning comes from "hands-on" doing, 20% through social interaction and only 10% from formal training. (See the 70:20:10 model.)
This means your approach to learning and development needs to include a mix of hands-on doing stuff (being creative or building something) as well as social interaction to learn from others (perhaps at technical community or meetup events) and also the undertaking of some form of training (perhaps eLearning or in the classroom), all preferably in the 70:20:10 ratios if possible.
Get Help
Just because it’s a personal development plan doesn’t mean to say you can’t involve and get help and encouragement from other people throughout your journey.
Where possible, seek out people who have already achieved the same or similar objectives and talk to them about their approach. Find out what worked, what didn’t and what advice they would offer. Afterall, you don’t want to learn anything the hard way and this can help you take shortcuts on learning curves and avoid rookie mistakes.
You may want to include others in your plan for shadowing, coaching or mentoring purposes too. If there are others seeking to achieve the same objective, then why not team up and work on it together? That way you can help and motivate each other.
Making It Happen
It’s good to get your next action in the calendar at the earliest opportunity, preferably colour-coded so it stands out. You should also allocate regular time slots into your calendar (similarly colour-coded) to keep up the momentum and enable steady progress to be made.
Of course, you’ll need some discipline to stay on track, follow through and make it happen but having a plan and time blocked out in your calendar is a great launch pad and reminder. (See personal learning trick #06 Learn To Manage Your Time Well.)
Progress Tracking
Record your achievements against your objectives as you go.
Seeing a series of completed achievements on your personal development plan will prove that you are making progress and make you feel good. It will also motivate you to keep going.
Discipline And Recovery
Nothing significant is achieved without time, effort and dedication to the cause.
Try to remain disciplined to “not break the chain” of planned learning and development activities, regardless of what the work environment throws at you.
If you do miss a planned activity, try to slot it back in elsewhere in your schedule but if not, try to follow the rule of “never miss twice”.
With sustained commitment you will eventually reach your personal development objectives. It will then be time to celebrate. Yay!
Until then, stay focussed on your personal development plan. Good luck.
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Tim Simpson
#OldDogNewTrick