
As hard as it is for some of us to admit, nobody’s perfect. No matter where you are in your personal or professional life, there’s always room for improvement. And that’s a good thing. We should always strive to be a better version of ourselves in our private lives and careers.
Reaching self-improvement goals isn’t easy. But you can adopt strategies to make it simpler for you to achieve success. A personal development plan (PDP) gives you a clear outline for personal growth or professional development. With a PDP, you can define your goals and track your progress.
In this article, you’ll learn how to use a personal development plan template to develop your own personal growth plan.
What Is a Personal Development Plan?
You might have a positive outlook on life, a good job, stable relationships and take care of your health. If you have all of those things, that’s awesome! But you shouldn’t stop reaching for ways to improve. Personal growth is a lifelong undertaking. No matter how accomplished we think we are, there are always aspects of our lives that we can work on or personal goals that we can work toward.
A personal development plan helps us clarify our goals and develop a framework for achieving them. It’s a self-evaluation method commonly used in professional circles and academia. You can utilise a PDP to help you accomplish anything, from learning a new language, developing a skill, or improving your health.
A PDP is super helpful in identifying your strengths and weaknesses. A PDP can help you improve your job prospects or boost your performance. You can use a PDP to keep you motivated and track your progress toward achieving your goals. A well-thought-out PDP can provide you with a clear sense of purpose. This helps reduce your stress levels and enhance your mental health. A PDP can also help you identify any blocks that might stop you from reaching your aims.
Whether you want to focus on your personal life or professional career, writing a PDP is a great idea. So, how does one go about putting together a PDP? The easiest way is to follow a personal development plan template.
How to Use a Personal Development Plan Template
We’ve created a free personal development plan template that you can save and use on any device. It’s based on the SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound) framework for goal setting.
You can edit the template and add your goals, timelines and next steps. You can also list any resources you need and how you’ll track progress.
You can apply the lessons in this guide and revise the plan as your skills grow and your goals evolve.
Personal Development Plan – Step-by-Step Guide
You can create a personal development plan following these eight simple steps:
- Step 1: Define how a PDP can help you
- Step 2: Undertake a self-assessment of strengths and weaknesses
- Step 3: Set your goals
- Step 4: Plan how you will reach your objectives and set timelines
- Step 5: Keep track of your progress
- Step 6: Evaluate and reflect on your accomplishments
- Step 7: Ask others for feedback on your improvements
- Step 8: Continuously update your PDP
We’ll go into each of these steps in detail to give you a complete picture of how to assemble a PDP.
Step One: Understand Your PDP Purpose
The very first thing to focus on when writing a PDP is to fully understand just why you are doing it in the first place. If you don’t have a clear purpose or set of goals, you won’t be able to devise a practical path to accomplishing them.
Maybe you want to improve your health or develop a new work skill. You might like to learn how to play Moonlight Sonata on the piano or come to grips with speaking Spanish. Whatever you want to accomplish, defining your PDP is essential.
Step Two: Assess Your Strengths and Weaknesses
Once you’ve defined why you’re writing a personal development plan, you can assess your strengths and weaknesses. This can be a difficult task, depending on your personality. A positive person with an overly generous view of themselves may lean toward thinking they have very few areas of weakness. A person with low self-esteem might concentrate on the negative aspects of their personality and overlook their strengths.
Be honest with yourself and take a systematic, balanced view of where your talents lie. It can be helpful to get an opinion from someone you trust or take a skills and personality test. (Just make sure you use a reputable provider!)
Step Three: Define Your Goals
Now you know why you’re writing a PDP and your strengths and weaknesses. At this point, it’s time to set out your goals. You may have long-term or short-term goals or a mixture of both.
Following the SMART formula is a good idea when setting out your goals:
- S – Specific: Be clear about what you want to achieve
- M – Measurable: Make sure you can measure your progress
- A – Attainable: Be realistic about your goals
- R – Relevant: Make your goals relevant to your ambitions
- T – Time-bound: Set realistic deadlines to help with motivation
Goal setting is complex, so don’t be surprised if this process takes longer than you think.
Step Four: Plan Actions and Set a Timeline
Having realistic goals is excellent, but now you have to develop a plan of action and set deadlines. Think of a linear path toward achieving your goals and set milestones.
For instance, you might want to learn to improve at a specific computer program. So, you could say: In the next week, I will obtain a copy of the program and find a course. In a month, I will have mastered the basics of the program. In six months, I will have become proficient in using the program. After this time, I will apply for a new job or a promotion.
At this stage, you might also want to consider any obstacles. Maybe the program will be more expensive than you initially thought, or you might get sick and be unable to complete the lessons.
Step Five: Track Your Progress
Developing a way to track progress toward your goals is incredibly important. You can lose focus if you don’t have a suitable tracking method. A calendar can be a valuable tool for planning your timeline and tracking your progress. You’ll need to be disciplined and stay motivated to reach your goals. Having a way of continuously monitoring your progress can help keep you on track.
If you suffer a setback, don’t be too hard on yourself. Sometimes, life gets in the way of our plans. The important thing is to keep working towards your goals. Make your progress tracker adjustable so you can factor in any unexpected delays.
Step Six: Evaluate and Reflect
Making it to the end of a PDP is a huge accomplishment, so this is a time to congratulate yourself. But it’s also a time to reflect on how the process went and evaluate any things you could have done differently.
Were there areas where you could have changed to speed up your progress? Obstacles that you could have avoided? Note them all down. They’ll be helpful when planning your next Personal Development Plan!
Step Seven: Seek Feedback
Self-improvement is difficult to notice, so some goals may be difficult to measure. People around you may be better able to observe how you’ve progressed since you started working on a personal development plan, so it can help to listen to friends and family.
For each subjective goal, you can also talk to people around you who’ve mastered what you want to achieve. Their constructive feedback can guide your next steps and help refine your approach.
Step Eight: Update The Plan
Personal development is an ongoing process. As you realise your ambitions or your circumstances change, update your PDP with new goals.
You can add new goals that build upon those you’ve already achieved. Or, if a goal is proving harder to achieve than you expected, you can divide it into more manageable sub-goals.
Remember that a PDP is there to help you track your progress and stay motivated. The more accurately it reflects what you can achieve, the better it’ll work for you.
How to Upgrade Your HR Skills
Knowing how to prepare a Personal Development Plan is a skill that every good Human Resources expert should know. In addition to developing your skills, you can pass your PDP knowledge on to your colleagues to help them reach their goals.
Taking some of our HR Compliance Courses is a great way to hone your workplace skills.
You can learn to manage stress, make the most of your time, resolve workplace conflicts, or even focus more on setting and achieving your objectives.