MASTER Your Growth to REACH Your Goals in Life and Career

Hello my friends. Today I want to talk to you about how to build your own personal development plan. Personal development is a topic that's been near and dear to my heart for over 30 years and it's something that I have been working on and working on. And the thing with personal development is it never ends. It's like bathing. You have to keep doing it and conditioning yourself every day. And so I'm going to walk you through some topics and things that I've learned. I've been to some Tony Robbins events. I've been to some Brendan Burchard events, some Ed Miland events, and all of these people have different aspects on personal development. So, I want to share some of those things that I've learned with you and maybe help you get your own personal development plan going. So, first things first. Establishing goals for your career, personal milestones, skills, hobbies is essential in guiding yourself to future success. Personal development runs parallel to goal development and achievement. I mean, it could be as simple or as complex as you choose. But crafting a personal development plan is critical to help you grow by keeping you accountable and on track. I mean, you might be familiar with employers offering personal development plans. I mean, unfortunately, they often have a negative connotation. I mean, sometimes they get handed out after documented performance issues or something like that and that's kind of hardly motivated. But in this video, I'm going to show you how to take control of your own career and destiny and why you shouldn't shy away from a personal development plan. So, what is a PDP? I mean, think of it as a guideline. I mean, in order to improve yourself or achieve your goals, you need to establish the steps you have to take to get there. I mean, you'll start to define the type of person that you'd like to become, the accomplishments that you'd like to achieve, the skills that you'd like to acquire and the milestones that you want to reach. I mean, your PDP is made up of short-term goals that keep you moving toward your long-term goals. I mean, it requires honesty and introspection. I mean, you'll have to acknowledge where you can do better, what habits that you need to change, the work that you need to put in and practice the self-discipline that's necessary to hit your goals. And within personal development, there are seven key categories that you could focus on and that's what I'm going to walk you through. So, number one is personal growth. I mean, this is all about evolving as a human being. I mean, you're not the same person you were five years ago and that's because of your experiences have changed you and they've shaped you. And personal growth can include practicing gratitude, being kind or empathetic or improving your contribution to the relationships in your life. In essence, personal growth is about being a better version of yourself than you were the previous day. All right, let's move on here to number two, personal skills, often referred to as soft skills. Now, these are intangible qualities like communication, teamwork, organizational skills, decision-making and time management. These skills can impact your work and personal life, making them an excellent target for a PDP. For example, if you struggle with procrastination, create a PDP that focuses on tackling projects as they come instead of waiting to get started. I mean, you probably know what I mean there. Use strategies like time blocking to make measurable progress towards your end goal. All right, number three, personal improvement. Now, this is similar to personal growth, but not quite the same. Whereas growth represents an actual shift in mindset, skills or approach, improvement implies you already have a baseline. So, for instance, maybe you're generally positive and supportive of others, but not towards yourself. So, if you can be kinder to yourself, you'll feel happier overall, which will positively impact the many facets of your life. Make sense? All right, number four here, personal empowerment. Now, empowerment is all about how you see yourself. I mean, if you feel capable, talented and worthy of success, you'll naturally feel more motivated and work more efficiently. When pesky things like imposter syndrome get in the way, it can have a massive impact on your personal empowerment. So, take the time to remind yourself of what you're doing well and what you excel at to combat the negative harmful messages that you might otherwise tell yourself. Okay, let's move on here to number five, personal power. Now, this could also be viewed as the respect and authority that you have on a given subject or within certain situations. For example, if you're naturally shy and you have trouble being outspoken in a group, taking CPR classes or learning how to use a fire extinguisher or volunteering to be part of your office's emergency response team can add a lot to your confidence. So, before you know it, people will be looking to you for direction because you've developed your personal power. All right, number six here, personal objectives. Now, the objectives are the fun part of a PDP. It's where you establish your dreams and your goals and you prioritize what's most important to you. That's the fun stuff. Okay, let's move on here to number seven, personal analysis. Now, as I mentioned before, you need to be introspective in order to grow. So, be honest about your strengths and your weaknesses. I mean, otherwise, you're lying to yourself. I mean, how can you possibly improve upon something if you tell yourself you're already good at it? So, understanding where you are allows you to place yourself on a spectrum concerning your goals. So, I mean, have you improved? Have you remained stagnant? Have you slid back? So, ensure that you're consistently checking in with yourself to assess where you're at. I mean, this could be weekly or monthly, depending on how quickly that you're trying to reach your goals. So, why do you need a PDP? Not only does it establish goals, but it tracks your progress. I mean, you can check back anytime to remind yourself of your vision. Establish the steps that you need to take and it helps you to improve your time management skills because you're focused on the tasks that will result in tangible goals. Now, PDP can also relieve a lot of stress in your life. I mean, if you only have the big picture goal in your mind, maybe securing a job in a new industry, it can feel daunting. You might be just like, where do I begin? How long is it going to take? I'll never get there. You'll spend more time spinning your wheels than making progress without the structure of having that PDP. So, how to set your PDP goals. Your goal can't be as broad as to get a new job in a new industry. It's too vague and it's just too overwhelming. So, instead, ask yourself some probing questions because questions build focus. So, you might ask, where do I want to be in five years or 10 years? What do I want to accomplish in life? What is in the way of achieving my goals? And once you have the answers to these questions, and it might take you a while to get through these, and the answer that you have today might be different than the answer that you have tomorrow. So, it's something to keep asking yourself. But once you have the answers to these questions, you're well on your way to creating a PDP of your own. I mean, you'll have established your own personal objective. And like I said, you can't really do this in five minutes. It just doesn't work that way. It takes more time. You're planning your life. But once those are in place, then you need some short-term and long-term goals to help you get across the finish line. So, make sure those goals are what we call smart goals. Now, smart goals are specific, where you change from, I want to read more to, I want to read for 20 minutes every day. You want to make them measurable, where you want to keep track of your progress. So, start by committing to reading for 10 minutes twice a week and increase your time each day or your number of days per week until you've hit or maintained your goal. And then achievable. So, you want to make your goals challenging, but realistic. And then relevant. Ensure that there's a reason why you're putting in all the time. And how is your goal aligned with your PDP? Is it time-bound? So, you want to pick a date by which you want to accomplish your goal to avoid procrastination. And when you're ready to get going, you could build your own template or search online for some templates. I'm sure they're all over the place and that'll help you kind of get going. But don't spend too much time on this step. Just grab something that keeps you accountable and that you can always tweak and adjust and formatting as you go. I mean, you could do this in a simple Excel spreadsheet, really. But I hope you're feeling ready to tackle your own personal development plan. So, what are the top three goals that you will prioritize using this method? Let me know in comments below. And I'll tell you this, if you're going to set a goal, someone told me this a long time ago, never set a goal without taking some kind of action on it immediately. Don't just go through, don't watch this video and then create your PDP and then say, I'm going to get started on it tomorrow. You want to do something now. Whether that's just picking up the phone, whether maybe you want to improve your reading or you want to read a new book, placing an order for the book, take action in the moment. Otherwise, the distance between you achieving that goal is just going to get farther and farther and farther away. And I'll tell you this, I've been studying personal development for years and I've read tons of books. I'm compressing decades of information into just a five-minute video. And some of the seminars that I go to, they're like four days long, 12 hours a day of just pumping your mind with personal development strategies and tactics and helping you get clear. So, to try to accomplish all this in five minutes is quite a challenge. So, this is just to kind of give you the framework and the structure and hopefully sell you on the idea of creating a PDP so that you can just kind of get the wheels turning. And once they get turning, you're going to go farther, I guarantee it. So, if you found this video helpful, give it a thumbs up. And if there's other personal development videos or motivational videos that you'd like to see or other topics like that, let me know in the comments and I'll see what I can do about getting those out because I love creating this stuff. It's just near and dear to my heart. And then subscribe. That way, you get notified every time I release a new video. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye.