The Value of a Personal Development Plan

Do you have a personal development plan?

A document that provides a plan for areas for which you want to receive education and training?

It can be areas you are just interested in learning about and you are not really sure why.

It can also serve as a roadmap to help you learn what is needed to move your learning along in the right direction.

I have personally found that with the plan I become more focused. Without the plan I can waste time moving from topic to topic, things that either do not hold much interest or are not what I should be focusing on to achieve my goals.

Remember that most people do not have a personal development plan, so if you take the time to create one you will make more progress over time than you otherwise would.

Here are some reasons to develop a Personal Development Plan:

Focuses Your Efforts on a Few Items

We can focus on the few that really matter to us or we can focus on many areas, never really making any progress toward our goals. Focus leads to results. Spreading yourself too thin will likely not generate the results you desire.

Accelerates Learning in Your Most Important Areas

We want to make more progress more quickly. This is because life is short. The years fly by and if we do not number our days they will pass by and we will wonder what happened to them.

When we learn more we can contribute more to others with our newfound expertise.

Increases Progress on Your Highest Priority Goals

For high achievers, the faster the progress the better. If we plan to work on our highest priority goals and base our education and training on them, then we can make more rapid progress toward those goals.

Develops Your Expertise in Your Chosen Area

To contribute more to others, to serve others better, or even to make more money, we need to develop our expertise in our chosen area. When we are known as an expert then customers or others in our chosen field seek us out.

This creates more opportunity to build relationships, build businesses, and contribute to the world.

Reach Your Goals

If we want to reach our goals then we must develop our expertise through education, training, and experience. This could be through books, conferences, courses, etc., anything that helps us gain the knowledge necessary for us to reach our goals.

Whether your goal is to be promoted, make more money, build a business, become an expert in your chosen field, or just have fun learning, having a personal development plan will assist you in doing so.

What value do you see in a personal development plan?