Having a personal development plan is a bit like having your goals written down. It’s one of those things that helps to make the difference between the plan being just a dream and actually turning into reality.
Whether your plan is physically written on a piece of paper or typed on your computer is less important than having it created somewhere.
Your plan can take many forms but my personal preference is to work on one item at a time. This may seem as though you’re taking the slow road but actually I’ve found that working on one thing at a time works faster than a scatter-gun approach where you’re trying to work on umpteen items at once and actually getting nowhere fast.
Having a written plan for your latest personal development goal gives your subconscious mind something to work on. It also gives your conscious mind a course of action. And those two elements together make a powerful combination and allow you to reach your goals faster than you ever thought possible!
Deciding on a goal for your personal development plan
A goal is an important part of a personal development plan. Arguably the most important part as it provides the target for you to work towards.
There are lots of different methods of goal setting – you can almost certainly just choose one that you think will work for you and that will be good. In fact, if you’re investigating different goal setting methods then I would strongly recommend going with your first instincts as to which one will be best. It sure beats using the choice of methods as an excuse to procrastinate and do nothing!
My favourite goal setting method is to work on one goal at a time and write out a (long!) description of what will happen when I achieve that goal.
It combines quite a few different methods including what NLP and hypnosis call “future pacing” and works well for me. I’ve outlined it below:
Pick a goal to aim for. If it’s your first time using this method, make it a goal you can reach in about a week or so. Why? Because that way you’ve got enough time to work on it and reach it without getting distracted. Subsequent goals can be bigger and take longer.
Then write out a statement of what it will be like when you’ve achieved that goal. Go into a mega amount of detail. Describe how you’ll feel – that almost smug feeling of satisfaction as you grin from ear to ear when you’ve achieved your goal.
Then go into all the other detail that will surround you: the things you’ll see, what you’ll hear, the reaction of people around you, and so on. Pretend you’re a really fussy movie director – the kind that wants everything written down, even if you’d need a microscope to examine the detail in the fraction of a second it appears on screen. This kind of detail may sound overkill but actually works a treat as it helps your mind to really get into the idea that you’ve achieved your goal.
Then use something like this free personal development plan to jot down the steps you’ll need to take each day to reach your goal and also to keep track of the things you actually did (as opposed to the things you meant to do but didn’t get round to doing).
You’ll almost certainly find that doing something every day towards your goal turns the dream into reality.
Keeping on track with your personal development plan
A lot of the time, it’s more important to dosomething towards your making your personal development plan come to fruition than the “something” itself.
The reason for this is that we are creatures of habit and once we get in the habit of doing something towards making our personal development plan happen, chances are we’ll keep doing that.
So the mere act of doing something towards your plan each and every day gets you into the habit. It really is that simple!
It’s generally thought that it takes around 3 weeks to form a habit.
So you need to be especially careful during that formative time that you really are working towards your plan.
Set up reminders in all sorts of places to keep you on track.
And go public!
Tell anyone and everyone who will listen what your goal is. Enough of them will remind you about it that you’ll have extra reminders whenever you meet your friends (or even enemies!).
You can also get hold of a course like this one to help you get into the habit of having good habits.
Having a written plan for your latest personal development goal gives your subconscious mind something to work on. It also gives your conscious mind a course of action. And those two elements together make a powerful combination and allow you to reach your goals faster than you ever thought possible!
