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Your Personal Development Plan
Must Address Current and Future
Career Development

Ideally you can prepare your personal development plan even before you enter high school. Or atleast when you are about to pursue tertiary education.

Your plan must address your educational and career development.

This is a part of the important plan to realize your career.

But there is a much wider meaning which is holistic, involving every aspect of your personal development plan. This includes physical, psychological, social and even spiritual development.

This plan can point the direction that your career path will take.

The London Metropolitan University States that a Personal Development Plan (PD Plan) helps you to:

• learn in a wider variety of ways and wider range of contexts
  
• recognize and record evidence for your own learning and your progress
  
• use your expanded knowledge to achieve goals
  
• review, plan and take responsibility for your own learning
  
• recognize and define your training and learning needs
  

It quotes the definition of Personal Development Planning which is:

"a structured and supported process undertaken by individuals to reflect upon their own learning, performance and/or achievement and to plan for their personal, educational and career development".

The personal development covers all other important things in life.

After this, you then endeavor to find the best possible way or ways to attain them.

Career Management
Assess yourself against a list of skills requirement.

This includes:

• Ability to take initiatives to achieve realistic career aspirations
  
• Ability to identify any training need or skills requirements
  
• Ability to describe personal skills and competencies in CVs, job applications and interviews
  
• Commitment to professional development and life-long learning to improve employability or to achieve your life's ambition
  

Regular Review of Your Personal Development Plan
Review your plan at regular intervals to update it and to make it more accurate and realistic.

• Where are you now? What is your current position?
  
  • What are you good at?
    
  • What do you need to do in order to make the necessary improvement to meet the requirement?
    
• Where do you want to be? At work? In your business? In life?
  
• What is your ultimate aim?
  
• How do you get there?
  

Purposes of a Personal Development Plan

• Success in attaining the level of qualification for your chosen career
  
• Success in your career
  
• Success in your personal life
  

• Determine what you want to improve or change in your life.
  
• Identify resources that can help you.
  
• Put aside time everyday to work on your plan.
  
• Record what you have learned.
  
• Prepare action steps. Take action one step at a time.
  
• Celebrate your success no matter how small.
  
• Repeat process until you succeed fully, until it becomes automatic.
  

Achieving Success
Arthur Lim, in his article "Personal Development," lists out his seven secrets of attaining success.

• Set goals.
  
• Be persistent and stay focused.
  
• Think positive and be enthusiastic.
  
• Work hard.
  
• Do not procrastinate.
  
• Surround yourself with supportive, successful people.
  
• Manage your time properly.
  

Every person must take responsibility for his or her own personal development.

The same is true of employees.

It follows that it is important to prepare and follow through one's personal development plan.

The Right Qualification
What profession do you want to pursue?

When you are sure of your career choice, you can take personal responsibility in getting qualified for it.

Employers conduct recruitment exercises based on the principle of "the right man for the right job". Whatever profession you have chosen, keep this in mind.

Of course, you may want independence such as becoming an entrepreneur, consultant or some other self-managed business undertakings. This also requires the right qualification and skills.

Once you qualify for the profession that you have chosen, you can proceed to either look for the relevant job or to start your own business in the field of your expertise.

The latter takes a lot of effort. It may take a fairly long time before some revenue starts to come in.

What is important is that you enjoy what you are doing. The rewards will come in due time.

Propel Your Career Development Further
by Obtaining Educational Advice and
Preparing Your Professional Development Plan

This is no reason why you cannot achieve success by preparing the right personal development plan.

There are hundreds and thousands of people who have not finished high school yet are very successful in life.

When you decide on life-long learning, you will gain knowledge and skills that are up-to-date and valuable in achieving your personal and professional success.

Remember there are thousands of graduates who are not making use of their knowledge either due to being unemployed or employed in the wrong profession.

Commit yourself to learn something that you love at every opportunity. Within no time, people will see that you are a learned person, knowing more than most people in the area you have chosen to commit your talent, efforts and time.

Taking Full Control of Your Life
You may find that life's events will affect your personal development plan.

Even with some form of tertiary qualification, you may find that the types of jobs where you want to pursue your career is scarce.

It can also happen that the job that you hold now is not equivalent in value to your qualification. This is frustrating.

Do not allow events take control of your life. You are a free agent.

You can change jobs at the right time. Do not worry too much about changing jobs as this is fast becoming a trend. Some even hold more than one job. But don't change jobs unless and until you have secured a better one.

You are in full control of your life. You determine the direction of your own personal and career development.

Continue to update your knowledge and skills. It is necessary to attend to this in personal development plan.

Once you have made your plan, stick to it until you succeed in fulfilling your life's ambition.

Don't Let Your Life's Question Remain Unanswered
Have you ever wondered and ask yourself whether you have what it takes to accomplish better things in life.

As you go about your daily life, this question may have come up in your mind many times. and you want to know.

As a person who wants to live a better life, it is normal that you ask this question. You to long for satisfaction in life. You want to do more worthwhile things.

Read the book by Will Edwards entitled "The Deepest Desire of Your Heart" which can help point the direction your life will take for the future. Make this a fun thing and an adventure.

Don't Miss the Opportunity to Get Inspired
We need inspiring stories from time to time. We may have our own list of great stories, about people that we had made our role models. Click here for more information.

Each one of us can learn something from the Memoir of the late Edward Kennedy who managed to overcome overpowering events in his life.

As a senator, one of the things that he worked very hard at accomplishing was health care for everyone.

His memoir can give us insights on our own personal development and purpose in life. The right purpose leads us along the road to a more satisfying life, a life lived to the full.

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