Here are my 5 reasons as to why I believe a PDP (Personal Development Plan) is a great thing to have.
1. It forces you to think about your personal development
Seems obvious, but for you to create a personal development plan you need to set some time aside and give it some thought about what you are going to include.
I can be guilty of lazy thinking i.e. jumping to a conclusion based on previous experience. Whilst this may be useful for mundane everyday tasks it can be harmful for tasks that are more important.
Writing a PDP is one of those important tasks. If I give it some serious thought I can come up with some really useful ideas. If I just carry on with my lazy thinking I will come up with the same preconceived ideas I have always had about myself.
2. It will tell you where to focus your energy
At first you may come up with 10 areas you want to develop on and 20 things you could do for those areas. That would not be helpful as it will feel overwhelming and you will probably be put off doing any of them.
However if you can prioritise that list and come up with two or three areas, and at max a couple of actions for each of those, you will feel like it is much more achievable.
"The successful warrior is the average man (or woman), with laser-like focus" - Bruce Lee
3. It acts as a reminder to yourself
Putting your plan on a page and making that page easily accessible will keep you honest and ensure you are sticking to it.
You could print it out and have it on your desk, or put a reminder in your calendar to look at it every Monday morning. Try different ideas to ensure your PDP stays alive and is in the forefront of your mind.
4. You will know what success looks like
By doing step 3 you will undoubtedly achieve one of more of the goals you put on your PDP.
What is even better is that you will realise that you have achieved them as you have made a point about revisiting your plan.
The more you do this the more momentum it brings and it will bring a sense of achievement.
5. It shows you are serious about your development
If you were interviewing someone and they mentioned in one of their answers that they have a PDP, you would be pretty impressed right?
Well you could be that person impressing interviewers.
You have put in all of that hard work of pulling a PDP together and you will be working extremely hard in achieving your objectives set out on it, so why not shout about it and show your work?!
These are my 5 reasons but I can think of many more and I bet you could too. What is your reason for having a PDP? let me know
I will be posting further posts around what I think a PDP should contain and some ideas of what it could look like.
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Thanks for reading,
Gav
