Just like that, the August we welcomed just yesterday is almost over. Where are you with your goals? Creating a life plan and setting goals is so important because living a life you love won’t happen by accident. It happens only by living intentionally. A personal development plan is a framework you can use over time and revise as your life changes to create a life you love.
As we get ready to usher in September and even prepare for 2020, here are five steps to guide you in creating an effective personal development plan.
- Understand why a personal development plan matters: Your personal development plan is a tool that enables you to do less of what the outside world wants you to do and more of what you want to do. When you create a personal development plan, you create a clear path to achieving the goals you want. This type of clarity allows you to focus. Then, you can prioritize what’s essential and say no to the rest.
- Create a vision : The first part of creating a personal development plan is to create visions. Your vision includes what you believe in and what you want in your future. It’s what you want and it’s the powerful reason why you want it. The reason you need to set visions is because you need to know what goals to set and in what order of importance you should set them. The only way to do this is to know what you want from your own life.
- Set goals: A goal is an achievable aim or target in the future. To set goals, I recommend using the SMART method. Goals should be SMART:
- Specific (not vague)
- Measurable (detailed)
- Attainable (achievable given where you are now)
- Realistic (not impossible)
- Timely (with a definite deadline)
- Goals can be long-term goals (over one year) or short-term goals (weeks or days).
- Create a weekly action plan: The biggest enemy of success and achievement is inaction. Setting goals is fine, but if you want to achieve them, you need to put a plan in place to make it happen. To do this, you need to schedule out actions to take on a weekly basis to achieve your goals. If you don’t, other things will steal your time and you won’t achieve your goals.
- Implement supportive habits: Beyond the goals and actions you take are the habits that will enable you succeed. Habits don’t require a lot of motivation. Instead, the right habits put discipline in your life that become second nature. The more supportive habits you put in place, the less motivation you need to do something.
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