Personal Development and Professional Development: A Comprehensive Guide

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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................3
Personal development..................................................................................................................................3
Professional development............................................................................................................................4
Short term goals and examples....................................................................................................................4
Medium term goals and examples...............................................................................................................5
Long term goals with examples...................................................................................................................6
Personal development plan with an example...............................................................................................7
CONCLUSION...........................................................................................................................................9
REFRENCES............................................................................................................................................10
Appendices................................................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Personal development has become a crucial part of life of an individual without which it
is not possible to get success in career. It is a process where an individual put consistent efforts
for setting goals and realizing those goals in real context. For this, it is important to set goals and
then put efforts to attain those goals. Personal development provides scope to a person to assess
own performance and then prepare appropriate plan for unpliftment of current potential. In
addition to this personal development is also helpful in terms of bringing quality in life by
getting better employment (Lewin and et. al., 2019). The present report is a reflective document
which comprises personal development plan for an individual for developing necessary skills and
potential for career enrichment and growth. Subsequently, goals which are related to different
period of time like short, medium and long term with appropriate examples have also been
covered in the report. Lastly, the significance of personal development plan is discusses
significantly. Moreover, personal development is imperative for self improvement and growth in
significant manner.
Personal development
Personal development is regarded as investing in own growth and development. It is
related with the process of continuous learning for improving self awareness and skills in an
efficient manner. It provides opportunity to an individual to bring proactive and be ready for
facing the future circumstances. Instead of waiting for good thing, personal development process
enables an individual person to make good thing happen. In addition to this, personal
development is also helpful in keeping a person motivated towards goal attainment so that
desired goals can be achieved within stipulated period of time (Rihacek and Roubal, 2017). It is
analyzed that a person is more likely to feel motivated while pursuing the goals and objectives
for self development. Personal development is considered as the first and most crucial step
towards personal improvement and fulfillment. Process of personal development is likely to start
with self awareness where a person need to have familiarity with own values, belief, purpose and
more. Without having self awareness, it is not possible to determine goals which might hamper
the process of personal growth. Apart from this, it is also important for personal development to
have sense in terms of direction in which a person wish to make own career. There are different

domains available in which one can make a profound career but for this, it is imperative to first
have clear vision about the area & field in which one wants to grow. It allows a person to
develop skills and abilities accordingly. Personal development also requires higher motivation
and inspiration in terms of bringing better results for future period of time. For this, it is vital to
set appropriate goals and major the performance on the basis of attainment of those goals. Thus,
personal development is a consistent process which needs to adopt by an individual person with
an aim to develop necessary talent for making the most out of the opportunities of growth and
success which are present within market place.
Professional development
Professional development is regarded as the training, education, certification which is
required by staff members in order to get success in career. Nowadays, there is extensive
competition prevailing within market place so it is vital to get indulge in professional
development programs for improving corporate skills in an efficient manner. However, different
skill sets are required for different jobs but there is also requirement to acquire some additional
competencies for growing in professional career. For this purpose, employees need to attend
training sessions, seminars so that they can get valuable insights for becoming an efficient
worker (Biryukova, 2016). It is analyzed that companies also understand the importance of
professional development for employees thus organize a lot of training programs with the help of
experience personalities with intend to provide valuable information and expertise to staff
members. But, it is also the responsibility of employees to get themselves enroll in online
sessions, seminars for gaining necessary skill set. Professional development is not only important
for staff members but also bring positive outcomes for company as with the help of professional
development workers are able to work in more productive & efficient manner. Moreover,
professional development is vital for improving skill and talent of staff members for performing
good at work place.
Short term goals and examples
It refers to such goals which are formulated for short duration. Here, short term goals are
generally related with 3 to 5 months. These objectives can be prepared for a day, month and
week and have a crucial impact over growth and success over an individual. It is monitored that