Personal and Professional Development: A Comprehensive Guide to Enhancing Skills and Achieving Goals

This comprehensive guide explores the essential aspects of personal and professional development, encompassing self-managed learning, skill evaluation, development planning, and effective communication and time management strategies. It provides practical insights and actionable steps to enhance your skills, achieve your goals, and thrive in both your personal and professional life.

PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................2
LO1...................................................................................................................................................3
1.1 EVALUATE APPROACHES TO SELF-MANAGED LEARNING.....................................................3
1.2, M1 PROPOSE WAYS IN WHICH LIFELONG LEARNING IN PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL
CONTEXTS COULD BE ENCOURAGED...........................................................................................4
1.3 EVALUATE THE BENEFITS OF SELF-MANAGED LEARNING TO THE INDIVIDUALS AND
ORGANIZATIONS..........................................................................................................................5
LO2...................................................................................................................................................6
2.1, M2 EVALUATE OWN CURRENT SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES AGAINST PROFESSIONAL
STANDARDS AND ORGANIZATIONAL OBJECTIVES......................................................................6
2.2IDENTIFY OWN DEVELOPMENT NEEDS AND THE ACTIVITIES REQUIRED TO MEET THEM....7
2.3 IDENTIFY DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES TO MEET CURRENT AND FUTURE DEFINED
NEEDS...........................................................................................................................................8
2.4 DEVISE A PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN BASED ON IDENTIFIED
NEEDS.........................................................................................................................................11
LO3.................................................................................................................................................13
3.1, M3 DISCUSS THE PROCESS AND ACTIVITIES REQUIRED TO IMPLEMENT THE
DEVELOPMENT PLAN.................................................................................................................13
3.2 UNDERTAKE AND DOCUMENT DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES AS PLANNED...........................14
3.3 REFLECT CRITICALLY ON OWN LEARNING AGAINST ORIGINAL AIMS AND OBJECTIVES SET
IN THE DEVELOPMENT PLAN.....................................................................................................15
3.4 UPDATE THE DEVELOPMENT PLAN BASED ON FEEDBACK AND EVALUATION...................16
LO4.................................................................................................................................................18
4.1 SELECT SOLUTION TO WORK BASED PROBLEMS.................................................................18
1

4.2 COMMUNICATE IN A VARIETY OF STYLES AND APPROPRIATE MANNER AT VARIOUS
LEVELS........................................................................................................................................20
4.3 EVALUATE AND USE EFFECTIVE TIME MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES...................................21
CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................................22
REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................23
2

INTRODUCTION
The term Personal and Professional development plan explain about enhancing the skill sets
that need them to be gained in order to achieve the desired position within the workplace and
which also helps in marinating healthy relations with the people one meets in social life. The
personal development consists of qualities such as social skills, understanding nature, positive
attitude etc. Whereas professional development includes communication skills, knowledge of
the field in which one is interested to work, scheduling of time, effective planning in order to
accomplish aims and objectives. This assignment is based on the approaches that support in
self-managed learning along with several ways that help in lifelong learning in both the contexts
personal as well as professional. There are also various benefits of self-managed learning which
are discussed in this report. Furthermore, this report evaluates the own skills and capabilities
those are in contradiction to standards sets for professional and organizational objectives. Also,
this assignment evaluates the own development requirements in order to meet them and the
opportunities in order to accomplish recent and future needs as well. Lastly, here the
explanation of the process that is required to execute the development plan along with a
solution for the problems that are based on work is discussed.
3

LO1
1.1 EVALUATE APPROACHES TO SELF-MANAGED LEARNING
Self-managed learning is the approach that is adapted to manage one's own learning in
accordance to the demands and requirements in order to attain an anticipated position in any
organization as well as enhancement in the current set of skills. In order to analyze the self-
managed learning approach, Kolb's model and Honey and Mumford learning style can be used
in the following manner (Bennett, 2017). Kolb’s learning style is carried out in four ways
diverging, assimilating, converging and accommodating. Under diverging, the people involved in
using this learning style tend to look things with a different perception. Under assimilating
individual under this style prefer good and clear data, and have the ability to logically line by
the provided information and discover analytic models (DeCoux, 2016). Converging are the
learners who tend to solve the issues by putting their learning in the practical approach. Lastly
accommodating are the people who choose to accomplish things practically they choose to deal
with new problems and solve the issues (Kolb,2014).
Another theory that can be adopted in order to understand the self-managed learning is honey
and Mumford theory which is based on the Kolb’s theory and is recognized in 4 different
learning styles those are Activist, Pragmatist, Reflector and Theorist. Activists are the one who
learns things by doing activities like group discussion, brainstorming etc. Theorists are the one
who first tries to understand the theory that is related to the actions taking by applying those
theories, finding statics about it etc. (Willingham, et al. 2015). The pragmatist is the people who
require visualizing the things that are needed to put the practice in the actual work by case
studies, discussion etc. Lastly, reflectors are the one who observes things first and then plan
what to do which is done by observing activities, self-analysis etc. (An and Carr, 2017.).
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1.2, M1 PROPOSE WAYS IN WHICH LIFELONG LEARNING IN PERSONAL AND
PROFESSIONAL CONTEXTS COULD BE ENCOURAGED
There are many ways that promote the lifelong learning in professional and personal terms that
must be promoted are:
 SWOT ANALYSIS OF SELF: Self-learning is carried out so that one can understand owns
decision, judgments, thoughts etc. which could be carried out by adopting the SWOT
analysis in which I can fairly judge there strength, weakness, opportunities and threats.
 INTERNET: With the help of content present on the internet such as audios and videos that
are available online support me to attaining more knowledge regarding the theories and
concepts that I can use in my workplace so that I can motivate my team members and
encourage them to work with coordination (Mansfield, et al. 2016). This approach supports
me being updated with the current happenings and the ongoing trends so that lifelong
learning is assured.
 PLANNING: It is yet another important aspect that promotes to the lifelong learning in both
professional as well as personal terms as it supports in setting a framework that describes
the appropriate policies and allocates the resources proper so that it helps in proper
monitoring and control of the restricted resources.
Kolb’s learning cycle is also significant for me as it helps me to make decisions immediately. I
am now able to practice, reflect, deliberate and act in accordance with the situation.
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1.3 EVALUATE THE BENEFITS OF SELF-MANAGED LEARNING TO THE
INDIVIDUALS AND ORGANIZATIONS
There are many benefits of the self-managed learning for both me and my organization where I
work, those benefits are discussed below:
 BENEFITS FOR ME: Self-managed learning has an important role in my like as it helped me
to enhance my knowledge and skills. It has made me more efficient in my working by
enhancing my creative skills. It has given me chance to share and discuss my ideas so that I
can be more communicative and innovative with my thoughts. It has helped me in
improving my planning, allocation of resources and accountabilities to an individual by
understanding there capabilities etc. (Cunningham and Bennett, 2017.).
 BENEFITS FOR THE ORGANIZATION: The standards of the services that are being provided
by the organization will improve as it will enhance the work quality and quality of services of
the company (Cunningham, 2017). By adopting self-managed learning approach efficiency
of the work is improved and hence resulting in more profits for the organization. Learning
approaches of the employees and the managers will help the company to enhance the
services those are being provided to the customers. All this will satisfy the customers and
help them in retaining and will impact on the decision making of the targeted customers.
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LO2
2.1, M2 EVALUATE OWN CURRENT SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES AGAINST
PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS AND ORGANIZATIONAL OBJECTIVES
In the current situation I am working as Public relation coordinator and so it is important to
analyze own current skills as well as competencies to that it could be understood that in which
area to I lack the most and what are the strengths that can support me in achieving the aims
and objectives of the organization. By conducting self-evaluation I have evaluated the skills I
have or I lack the standards required in professional life. This could be well understood by
analyzing the results of SWOT analysis conducting for self that helps to understand my strength,
weakness, and opportunities for me and threats to my professional life:
STRENGTH
 Strong communication skills.
 Highly motivating and encouraging.
 Good for effective planning.
 Builds a relationship with people
around.
 Recognizing the resources.
WEAKNESS
 Lack of scheduling the time.
 Slow in the decision-making process.
 I am not aware of other languages.
 Less thoughtful in terms of professional
standards.
OPPORTUNITIES
 Can attain higher authority.
 Enhance my knowledge in the
concerning sector and fields related to
it.
 More improved leadership skills and
confidence level.
 Developed in optimistic thoughts to
reach the new level of success.
THREATS
 High level of competition.
 Alterations that are noticed in the
procedures and policies.
 Advanced technology use in the
working
 Perceptions may differ from person to
person.
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8

2.2IDENTIFY OWN DEVELOPMENT NEEDS AND THE ACTIVITIES REQUIRED TO
MEET THEM
As I am a Public relation coordinator there is the need for me to improve my set of skills those
are understood by the SWOT analysis conducted for myself so that I could meet the required
standards. So to fill up the loopholes seen in accordance to the professional standards of the
company I am using several activities such as utilizing the online resources to enhance my
knowledge keeps on attending group discussion so that I can interact with more people and
gain knowledge from them. I am trying to do such activity that helps me to manage the timing
so that I can properly schedule time for different tasks that are being carried out in the
organization. I more actively take part in competitions, seminars and conferences so that I can
improve my level of confidence and can bring professional attitude in my working.
According to the SWOT analysis, I also need to work on my decision making as well as planning
process which I believe can only be developed when working in practical aspects. I also lack in
having an idea about other language and the understanding of the international way of
working. So in order to eliminate my language barriers, I will join classes that teach different
languages in a given time so that I can interact with different people belonging to different
religion, nation etc. In order to improve my knowledge in the international working style, I will
take help of people who are on a higher authority than me so that they could help me out to
select the activities according to the capability to learn. Apart from all this in order to meet the
development requirements, I will look for videos and listen to the audios of the experts that
give tips on the ways of managing the time and the ways the resources can be allocated in any
situation. All these approaches will support me a lot in developing the needs and the activities
those are needed in order to meet them.
9

2.3 IDENTIFY DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES TO MEET CURRENT AND
FUTURE DEFINED NEEDS
In the context of the professional life, I always find that there is scope for improving the skills
and developing the qualities and competencies so the needs for present and future can be
fulfilled. In order to identify the opportunities, there is need to have a well-developed plan so
that it supports in maintaining the efficiency and standards of the work and the activities those
are being carried out within the organization. The table given below supports in understanding
the opportunities as well as needs and the ways to meet them so that it could help in current
and future perspective:
Opportunities Current standard out
of 5
Future standard out
of 5
An action that must
take for the
improvement
Managing the time 3 4 The scheduling of the
task must be
appropriate and the
polling done in prior
will help in
maintaining the time
in an effective
manner.
Communications skills 3 4.5 I will join classes
where they offer
several activities with
another student that
helps to enhance
communication. Also,
I will attend group
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discussion and
seminars so that I can
interact with more
people and enhance
my communication
both verbal as well as
non-verbal.
Decision making 2 5 By monitoring the
decisions I have taken
in past and learning
from them and
including my
teammates and
higher authority will
help to take proper
decisions so that the
needs for the future
can be met.
Planning 2.5 4 To improve my
planning I will take a
look at the plans
made in past and take
advice from the
higher authority
members who are
well-experienced.
Leadership skills 3 5 I will observe the
employees who are
on the leading post in
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my organization and
the ways they adopt
so that they can
manage a team with
effective will help me
to improve my
leadership’s skills.
Language 2 4 This needs to have a
proper training by the
experts so I will join
coaching institutes
that will help me to
learn new languages
and will communicate
to people belonging
to different culture
and background.
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2.4 DEVISE A PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN BASED ON
IDENTIFIED NEEDS
A personal and professional development plan is a prescribed means by which one can set
there aims and objectives, tactics and results of training as well as learning. I will use the format
of personal and professional development plan so that I can improve my working standards in
both professional and personal life (Zepeda, 2015). Here is my personal and professional
development plan:
COMPETENCIES ACTIONS NEEDED TO
IMPROVE
TIME DURATION EVIDENCE
LEADERSHIP By listening audios
that provides help in
developing leadership
skills, reading books
and associated article
and noticing the
senior authority of
the organization
3 months Providing guidelines
and assisting the
team members under
me.
COMMUNICATION By working more on
my interaction with
colleagues and using
verbal and non-verbal
communication.
4 months Being more
interactive with the
clients as well as
employees of the
organization.
PLANNING Reading articles on
that helps to develop
plans and observing
senior staff on the
way they plan in the
2 months Currently planned an
event for the
organization and
implemented it
practically.
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favour of an
organization
TEAMWORK Actively participating
in the team meetings
and will try to interact
and discuss more with
them.
2 months Joining team
members in office
parties and meetings
so that a bond can be
developed.
TIME MANAGEMENT Time management is
majorly developed by
practically working on
it I will plan for the
activities and provide
them with a certain
deadline and will try
to finish the work in
due time.
1 month Finishing the activities
planned for the time
of given time
duration.
DECISION MAKING Observing the past
actions and gathering
reviews of all the
teammates at the
time of making any
decision.
1 month Decision making in
the nonappearance of
the higher authority.
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LO3
3.1, M3 DISCUSS THE PROCESS AND ACTIVITIES REQUIRED TO IMPLEMENT
THE DEVELOPMENT PLAN
In order to develop my skills I have planned a professional and professional development plan
but in order to implement the development plan, there is need to evaluate the process and
activities. Following are the activities that must be conducted:
MEDIATION: To deal with the varied conditions in the personal and professional life it is
mandatory to with overcome with worrying conditions that create stress. This can be done with
proper meditation as it helps in maintaining the patience level and behave in a sophisticated
manner with the colleagues and provide the positive flow of energy.
MENTORING: To provide more encouragement to the staff members so that they can work
with full efficiency within the workplace and a rising progress graph can be noticed it is
necessary to mentor them so that professional competencies and knowledge can be enhanced
and time management issues can be solved.
TRAINING: In order to execute the plan ineffective manner training is an essential aspect that
helps to perform the tasks in accordance to the plan and give proper direction for bringing the
changes in accordance to latest trends that are being used within the marketplace. Also,
training helps in working hard and maintaining the activities with respect to a level of learning.
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3.2 UNDERTAKE AND DOCUMENT DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES AS PLANNED
In order to effectively execute professional and personal development plan there is need to
assume and that document some development activities according to the plan which is as
follows:
DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES DOCUMENT FOR THE ACTIVITIES PLANNED
IMPROVEMENT IN THE PROFESSIONAL
PERFORMANCE
 Knowledge of the functioning of the
organization.
 Proper timeline and meeting up to the
standards.
 Communicating with the employees.
 Proper planning and resources
allocation.
 Directing the staff and monitoring
their activities.
ORGANIZATIONAL EXPOSURE  Recognizing main employees of the
company.
 Taking up the feedbacks.
 Using the approach of a lifelong
learning process.
INTERPERSONAL COMPETENCIES  Learning different types of languages.
 Interacting as well as communicating
with individuals.
 Understanding the requirements of the
other people.
 Leadership skills and decision making.
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3.3 REFLECT CRITICALLY ON OWN LEARNING AGAINST ORIGINAL AIMS AND
OBJECTIVES SET IN THE DEVELOPMENT PLAN
After using the personal and professional development plan, I have noticed the development of
several diverse skills of mine. I have improved my communicating skills, leadership qualities,
planning approaches etc. But still, I find that are few more skills that are required to be
developed in me so that required aims and objectives can be accomplished. With regards to
original aims and objectives that are planned in the professional and personal development
plan, an analysis will be made in order to make more improvements in my skills. In order to
analyze the efficiency of the plan made by me and the learning, I have gathered feedback from
my instructors as well as guides that supported me in judging the area where I still lack. After
receiving their point of view I felt that I need more improvement in learning different
languages, allocating the resources in an effective manner so that least resources are waste,
leadership needs to be more effective so that I can manage and handle people in a proper way
and attain the desired level in future.
I went through some training events and coaching’s that helped to learn more about the
professional standards and enhance my other associated skills. I also decided to go for
mediation and mentoring in order to increase my competencies and encourage my teammates
and colleagues to work with full effectiveness. But still, at times I feel overloaded by the work
and find difficulties in managing the work that also at the time results in failure of the work. I
am studying more on the ways that can help me to manage the time so that I can deal with the
rest of the issues with immediate effects.
17

3.4 UPDATE THE DEVELOPMENT PLAN BASED ON FEEDBACK AND
EVALUATION
After analyzing the critical evaluation done in the previous section I have decided to make few
alterations in the plan so that I can deal with the issues I am facing in my current working and
can make my plan so effective that it helps to attain the aims and objectives in a more
convincing way. So here is new and update personal and professional development plan based
on the areas I lack:
SKILLS AND
COMPETENCIES
AREA FOR
IMPROVEMENT
ACTIONS REQUIRED
FOR IMPROVEMENTS
TIME FRAME NEEDED
MANAGEMENT OF
TIME
Delaying the delivery
of the work assigned.
Effectively managing
the time by
scheduling it and
gathering the
requirements in prior
and plan it
accordingly.
3 months
LEADERSHIP SKILLS I will motivate the
staff and provide
them assistance
whenever they will
need it so that the
work can be done
with complete
effectiveness.
I will take the help of
people who are on
higher authority and
learn from them their
ways of managing the
team and will notice
there style of
conducting leadership
within the
organization.
2 months
PLANNING Recognizing the Adopting the global 3 months
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things, detailed study
on it and then finally
provision of the
resources in an
effective manner.
approaches those are
used for planning in
the business so that
those plans can result
in profitable outputs.
COMMUNICATION BY
USING DIFFERENT
LANGUAGES
Less knowledge of the
other languages that
act as the barrier in
dealing with people
belonging to different
regions.
Join coaching centres
where different
languages are not just
taught but practical
training is also
provided so that one
can get used to it.
3 months
ENHANCE MY
PROBLEM-SOLVING
ABILITIES
Lack of handling the
problems as it builds
up pressure on me
and hence my
working gets affected.
Taking help of the
seniors so that they
could help me in
dealing with problems
and guiding me with
the ways that help for
solving the problems.
2 months
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LO4
4.1 SELECT SOLUTION TO WORK BASED PROBLEMS
In the work-related terms, there are several problems those have an association to the work
and are known as work-based problems and those problems are needed to be solved in a
proper time frame before things get more complex (Ellström,2014). There is need to adopt
different communication as well as time managing styles that help in developing work cultures
that sound convincing and helps in dealing with the issues with ease.
Few of the work-based problems those come across within the workplace consists of problem-
related to the management of time that results in a delay in the working process. Also, there
are times when the employees are not ready to support those results in an imbalance in the
coordination system which results in misunderstanding among the employees and other people
working in the organization (Savery, 2015). There are several issues in reaching one common
decision that must prove effective for the organization and may resolve the issues related to
work-based problems.
Following are a step that helps in solving the work-based problems by proper following a
procedure that is discussed below:
 Recognizing the issues.
 Attain understandings regarding the interest of each one.
 Mark out the problems identified.
 Analyze the solutions for it.
 Make proper selections among the possible alternative to it.
 Monitor and analyze with regards to efficiency.
20

To solve the work-based issues workers must be encouraged in order to develop the good
understanding and must listen to employees with full concentration so that there are negligible
chances of lack of coordination.
21

4.2 COMMUNICATE IN A VARIETY OF STYLES AND APPROPRIATE MANNER AT
VARIOUS LEVELS
There are several communication styles that can be used by the management of any
organization at different levels of working so that there is no issue related to communication on
any level of working. Those communication styles are such as the superior authorities must
communicate with the board of directors in the formal sessions such as conducting meetings,
conferences which are a one on one interaction and depicts the professionalism of a company
and the communication is carried out in an effective way.
The employees on the middle level as well as the managers must be communicated with the
help of seminars, conferences within the organization. It is an effective way to communicate.
Also in this level of the organization written format and verbal communication can be adopted
by the managers or other supreme authority (Pacleb and Bocarnea, 2016.). These include
notices, emails etc. that helps in carrying out communication properly. The manager on the
lower level as well as the other staff members could be communicated by sending them to
notice, calling for big meetings or discussions etc.
These are the possible and best-suited ways to communicate within a company at several levels
and the company must use written format in order to communicate at all the different levels as
it is the most suited method to broadcast any information or details to all the people involved
in the organization (Cooper, 2015).
22

4.3 EVALUATE AND USE EFFECTIVE TIME MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES
Time management plays an important role when it comes to the success of an organization that
supports in attaining the required for the company and maintains competitiveness within the
marketplace (Certo, 2018). Here is the list of few time management strategies that are as
following:
 MAINTAINING DAIRY: Diary maintenance helps in allocating the time frame for any specific
activity and supports the inefficient functioning of the work. This helps to align the work in
accordance with its priority and provide proper records for the completion of the work.
 DIVISION OF WORK: By segmenting the work in between several people keeping in concern
their expertise area it will supporting completing the work with an effective manner and will
support in maintaining the time and will support in improving the results for the longer run
in the business (Hamid, et al. 2015).
 PRIORITIZING THE WORK: the tasks must be divided in accordance to the significance and
essentiality of the work and thus according to the importance of the work, the time must be
allotted so that one will easily understand and set their criteria of working according to it.
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CONCLUSION
This report concludes about the factors those are needed in order to develop personal and
professional development plan. This assignment critically evaluates the techniques that can be
adapted to self-managed learning along with the methods that support in lifelong learning in
both professional and personal terms and its benefits. Furthermore, this discusses the current
competencies of one against professional standards and area of development in order to meet
them and the activities involved in it. Also, this assignment has personal and professional
development plans that show the development opportunities and helps in identifying own
needs.
24

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