Personal Development Plan

The content discusses the significance of a personal development plan in shaping one's career. It emphasizes the need for goal setting, self-assessment of strengths and weaknesses, and the importance of planning for future success. The author shares personal insights on how a structured approach to personal development can lead to a fulfilling career, particularly in academia. The narrative highlights the necessity of regular updates to the development plan and the role of support systems in achieving career objectives.

Running head: PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Personal Development Plan
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Personal development plan is the platform that helps an individual to plan for their future
as well as develop him or herself (Beausaert et al., 2013). This process helps me to define things
that are important to me and helps me to recognize and acknowledge those skills and strength
that are required to achieve the aims of my life. Career is that part of our life that cannot be
prepared or achieved in one day or overnight. It requires planning and the personal development
plan helps me to determine the goals of my life and plan accordingly to have an organised and
settled career. The common yet important thing that consists of a personal development plan are
defining the goals, prioritizing goals, setting a time span during which I have to work hard and
prove that I am capable of doing things that I want to do. The personal development plan also
includes understanding my strengths, acknowledging the opportunities and having idea of my
weaknesses. The personal development plan helps me to develop my inner skills and work
accordingly. Identifying the plan or person who can help me achieve my goals is also very
important. My personal development plan encourages me to note down the things that I am able
to do better and understand for my future. When we do not have a plan for your future goals,
what you get is a broken, unorganised and lazy life that has nowhere to go, nothing to achieve
(Megginson and Whitaker, 2017). Imagining a life like that is hard for me and that is why I have
decided to have a personal development plan so that I can live a life that is worth living and fulfil
my career dreams. Earlier I did not have a personal development plan but once I learned its
importance, I understood that it is very necessary to have a personal development plan.
Life is often like travelling. If you fail to plan your tour properly, you will end up in
disappointment and likewise in life if you fail to plan your future days you will end up in
dissatisfaction (Tolentino et al., 2014). Travelling is easy when you have a plan about where to
stay, where to visit and where to eat. Similarly, in your life when you have a personal

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development plan you will be able to decide what you want to achieve in life. Every person
needs to have a career objective for his or her future and the personal development plan is the
first step towards that objective (Erford, 2014). Having a personal development plan helped me
to plan my future. Hence, it can be said that with developing my future I will gain an opportunity
to control my life and take decisions that are better for my future.
Proper preparations will lead you towards right path and decrease the amount of risk in
your life (Brown, 2015). The first step towards my career objective using my personal
development plan is defining the goals. With the help of this concept, I am able to define the
things that are important to my life and me. I am able to define my career goals or bring a new
change in my life using personal development plan. I have noted many things that I want to do
like living a few days life by following a different culture, learning diving and the list goes on.
My career objective is to be a professor. My personal development plan has helped me to
determine and plan for my future. Being a professor is a tough goal to achieve but at the same
time, it is an interesting profession (Sharf, 2016). My personal development plan helped me
determine the fact that I am ready to accomplish my future goals and I have already started to
work for it. Though I had many goals, the one I chose out of them is because I prioritized them.
Personal development plan has provided me the ability to expand my skills that is required if I
want to become a professor.
Under my personal development plan, I have learnt that I will need to fix a span of time
within which I will be able to determine my goals. Setting a time will help me to be focused and
keep me reminded that I have a goal to achieve. Yes, it is true that I will not be able to become a
professor within a few days but having a deadline will help me enhance my skills and work
according towards achieving my goals. Personal development plan has helped me identify my

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strengths that I can utilize for future. I have not only identified my strengths by myself but I have
asked my friends and family so that I can understand what their thoughts about my strengths are.
I have found out that my strengths include an organised, confident and patient behaviour.
My strengths make me unique and I have known that my strengths can lead me towards
the sophisticated job of a professor that I wish to become. I have changed few of my present
habits so that they do not create any problem in my future life. I have abandoned those habits
because I have noticed that those habits can be threats for my future. My personal development
plan has largely influenced me and that is why I have started to practise things, which will help
me to be a good professor in future. For example, I have chosen to teach lower class students so
that I can adapt to the nature of a professor. This process will help me to enhance my teaching
skills for future. My personal development plan has enriched in me the thought about what I
want to be in my life and what I am at present. My personal development plan encourages me to
have record f the things that I am able to do better and will be able to do in my future. When we
do not have a plan for your future goals, what you get is a broken, unorganised and lazy life that
has nowhere to go, nothing to achieve. There is a quote that to get something we must give
something (Blustein, 2017). This is the reason I have decided to learn new things in my life. As I
want to be a professor, I have to learn to be more patient and I will have to focus on my learning
ability. It is obvious that if I want to achieve something, which I do not have, then I will have to
do or practise something that I have not done before. I will also have to sacrifice few things
today to get a better tomorrow; among the things, effort is an important one. Sacrificing my
effort from now will help me get a better tomorrow.
For indulging more interest in my personal development plan I need people who will
support me; I need guidance of someone so that even if I choose a wrong step, they will guide

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me towards the right path. I have learned from my personal development plan that I will need to
focus on my progress on a regular basis so that I can focus where I am lacking behind and rectify
my mistakes. Exercises like having a personal development plan has helped me to ascertain what
I want in my life and decide which strategies I can use to achieve those goals. Everyone has a
daily routine and that is why we often do not accustom ourselves with the habit of planning.
Planning our own development will provide us with a proper career.
In a student’s life, personal development plan is very important, because not only it will
provide them career objective but also it will provide them with opportunities that they can
utilize for their future. Career is an important part of our life and this cannot be prepared or
achieved in one day or overnight (Cottrell, 2015). It requires planning and the personal
development plan helps me to determine the goals of my life and plan accordingly to have an
organised and settled career. The common yet important thing that consists of a career
development plan are defining the goals of life and prioritizing goals then setting a time span
during which I have to work hard to prove that I am capable of doing something that I want to
do. The personal development plan also includes understanding my strengths, acknowledging the
opportunities and having idea of my weaknesses. The personal development plan helps me to
develop my inner skills and work accordingly. Identifying the plan or person who can help me
achieve my goals is also very important.
At the time, when I go through my career development plan at present I observe that I am
updating my career plan on a regular basis due to which now I have a career choice. Earlier my
career objective did not have any serious concern, that time my concern was just a job and
nothing else. However, at present my career objective have developed and as I am always
practising and developing my skills I am gaining the knowledge and this is helping me a lot.

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PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
After developing my career development plan, I have come through my own development
choices and this plan helps me like a road map that I can use to cover the journey of my life.
It is very important to have a personal development plan; you will get the input and
assurance from your insight that you will be able to develop a better future. Personal
development plan initiates a confidence in us with the help of which we will be able to determine
our goals better (Arends, 2014). Personal development plan is a plan that every student must
have. The plan will help them to proceed in their future life with a desired goal. Career planning
will help the students to grow up with having a realistic plan (Kolb 2014). For our personal
growth and development, it is very necessary to have a personal development plan because when
people do not have goals in their life they find their life difficult to live. Hence, having a personal
development plan, having a career choice and having a goal in life is always necessary in
everyone’s life (Li and Lam, 2013). Taking the right decision at the right time is very important
and this is because taking one wrong decision affects our life very badly. Therefore, it can be
said that for taking the right decisions in life there is a need of having and implementing a
personal development plan (Huda et al., 2017).

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References:
Arends, R., 2014. Learning to teach. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Beausaert, S., Segers, M., Fouarge, D. and Gijselaers, W., 2013. Effect of using a personal
development plan on learning and development. Journal of Workplace Learning, 25(3),
pp.145-158.
Blustein, D.L., 2017. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF WORKING: A New Perspective for Career
Development. Career Planning & Adult Development Journal, 33(2).
Brown, D., 2015. Career information, career counseling and career development. Pearson.
Cottrell, S., 2015. Skills for success: Personal development and employability. Palgrave
Macmillan.
Erford, B.T., 2014. Transforming the school counseling profession. Pearson Higher Ed.
Huda, M., Jasmi, K.A., Alas, Y., Qodriah, S.L., Dacholfany, M.I. and Jamsari, E.A., 2017.
Empowering Civic Responsibility: Insights From Service Learning. Engaged Scholarship
and Civic Responsibility in Higher Education, p.144.
Kolb, D.A., 2014. Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development.
FT press.
Li, M.P. and Lam, B.H., 2013. Cooperative learning. The Active Classroom, The Hong Kong
Institude of Education.

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Megginson, D. and Whitaker, V., 2017. Continuing professional development. Kogan Page
Publishers.
Scanlon, J., Snow, M.A., Zwier, L.J. and Zimmerman, C.B., 2015. Q: Skills for success.
Listening and speaking. Oxford University Press.
Sharf, R.S., 2016. Applying career development theory to counseling. Nelson Education.
Tolentino, L.R., Garcia, P.R.J.M., Lu, V.N., Restubog, S.L.D., Bordia, P. and Plewa, C., 2014.
Career adaptation: The relation of adaptability to goal orientation, proactive personality,
and career optimism. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 84(1), pp.39-48.