Academic Skills and PDP: Goals, Planning, and Development

This report provides a comprehensive overview of personal and professional development. It begins with an introduction to the concept of personal development, emphasizing its importance in an individual's life and the role of a personal development plan (PDP). The main body of the report delves into the values of short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals, providing examples for each. It also explores the concept of professional development and its stages. Additionally, the report includes an analysis of how to evaluate the credibility and relevance of sources. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and providing a list of references.

Academic Skills and PDP

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
1. Concept of Personal and Professional Development...............................................................3
2. Short-term goals and its values................................................................................................4
3. Medium-term goals and its values...........................................................................................5
4. Long - term goals and its values..............................................................................................6
5. Personal Development Plan.....................................................................................................6
6. Author, Purpose, Reliability and Relevance affecting the use of a source..............................7
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
The way a person thinks of the events occurred in life significantly influences how the
person react to those events. Changing the perspective provides new paths to acknowledge the
events. In a person’s life activating events, his/her beliefs and thoughts and emotional behaviour
are the key things that changed one’s reflection (Neenan and Dryden, 2020). Personal
development is important aspect of an individual’s life. This continuous process helps the
individual to thrive and gain prosperity in his/her life. For the purpose an individual have to
prepare a personal development plan that helps to organise, collect relevant resources and
prepare strategies to achieve goals. This report outlined personal development planning and its
roles. The aims and objectives for professional development and the value of short-term,
medium-term, long-term goals in the person’s life. Further an evaluation of authors of the
literatures and its effects on the usage of the source with its purpose, reliability, relevance along
with their references are presented in this report.
MAIN BODY
1. Concept of Personal and Professional Development
Development is not an event but an ever going on activity. It occurs in all the functions that
are performed by the people. An individual have his/her family, peers, and friends’ exposure to
different learnings. It gives the individual the opportunity to gain valuable understanding of
various aspects of human life and helps the individual to develop and foster principles.
Development is an overall improvement process. It gives an individual a chance to enhance
his/her skills, abilities, attitude, moral values and wisdom. With the increase of population
around the world; competition also increases and to survive in this environment is difficult. An
individual need every sort of chance to develop his/her personal attitude and profession career
(Pawlowski and Nalbantis, 2019). For this purpose an individual have to perform research and
introspection in his/her respective field. An individual through development can overcome their
weakness and increase their strength. It brings prosperity in an individual’s life and career.
Personal Development
Personal development is a continuous process of improving self. Accessing the aims and
goals in one’s life. Development of abilities, skills, quality of life and achieving goals. Personal
development process is ever going and life-long activity that never ends. Personal development

is a fundamental issue of an individual’s development and socialisation. The process started from
the initial stage of the life at childhood. The individual not only develop self-awareness but also
moral and ethical values like honesty, truth and respect for others (Tattum and Tattum, 2017).
From childhood human have the ability to think and adapt to the changing environment. The
learning started from the day the human gains the intelligence. The role of parents and the
society is crucial in imparting the correct education. The knowledge an individual gains becomes
the base for the recognition of things, ideas and beliefs he/she encounters in the future.
Accordingly an individual choose to embed those values and develop himself/herself.
Professional Development
Professional development is defined as the process of learning and development of an
individual’s professional life and career growth. At the time of beginning of start of a
professional life of an individual, he or she have the knowledge they acquired before entering
into in any professional career. The rest of the knowledge and skills an individual gains and
develop in the duration of his/her professional life. The professional development has five stages
viz. creating knowledge base, observation of the models and examples, reflecting on self-
assessments, altering your practices, obtaining and sharing expertise (Bates and et.al, 2018).
Through inculcating the learning from the failures and success an individual mould itself and
improve its professional career.
Our community is creating a social hope for the creative future that have new opportunities
for the people. The standard of education is rising and the expectation of societies is also rising.
The societies look upon the academies and schools to provide quality education and enhance
learning and development of the students. Failure is also an important aspect, it drive people to
explore for new solutions for the existing problems. Learning from the failures is a part of life, as
failures brings more opportunities to look at things. Changing perspective to see things
differently provide an individual the scope of personal development.
2. Short-term goals and its values
Short-term goals are the goals that are only for a short period of time and are
accomplished in short duration. These goals are based on the aims and objectives that are needed
to be achieved in near future. Short-term goals are defines the path that an individual needs to
achieve in his lifetime. The task that accomplished within short time provide a sense of

achievement in the mind and persuade to achieve other goals (Haller, R.L., 2017). Examples of
short-term goals are mentioned below:
Reading - it is the process of increase in the understanding of the words. It helps in gaining the
knowledge and increasing the fluency. Reading improve the memory and concentration. It
provide support for one’s personal development. For my goal I have taken the initiative to read at
least a book in a week. It will help to increase my knowledge and skills.
Wake-up early - it is said that early risers are more energetic and creative. Waking up early
improve the organising ability and reduce stress. My goal is to wake-up early in the morning
every day. It will help me prepare a plan for my day’s work.
Improve communication skills - learning how to communicate with other is crucial. It helps to
build up a network that will increase the reach of a person and grasp of new opportunities.
Communication is a great tool as it provides the scope of learning from other people by exchange
of ideas, thoughts and other information. Improving communication skill is a part of personal
development. I have decided to communicate to 5 people in a day; it will improve my ability to
communicate and I got chance to learn and know new things.
3. Medium-term goals and its values
Medium-term goals are a bit longer than a short-term goal. It provides a bridge between
the short and long term goals. It is define as those goals which are to be achieved in between a
year to 5 years (Haller, R.L., 2017). This goal helps in reducing the gap to pursue for the long-
term goals. Examples of medium-term goals are mentioned below:
Career - Choosing a career is one of the major goal in a person’s life. Finding relevant and
suitable career helps to achieve monetary benefits and satisfaction. My goal is to search for a
career in my preferred field of work.
Save Money - It is a critical task. An individual has to make a proper budget and cut-off
unnecessary expenses so that money can be utilise properly and saved. My goal is to save
£10,000 in next five years.
Trip - It means a journey to some new place. It is utmost dream of a person’s life. It provide a
sense of achievement and a satisfaction in mind. It is describe to be a leisure activity. My goal is
to visit Paris with my family in next five years.

4. Long - term goals and its values
Long-term goals are defined as those goals which a person want to accomplish in his life at
far future. It is a long process and need short and medium term goals to be achieved first. To
achieve these goals planning and a great deal of time is required. These goals are for more than
five years, ten years or take entire life. Long-term goals is said to be lifelong goals. It provides
passion and a sense of direction in life. Examples of long-term goals are mentioned below:
Write a book - to write a book require a great amount of dedication and literature knowledge. A
book depict an author’s ideas, thoughts, beliefs and sometimes real life experiences. To write a
book an individual has to decide what the book is about and possess good writing skills. It gives
a good experience and motivation. It highlights a person’s creativity and inculcate an ability of
logical and creative thinking. My goal is to write a book and get famous.
Retirement planning - for this purpose a person has to decide at what age he/she wants to plan
retirement. Estimation of the income is made through analysis about how much income and
saving a person needed at the time of his/her retirement. My goal is to save enough money for
the future so when at the time of retirement I do not have to seek financial support.
Healthy life - To get a good health a person needed positive attitude, good nutrition and free
from chronic diseases. To maintain the physical fitness a person has to make a plan on what steps
he/she may take to increase their healthy lifestyle. My long-term goal is to be healthy and keep
myself healthy lifelong.
5. Personal Development Plan
Personal Development Plan is a process to create a planned structure which Provide a
direction for learning, growth, improvement and development. Planning is the most important
step before an individual set its objectives or perform any sort of activity. The personal
development plan is a periodic process that requires setting of goals, preparation of action plan,
register the outcome, analysis of the outcome, identifying the areas of improvement and
preparing further plan. It include short-term goals, medium-term goals and long-term goals along
with strategies that are used to achieve the aims with the use of all necessary resources which are
required in the process of personal development (Shaheen and Hameed, 2020). Planning for
personal development provides the path of the professional development. Individuals often did
not know what their vision and objectives for the career. In order to choose for a good career
reside in the hands of the individual. An individual has to be proactive and have to take charge of

the career finding. Continuous learning and evaluation of the self during the professional career
is also part of the personal development. The awareness along with the abilities of an individual
enhances as a result of personal development process. Creating Personal development plan
involves several steps that are as follows:
1. Goal setting: it is a process of searching for the goals and categorised these goals in the
short, medium and long-term (Ferris and Samuel, 2020). Working out what an individual
want in his/her life is the initial part of planning process.
2. Prioritise goals: another step of the process is to set aside near and important goals.
Arranging all goals according to the priority helps an individual to achieve large long-
term goals.
3. Setting of deadlines: to find out when an individual will going to achieve the goals is
crucial. Setting a deadlines helps in the proper organisation of the resources and brings
motivation in an individual’s life when these goals are achieved in allocated timeline
(Haller, R.L., 2017).
4. SWOT analysis: evaluation of self gives a direction to an individual to achieve their
goals. A SWOT is an analysis tool that helps to find out the strength, weakness,
opportunities and threats arises. An individual through analysis of these aspects create a
through plan and develop strategies accordingly to achieve his/her goals.
5. Development of skills and boost knowledge: After performing introspection it is
important to upgrade skills and knowledge to match up and increase the chance for the
realisation of the goals.
6. Appraisal of progress: at the end the achievement is whether big or small an individual
must inspect what are the process an individual goes through and hindrances occur in the
achievement of the goal. Accordingly an alternate plan is made to tackle the hindrances.
6. Author, Purpose, Reliability and Relevance affecting the use of a source
The role of the education in bringing the adversity and diverse disciple is phenomenal. Attempts
are made to analyse various and complex literature to bring liberal education around the world.
The use of literature study in universities and academic institutions helps in the development of
informational, interpersonal and values in learning systems (Pawlowski and Nalbantis, 2019). In
recent rapidly changing world, education is the only resource to expand an individual’s
perspective.

Author - The author are the source of information and have provide literature in various culture
and of diverse environments. An author is defined as the originator of the literature. The
knowledge they provide is based on extensive research and their experiences. The authors
produce vast literature resource on new and unique field or on existing literature with a new
perspective. So author is the important part of the source of study as his/her experience and
knowledge ensure that the literature is made by an experience person (Saleem and Ilyas, 2019).
Purpose - is the aim or reason to perform something. In the literature study purpose is the main
objective to perform a study. The literature presented by the authors must be legitimate and relate
to the purpose of the study. The general purpose of the literature is to define something new in
the field of study (Dotson and Valenzuela, 2020). Finding and applying the creative perspective
to solve the problem. Purpose defines the objective for which the literature is created.
Reliability - This aspect in literature defines that how much accurate and legitimate the literature
is. As most of the information is gather from the primary source the reliability of the information
is an important aspect. Sometimes the information did not resolve the purpose of creation of the
literature which leads to waste of time and resources.
Relevance – The relevance is the factor that is considered for the literature is connected to the
other studies. It defines that the literature taken are from relevant source and are not indifferent
from the topic. This is a very important aspect as the literature relies on the relevance of the topic
that is taken.
Author Purpose Reliability Reference Relevance
Bates and et.al The purpose of
this study is to
provide an in-
depth analysis of
the aspects of
personal and
professional
development
process.
The source of this
literature is 100%
true and reliable.
Bates and et.al,
2018. Seven
elements of
effective
professional
development. The
Reading
Teacher, 71(5),
pp.623-626.
The information
is relevant to the
topic mentioned
above.

Dotson, A. and
Valenzuela, L.
The purpose of
this study defines
relationship of
personal
development and
professional
development.
The source of this
literature is 100%
reliable.
Dotson, A. and
Valenzuela, L.,
2020.
Personal/Professi
onal Development
Plan.
The information
is relevant to the
topic mentioned
above.
Haller, R.L. The purpose of
this study is to
define the
importance of
goals i.e. short-
term, medium-
term and long-
term goals.
The source of this
literature is 100%
reliable.
Haller, R.L.,
2017. Goals and
treatment
planning. Horticu
ltural Therapy
Methods:
Connecting
People and
Plants in Health
Care, Human
Services, and
Therapeutic
Programs, pp.2-
27.
The information
is relevant to the
topic mentioned
above.
Neenan, M. and
Dryden, W.
The purpose of
the study is to
provide guidance
for the personal
development of
an individual.
The source of this
literature is 100%
reliable.
Neenan, M. and
Dryden, W.,
2020. Cognitive
Behavioural
Coaching: A
Guide to Problem
Solving and
Personal
Development.
The information
is relevant to the
topic mentioned
above.

Routledge.
Rimmer, A. The purpose of
the study is to
provide insight of
preparing a
personal
development
plan.
The source of this
literature is 100%
reliable.
Rimmer, A.,
2018. How do I
prepare a personal
development
plan?.Bmj.363.
p.k4725.
The information
is relevant to the
topic mentioned
above.
Saleem, A. and
Ilyas, M.
The purpose of
the study is to
analyse the
literature studies
and the teaching
provided by the
authors of the
literature.
The source of this
literature is 100%
reliable.
Saleem, A. and
Ilyas, M., 2019.
Goals of teaching
literature:
Literacy,
liberalism and
global
citizenship. Inter
national Journal
of English
Language and
Literature
Studies, 8(2),
pp.78-86.
The information
is relevant to the
topic mentioned
above.

Shaheen, S. and
Hameed, M.
The purpose of
the study is to
provide help in
developing a
Personal
Development
Plan.
The source of this
literature is 100%
reliable.
Shaheen, S. and
Hameed, M.,
2020. Personal
Development
Plan
(PDP). World
Family Medicine.
The information
is relevant to the
topic mentioned
above.
Stewart, J. The purpose of
the study role of
Personal
Development
Plan (PDP) in
Human resource
Management and
how it help in
organise the
resources.
The source of this
literature is 100%
reliable.
Stewart, J., 2016.
Personal
development
plan. In
Encyclopedia of
Human Resource
Management.
Edward Elgar
Publishing
Limited.
The information
is relevant to the
topic mentioned
above.
Tattum, D. and
Tattum, E.
The purpose of
the study is to
provide important
insight about the
role of society
and the education
imparted by it
and how the
education helps
in personal
The source of this
literature is 100%
reliable.
Tattum, D. and
Tattum, E.,
2017. Social
education and
personal
development.
Routledge.
The information
is relevant to the
topic mentioned
above.

development.
CONCLUSION
The report conclude that the life is continuous learning cycle. Individuals gain abundance of
knowledge from his surrounding, societies, friends, peers and from his past experiences. These
learning helps in creating awareness and increase understanding of the existing and unknown
areas. The knowledge thus create a perfect environment of execute personal development
process. The personal development starts from the preparation of the personal development
plans. The plan include identifying of the short-term, medium-term, long-term goals, prioritising
the important goals, introspection, preparation of strategies and execution of strategies (Bates
and et.al, 2018). Personal development helps in the development of professional career as well.
The continuous learning of new skills and abilities help an individual to grow and grasp the
opportunities arises in professional career. The ability to learn and adapt values inculcate from
the beginning by parents and societies. Also individual finds the freedom and learnings from the
universities and academic institutions. The students not only enhance their knowledge but also
learn to develop new skills. At the end self-evaluation is important to find out the drawback an
individual have and continue to improve itself.