Investing in yourself - A personal development plan

At The Property Mentors, we talk a lot about having a plan.

We talk about envisioning your ideal financial future and creating a plan to get there.

But what about your ideal self?

Who will you have to be to accomplish your goals?

What will you have to learn, experience and overcome?

As professional investors we know that in addition to financial goals, it is vital we have personal development goals as well.

It is easier to accomplish your personal development goal when you have a plan laid out. Regardless of what your personal development targets are (e.g. improving your sense of well-being, building better relationships, improving communication skills or any other area), a practicable personal development plan will help you accomplish your goal.

Here’s one way to tackle your personal development plan;

Get your pen and paper!

Every great achievement was first laid out on paper. So, get a pen and paper specially devoted to your personal development plan. It could be a whole book (blank pages), or notepad devoted especially for your plan. Your first entry in the book should be your name, boldly written, with the tag “My Personal Development Plan” with your name right underneath. Putting down your name on the plan-book has a mystical way of creating a sense of responsibility.

For easy understanding and working on your personal development plan, it may be necessary to tabulate the plan. The main category of the tabulated plan should be “Personal Development Goals”.

Under your development goals, we suggest the following entries;

• Benefits
• Skills, knowledge and abilities to be developed
• Required resources/needed support
• Developmental activities
• Potential obstacles
• Targeted date of accomplishment
• Success measurement

You can choose to hand-draw your tabulated self-development plan or create one with any of the software programs. However, the advantage of hand-drawing your personal development plan is the ease of reaching the plan and glancing at it over and again each day. You can also choose to include more relevant categories or keep modifying your plan as you feel necessary.

Fill out the applicable contents of each category. Under the ‘Benefits’ category, you need to list out what you will benefit by embarking on your targeted personal development – e.g. earning a higher salary, feeling more fulfilled each day, feeling more energetic and so on.

Under skills, knowledge and abilities to be developed, you need to specifically outline the area of self-development you wish to embark on – e.g. earning a nursing degree, learning to manage your time productively, building self-confidence and so on.

The development activities category will outline those things you will do in order to actualize your goal. What positive habits will you practice instilling? What daily activities will you commit to? Try and be as specific as possible in outlining the activities that would be needful for the actualization of your personal development goal. If you are not sure of what to write, research and find out.

What resources are needful and how will you get them? For instance, you may need to get relevant books, subscribe to podcasts or get a career coach or attend a seminar. You may also need to combine two or more sources.

A realistic personal development plan will include potential hurdles or obstacles along the way of accomplishing the set personal development goals. Also, setting a deadline is necessary to get serious and focused on your plan. It also helps to eliminate procrastination.

Finally, the final outcome (success) must be measurable.

This is pretty basic stuff and you may have heard it before, but are you doing something day-by-day to improve yourself physically, intellectually or emotionally?

In these “unprecedented” times a personal development plan may be just what you need.

At The Property Mentors, our focus is on helping our members through this but of course being accountable to someone is one of the keys to success.

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