DOMINICAN COLLEGE OF SANTA ROSA

SAN LORENZO SOUTH, BALIBAGO

CITY OF SANTA ROSA LAGUNA
ONLINE CLASS NSTP 2

Module # 2

How to Make A Personal Development Plan

“You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight”

By Jim Rohn

ULTIMATE GUIDE:

For successful personal development, you need exactly two conditions:

 You want to change something about your life

 You’re not happy with the results you got so far

And that’s it.

Specifically, you do NOT need to know exactly what you want. You’d be surprised by how
many clients come to me for life coaching when they don’t know what they want from life – they
just know that whatever they have at the moment is not it.

(Though if you keep reading on below, you will learn a way to find out what you really want.)

As long as you satisfy the two conditions above, making a personal development plan is for you!

Why make a personal development plan?

Making a personal development plan comes down to two main things. Helping you figure out:

 What do you want from life?

 How will you go about achieving it?
You could certainly achieve personal development without a plan. A lot of people have.

But a plan vastly increases your chances to move towards a life that you find fulfilling and
satisfying every day. Having a plan gives you:

 A much better understanding of what you really want from life (hint: money is almost never the
answer)
 A list of specific actions you can take to advance towards your goals in life, so you never feel
stuck again
 A clear understanding of obstacles that trip up a lot of people, and how to avoid them
 Durable growth and improvement

Sounds good? Then read on!

How to Make a Personal Development Plan

Below, I share the personal development planning method I use with my life coaching clients.
It’s based on something called The GROW Model and might seem fairly straightforward, but it’s
insanely powerful.

There’s a lot of clear structure underneath the surface, and if you follow the plan step-by-step as
outlined, you will blast through any obstacles in your way. You will find a clear vision of what
you want from life, as well as a specific action plan on how to get there. Say “goodbye”,
procrastination! Say “hello”, fulfilling life full of growth and opportunities!

Speaking of action – I give you several exercises in the following guide.

Now, you could certainly just read through it and learn a few things. But if you actually grab a
pen and paper (or open up your favourite word processor) and go through the exercises as you
read, you will benefit far more than if you just passively read this article.

After all, you came here to change your life, and change requires taking action.

Or, in other words, you wouldn’t read the ultimate guide to baking a mean cake and then sit
around and hope for it to appear, would you? You would go ahead and follow the instructions
and make it appear!

One quick note – this is a long article. Over 4,000 words. So if you don’t have the time or energy
to read through all of it right now, bookmark it for later. That way, you can read it when you’re
able to give it your full attention.

You say you’re ready? Alright! Let’s do this!

(Go ahead, grab a pen and paper before you continue. I will still be here when you get back.)
Step 1 – What do you want?

This first step of making a personal development plan will help you figure out which parts of
your life you’re happy with, and which could use some change. Then you can pick an area to
work on where there’s room for improvement and growth.

Yep, it’s writing-stuff-down time!

1.1 Make a list of the main areas of your life

First, I’d like you to make a list of the main areas of your life which you have been focusing your
time and energy on lately. This might include:

 career
 relationships
 fun/social

And anything else you can think of. I won’t give you too many examples, because I want you to
think about this for yourself. For example, one of your main areas might end up “guitar playing”,
if it’s really that important to you that it deserves its own category.

Note that if there’s an area of your life you haven’t been focusing on but would really like to,
that belongs on the list as well.

Once you have this list, I’d like you to narrow it down to 4-8 of the main areas. You don’t want
to overwhelm yourself with options before we even begin.

Go ahead, write them down.

1.2 Rate each of those areas from 1-10 based on how satisfied you are with it

Next, I’d like you to give it some thought, and rate each of those areas on a scale from 1 to 10,
ten being the highest, based on how satisfied you are with your current situation.

Note, it’s not how good you are, or how successful, but how satisfied you are with the current
situation. For example, if you have almost no social life because you spend all your days
working, but you’re okay with that for the next couple of months because it’s a very important
stage of your business, then you might give yourself a 10 on your social life.

Take a few moments to do this now.

…
Chances are, some of your areas did better than others. If you scored a 9 or a 10, you’re doing
fine. An 8 is iffy, and anything from 7 below can definitely be improved.

I’d like you to take a good long look at the areas you’re not very satisfied with, and pick which
one you would like to begin improving first.

Because that’s what you’ll be working with throughout the rest of this article.

Once you have gone through this guide, you can make a full-fledged personal development plan
by applying the exercises to the other areas of your life. But for now, we will focus on one main
area, because it’s better if you truly grasp the concepts well with a clear example in mind, instead
of mucking things up by focusing on too much at once.

1.3 Figuring out your ideal situation

Have you got an area of your life in mind yet? Because we’ll be working with that now.

Just start daydreaming, and imagine what the ideal situation would be, in the long-term (many
years from now).

To give you some clear examples instead of vague generalities, I will show you what I got when
I was making my own personal development plan a while ago. Specifically, I’ll talk about the
area of my life to do with friendships.

At the time, I was studying at university. And my ideal situation with friendships would have
been having half a dozen to a dozen closer friends (as well as the usual acquaintances). People
who I could call up to hang out in the park when the weather was nice, or to go rock-climbing, or
cook up some mean Indian food together with. And meeting up with someone often, nearly every
day of the week, to do various fun stuff, or just nothing at all.Go ahead, daydream about how
your chosen part of your life would ideally look, if you could do anything you wanted……Feels
exciting?

Now let’s pull a bit closer to the present. Pick a medium-term future. Say, somewhere between 3
months and 1 year from now.

Imagine how you would like your ideal situation to be then. In my example, this doesn’t really
change anything. But if you’re focusing on the business side of your life, for example, it’s a good
idea to pull closer to the present with a 1-year dream, and even 3-month dream. This helps you
move from vague daydreaming (as pleasant as it is) towards making those dreams a reality.

Go ahead, think about your specific middle-term goal.…

Once you have it, start imagining it in great detail. How you would feel when you wake up in
the morning. What you would do during the day. The people you would meet. The things you
would say to yourself.

Do NOT neglect this step. It might sound small and simple, but it’s incredibly powerful. Firstly,
it gets you excited and motivated, bye the Pain And Pleasure Principle. Secondly, it sets up
cognitive dissonance in your mind. That’s where your brain holds two conflicting thoughts, gets
uncomfortable, and tries to resolve the conflict by changing one of the thoughts.

In the case of imagining your ideal situation, your brain will start looking for opportunities to
start moving towards it. And trust me, those opportunities are all around you. You just haven’t
been noticing them until now.

To clarify, imagine you’re at a cocktail party, engrossed in an interesting conversation. Now

imagine, that in one conversation out of many, 3 metres (10 feet) away, somebody mentions your
name. What do you think are the chances that you will notice?

Very, very good! There’s a region in your brain called the amygdala which is responsible for
filtering all the hundreds of sensory inputs you get every second, and choosing which select few
to let through to your conscious mind, because they might be important to you. So despite the
general noise and several other conversations you and the one where your name was mentioned,
you will notice.

Similarly, once you start visualising your ideal situation, your amygdala will catch on that this is
important to you and start filtering for opportunities that might move your closer to your goal.

So take your time to imagine it, in full detail. This little time investment of 5 minutes is
extremely worth it.

1.4 Get very specific about what you want

One big difference between a dream and a goal is being specific about what you want.

A dream is a vague fuzzy thing you like to think about to make yourself happy. A goal is a
specific prospect, and by gosh, you’re going to make it happen!

One word of warning – for now, don’t worry about how you will achieve your goal. That will
come in steps 3 – Generating options, and 4 – Goalsetting. For now, we simply figure out what it
is you want! (There’s a reason this solid structure works. Trust me.)

For now, just eliminate any vagueness and make it specific. Exactly when is your “middle-term”
goal? How will you know when you have achieved it? Also eliminate any vague words.

In my case of friendships, I decided to set my middle-term goal 6 months away. I wanted to have
at least 6 close friends, with whom I would hang out weekly, and I wanted to do fun stuff five
days of the week. Whether it’s going out swing dancing or tossing a frisbee in a park, or anything
else.

Recap your goal, and make sure to get rid of any vagueness. You can even talk to a friend about
it, and let them help you, if you want. (It always helps to get an outsider’s perspective.)

Go ahead. Think about it. Then write it down.…

Okay, by now you should have:

 a list of 4-8 main areas of your life

 a number next to each of those areas signifying how satisfied you are with the current situation
 a clear vision for one of your chosen areas, with a clear deadline and specific things that will let
you know when you’ve achieved it

If you missed out any of those steps, go back now and do the exercises before reading on. This
guide will still be here when you get back.

IMPORTANT NOTE :

PLEASE FOLLOW THE DIRECTION ONE AT A TIME . SAME THING

YOU HAVE ONLY THREE (3) DAYS TO ACCOMPLISH THIS MODULE.
THANKS AND KEEP SAFE…..