Do You Have Career and Personal Development Goals?

It’s towards the ending of March, the conclusion of the first quarter of the year 2018. This is a period to look back, evaluate our goals and objectives and see how well we met them, as well as monitor and control for better achievement of our goals in the second quarter.

I always advise my friends and clients to have goals – written down goals. Writing your goals down increases your chances of achieving it by 1000%! Yes, you read that right, 1000%! Any area of life where you wish or desire to see improvement should be committed to paper as a goal, to enable you work consciously towards the cultivation of that area.

And your goals should be balanced. They should not feature only one aspect of your life to the detriment of several other aspects – for instance, it’s not advisable to set goals for career growth and success and ignore areas like personal development and relationships. A good goal should be well rounded.

A balanced goal should have some of these focus points:
1.    Career – What you desire to achieve in the work or business environment
2.    Personal Development – How you intend to improve your performance by learning, study, taking courses and certifications.
3.    Financial – What you intend to achieve in monetary terms
4.    Relationship – What you intend the social and relational aspects of your life to look like.

You could also set goal for other areas that you consider important and relevant to you. Some people have health goals, weight loss goals, travel goals and so forth.

And while we may not be experts in weight loss and travel and some other areas, we believe we know our stuff when it comes to the things that matter to us; which happens to be Personal Development training and Certification, and on these we can confidently speak on the importance and benefits of having a Self-Development Plan.

What’s a Self-Development Goal (or a Personal Development Plan)? It is a goal that outlines your personal development objectives, defining exactly what you want to achieve in terms of learning and growth. Personal Development goals should be linked to career goals, because the end result of Personal and Professional Development should be to advance your career and give you an edge in the marketplace or workplace.

Personal or Professional Development Goals, should trigger a plan or program that should help you achieve your goals. This plan or blueprint should recommend activities that you should carry out to be able to achieve your goals. 

Let’s assume your Personal or Professional Development Goal is to:
1.    Read “X” number of books over the next 12 months
2.   Take 3 – 4 Professional Development Courses/Certification over the next 12 months.

This can of arrangement would help you determine what books and courses would be relevant to you based on your career choice or path. Also, knowing the number of books/course you want to use as resources would help you distribute over time the courses you should take or the books you should read.

You may decide to read a book every week, two weeks or on a monthly basis, depending on your long term goal. Also, you may decide to take 2 or 3 or four certification courses, which would give a period of about 3 months to 6 months per course, depending on how fast you think you should learn, grow and attain new skills and certifications.

And the benefits are bounteous. Apart from increasing your knowledge and skills, and learning how to work more effectively and efficiently, you learn how to take on new tasks and projects, develop new competencies and broaden your view; you also are certified and increase your chances of getting a promotion.

Personal and Professional Self-Development is something you should invest in.