Personal development

Personal Development is about developing qualities that allow one to push barriers to succeed in their career. It entails constantly growing as an individual and ensuring that you reach your fullest potential. It is motivated from within and can occur at any stage in one's life.

Every company's success depends on the level of growth that occurs within each individual. This is why there is a shift towards ensuring that employees' progress is being monitored and evaluated on a regular basis through Personal Development Plans.

This process requires that employees conduct self-analysis, engage in personal reflections and provide honest judgement on their contribution and how they deserve to progress to the next stage.

Self-analysis

During the process of self-analysis, strengths and weaknesses will be assessed to identify important areas of development. These are identified so a process of self-improvement can be initiated. The SWOT analysis technique is adopted to aid in the process. This process focuses on listing Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats and using them to work for your personal development. Below is an example of how you will make a self-analysis on your strengths:-

Strengths Things you are good at	Weaknesses Things you need to improve on
Opportunities Things that can assist you to improve you	Threats Things that could put a risk on your progress

Setting goals

Goals give you the direction and focus you need in order to achieve personal growth. You need to be committed and accountable for achieving your goals. The template below will guide you in the process.

Concept	My goal
Specific, significant and stretching You must know and be sure of exactly what you want to achieve
Measurable, meaningful and motivational Set a criteria list to determine your success
Attainable, agreed upon, action-oriented The goal must fuel you to action. It is must be something you are determined to achieve.
Realistic, relevant, result-oriented The client must be able to achieve the goal. Here you need to list the resources that will enable you achieve this goal.
Time bound, trackable The learner needs to set a time frame in which he or she should achieve the goal. Here you write the deadline of the goal.

 

Goals are the steps you patiently take in order to achieve your greatest aspirations