Why Personal Development Plans Make the Big Difference

Personal development plans can make a very big change in anyone’s life. Why is it important to you?

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Making a plan on how you can develop yourself can help you grow much in the way you perform with what you do.

It will also give you a better purpose and meaning in your everyday life.

Here are several reasons why plans for personal development are beneficial:

  • It gives you a sense of growth and improvement while doing the things that you do and your personal productivity grows significantly
  • There’s more purpose and meaning in life as you live each day
  • You’ll increase your "personal value" and self-worth making you more successful at work or with whatever you do and develop better self-confidence in life

Related to Your Time

Personal development plans can bring more value to your time because as you learn to improve yourself while following your plan the greater the things you can do every given time. For example:

  • You can go through each working day more capable in dealing with stress and you can finish more things than other people who easily gets distracted with stressful situations
  • People who are well-developed always stay ahead of others and they usually become the leaders or the VIPs in a group of common people. Leadership characteristics require dynamic performance.
  • It becomes easier with getting yourself organized which includes doing it in your home naturally because you have a deeper perspective on doing and arranging things. Not only at home but anywhere you go.

It Starts with What You Want

Plans for personal development create a time schedule on how you’ll improve yourself throughout periods of time.

For example:

  • What do you want to be 1 year from now? What do you want to be 5 or 10 years from now?
  • What do you want to be as a person and what things do you want to improve about yourself?

How will you do it and what are your means for doing it?

These are the basic questions you’ll have to reflect within yourself when working on personal development plans.

Here are the things that should determine the basis or "foundation" for your plans for personal development because your actions and decisions will depend on these:

1. Purpose and meaning in life. What do you want to become someday and what things do you have to fulfill and be known about?

Where does your passion and interests lead to?

2. Goals in life. Including short-term, midterm and long-term goals. These are the things you want to reach someday which takes small to large measures of time like:

  • Developing study skills compared to finishing a college degree
  • Developing public speaking skills compared to becoming an entertainment show host

Short-term goals can take a couple of days or weeks, midterm goals can take a couple of weeks or months. While long-term goals can take a couple of months or years.

3. Convictions and personal beliefs. Your principles of living and the things you stand for, are very influential to your personal development plans.

For example:

  • Do you have a religion that you follow?
  • Do you have morals, ethics, principles as your safeguard and standard when dealing with other people?
  • Do you prefer living a simple life with everything complete or do you prefer high standards of living with a high profile in society?

Concerns with Personal Development Plans

There are certain elements in life which affects our priorities such as:

  • Economy – livelihood or job and expenses
  • Personal health – physical condition and fitness
  • Relationships – family, peers and friends including social life
  • Personal time – hobbies, commitments and interests

Where do you have weaknesses and what should you improve on?

When you already know what things to develop about yourself you can start planning and prioritizing your personal development.

Personal development plans sample:

Personal development plans sample you can use

Printing this plan for personal development will need a 8 ½" x 13" piece of paper or "Legal size"


Click this link to open the PDF file of this Planner to Print or Save


The Way Your Time is Spent

The way your time is spent determines the success of personal development plans.

You can use effective time management charts to have an overview on how you divide your time each day.

Spend time on reading personal development books and attending personal development seminars.

Give time for personal development programs and training. It will be worth the money you spend and you will gain something most of the time.

Personal development plans are easier to make when you have good ideas on what things you need to improve about yourself.

There are things that you cannot control such as a poor economy and a corrupt society.

People will usually blame their surroundings and other people such as those in the government and in the corporations for the difficulties in life they experience.

However despite all the blame you cannot change these things around you in an instant!

The World Starts to Change with You

One important purpose of personal development plans is about your continuous self-improvement with the things that are not easy for you.

Personality development should be a priority for you when you start making the necessary changes within yourself and how you do things.

Example Situations:

1. Life Outlook

Instead of concentrating on the negative things in life and dwelling on them which only loses your motivation and give you anxiety why not think of the positive things that you can thank for.

Doing this will help you perform better and help begin improvements to your surroundings.

Using positive affirmations can help transform your life for the better direction and it can help relieve stress.

2. Financial Problems

If you’re not earning well with your current job and have lots of bills to pay you should cut-down on expenses with the things that you can do away with.

Like acquiring excessive gadgets, luxury vacations and parties, vices such as alcohol and smoking and other things that have no lasting meaning.

Stop making more debts if you have problems paying and simply live below your means so you won’t get stuck with debt problems.

Eliminate your debts one by one by starting not getting another debt then start to settle each debt you have until everything is over.

Improve your personal value.

Gain more knowledge through study and develop new skills so you can do more and be more at the workplace and in the society. This is a significant purpose of personal development plans.

Personality development skills you can improve:

  • Communication skills – the way you transact with, the way you inform and the way you convince other people
  • Technical skills – like teaching and computer operations. New knowledge and abilities you can use and contribute to others
  • The way you present yourself – the way you move, react and dress in front of other people this includes proper hygiene
  • Keeping yourself healthy and overcoming personal problems which can save you the trouble of going to the doctor and buying medicines, natural remedies for anxiety and depression natural remedies can help you a lot in dealing with strong negative emotions which you sometimes encounter

Working harder and harder may not let you have the "big" amounts of savings you’re expecting at the end of each month or the "break" in life you’re looking for and you may be wondering:

"Why am I not going anywhere despite all my efforts?"

This is because you’re simply doing the same things over and over and there are limits to what you can earn with it.

But having personal development which includes personality development will change things.

You can save a lot and gain a lot with these tips for personal development plans.

Remember that personality development starts from you and the more you grow in personal value the more you can find a better job with a higher pay or you can simply ask for a raise and a better position if you don’t want to change your workplace.

It's a Progress You Should Work On

It is a principle of personal development plans for you to develop through a span of time step by step.

Just to give you an idea on some accomplishments that can be done during the first year you can think of things like:

  • First 3 months: "I’ll develop a good morning routine which includes easy recipes to make but healthy and I’ll keep a regular 30 mins exercise before I start my whole day. I’ll arrange my things well before I go out for work or school."
  • First 5 months: "I’ll learn to get along better with my co-workers or schoolmates, I’ll try to smile more often and think more positive about them and in every situation. I can also use some icebreakers to make things easier."
  • First 8 months: "I should have mastered how to use time management tools like the Franklin Planner and the Google Calendar so my schedules are more organized and so I can do more things including my relationship with family, friends and peers."
  • First 1 year: "I should have gained the skills to maintain my own bathroom like basic plumbing, cleaning and minor repairs so I can save from labor costs when hiring the local plumber."

Another important purpose of personal development plans is to help you build your self-esteem in life as you grow further and further in a way that much of your time is maximized and you gain more achievements compared to not having a plan at all.

But don’t let it go into your head because having too much pride and "high-headed" can give you sudden troubles that you don’t expect.


Personal development plans principle and purpose are very powerful for personal growth as you journey through the years of your life.

Someday you may realize that you have done and accomplished a lot when you get older and it is surely a time well-spent with less regret yet more memorable things to remember.



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