Planning a Career Growth. How to Make up a Personal Development Plan?

Planning, including the action plan for professional growth, is one of the foundations for building a life of a person successful on all sides. Setting clear plans for a future career (including long-term ones, for example, for 5 or 10 years and short for a week or a month) allows not only understanding your goals, but also to gradually developing ways to achieve them, motivate yourself to self-development and select necessary tools and solutions to achieve the goals. As a rule, people can plan their day quite well; they even schedule tasks for weeks and months in advance. But as for long-term plans for the years ahead with global goals, including necessary competencies and steps to achieve them, are much more difficult. And how can you count on a positive result in the long-term, if you do not even know how to come to it, or how to create such a plan? Career development is a difficult process; it costs effort to accomplish certain results in it. In this article, we will consider the process of developing such a plan and give some useful samples.

Here we present a step-by-step guide which describes phases on the way to professional heights. In other words, if you are engaged in career planning and want to become the head of, for example, a department of a large company in UAE or some other country, then you should clearly understand what kind of education and experience you need for this. Obviously, you will have to work as a regular employee, then, perhaps, get additional education, deal with your self-development, get a promotion, etc. It is this path with adjustments and changes that is your career plan.

Having this “customized” timetable will help you not to stray from the path and follow a given direction while praising yourself for your success. A personal career plan is an example of how to arrange your self-governance on the way to a goal.

Stages of writing a career plan

• Create your own vision. Be honest with yourself and write what you really want from your career. You need to set a big, global (but achievable) goal. It is recommended to create a vision for at least the next 5 years. You can describe the desired picture for even a longer period, for example, for 10 years.
• Determine the nearest career goal. Based on the global vision, list the next career goal. This goal must necessarily be a stepping stone to the achievement of a global goal. It is necessary to revise and correct this goal at least once a year, depending on the dynamics of your movement and possible changes in external conditions. Adjustments are a natural thing here; do not be afraid of them.
• Carry out self-diagnosis and analysis of your results. Try to analyze yourself from different perspectives: education, skills, experience, competencies, interests, values, resources, reputation, personal brand, health, family, environment, acquaintances, potential, and risks. Which of the external and internal factors helps you move towards the goal, and what can serve as an obstacle?
• Now you can move on to writing a career plan. The plan should include:
  1. the nearest career goal (determine the term yourself, no less than one year);
  2. small sub-goals for its implementation;
  3. specific objectives/actions for the implementation of each sub-goal;
  4. a deadline for each task.

  In the task list, be sure to consider:

  1. creation of the right reputation for the desired position – what steps need to be taken to form the desired reputation;
  2. development of necessary competencies – which courses, training, internships, on-the-job training, etc. it is necessary to pass to develop competencies to reach the required level;
  3. building relationships with decision-makers – who can influence your career and in what form and how you build relationships with them;
  4. creation of a personal brand – how others see you, how you want to be perceived, what forms of activity you should show in your work, in the life of a company, at the foreign market, to shape your personal brand;
  5. working on networking – what kind of environment is important to achieve a career goal, what steps need to be taken to form a productive network of working contacts.
• Act. Last in the list, but not the last one in importance. Even the most thoughtful and inspiring plan will not bring results if you do not begin to implement it. Proceed to action immediately. Moreover, you have already spelled them out.

On your path to career success, you may have (and will most certainly encounter) certain difficulties, and to cope with them, you can use our advice.

Resolving Career Growth Problems

Here we consider the most popular problems and limitations of career growth.

• No time. If at the moment you don’t deal with your career because of the necessity to take care of someone else (a sick relative, a small child, renovation at home, etc.), it means that you are simply deceiving yourself, as you will never have time to take care of yourself. If you have at least a couple of hours a week to surf the net, watch TV, catch up with friends, then you can definitely use part of it for self-education and development.
• Not enough money. Make a list of what you bought the last month. Select what you consider to be essential. Are there any items related to professional growth and self-education in this group? Most likely, no. Most people believe that education and professional and personal development come after food, clothing, and leisure. However, it is the desire to improve yourself that will probably secure your future.
• Fear of losing a permanent (but unloved) job. We live with this fear forcing ourselves to do something. We understand that we are not satisfied with everything and are afraid to leave. Do not be afraid to do something unfamiliar. In the process, you will learn everything necessary. And the experience of other people will allow you to save a lot of effort. Thus ask for help and, when such help is provided, accept it with gratitude.
• Laziness. For example, this morning, when you wake up, you see that it is pouring outside. Your mind clings to the possibility of doing nothing and staying in bed all day. This is a weakness – do not succumb to it. Otherwise, you will never get what you want.

In any case, if you cannot cope with the problems at work, do not be afraid to seek help from professionals, for example, you can enroll in specialized courses dedicated to career growth, for example, a nmber of courses, for example, on soft and general skills or other areas. At these trainings you will get a great scope of various skills, and then you will be able to make sure that you go on your career plan with the confidence and knowledge required. Good luck to you!