Essay: Personal Development Plan For Long-term Goals.

Personal Development Plan (PDP) is considered as one of the most efficient self-awareness tool. One can keep track of changes he or she has brought to obtain any skill or achieve any specific target through PDP (Strampel & Lewis, 2016). They can maintain the graph of their improvement via these action plans. PDP is also termed as Individual Development Plan (IDP) and Personal Enterprise Plan (PEP) (Baker, Perkins & Comber, 2014).).

In the following article, a Personal Development Plan has been designed. This plan consists of different sectors such as vision, dreams, three different short-term goals- a 1-year goal, a goal for coming 3-5 years and a goal for 10 years and obstacles that can be faced during achieving these goals.

Based on the result of self-assessment tools like 16 personalities and character index, I have analyzed myself. According to the test results, God has designed me as a person who is adventurer. I am more of an introvert and want to keep feelings within me.  My decisions are influenced by my feelings. I prefer to celebrate life and spread happiness among the poor people. I believe God has presented us these beautiful lives due to some reason. We must value our lives and contribute something to the society. Thus, I always try to support the needy and underprivileged people of our society. I am a complete religious person. I seek God’s guidance in every step of my life. I have complete faith in God and. According to me, God is responsible for all the occurrences of my life. I believe God will guide me towards the right direction and save me from all the hazards. In our lives God’s decision often disappoints us but I think God always choose the best option for his children. God has mentioned in Bible, every sinner deserves another chance (Church, Schmidt & Smedley, 2017). I follow his guidance and willingly forgive those who have done anything wrong to me and try to maintain friendly relation with them. God has gifted me lot of patience. I possess a good control over my tongue. I try to behave gentle with everyone. I can keep calm during any hindrance. I am able to fight with the obstacles. I often get disappointed due to the hurdles of life, but I believe God has made me strong enough to overcome all the sorrow and move forward. I do not prefer to socialize very much. I do not meet my neighbors or relatives frequently, but I try to be helpful towards my neighbors and society. According to me, mistakes play a key role in everyone’s life. It helps people to become a better human being. I also make many mistakes every now and then, but when I realize my fault, I try to rectify it as soon as possible. I always try to maintain peace and harmony with the neighbors. Although, some significant life events make me depressed, I am happy with the way God has designed me. I feel blessed, as god has presented me this beautiful life.

Goals

I have preserved a dream to become an active social worker. I want to serve the underprivileged group of our society. The pain of the needy people always makes me disappoint. I have planned to contribute for them since childhood. It is often evident; many people suffering from Cancer, Alzheimer are unable to pay for their treatment due to lack of financial support. My objective is to provide them good treatment and health. There are many organizations to help people suffering from cancer, such as- Cancer Care ("Cancer, Support Groups, Counseling, Education, Publications, Financial Assistance | CancerCare", 2017). They help them financially as well. I want to set up an organization for the victims. This organization will work for providing them all the supports related to their treatment. I know it is not an easy dream to pursue. I may have to face many social barriers, but I will surely overcome all of them. I believe God will stand by my side for achieving my goal.

According to me, God has a specific motive behind every life he has given (Bassett, Gallagher & Price, 2014). I think he has sent me for serving the poor, sick people as I have always been influenced by their pain since childhood. This is the main reason why I want to be a social worker. I believe God has chosen this destination for me.

Though I have a long-term goal, I have to complete few steps for achieving my dream.

Goal (1- year): As I am a student, I have to complete my education first successfully. In coming one year I have to concentrate on my study, as being a student it is my primary responsibility (Nash, 2015). I have to prepare for my final examination.

Obstacles: i) I am poor in time management. It is one of the biggest challenges for me. It is always necessary to manage time and follow a proper routine for better result. I always try to balance my other work with my study and follow a specific routine, but it does not work for me. ii) I face difficulty in memorizing many facts together. This is one of the main reasons for my poor performance.

Strategies: i) At first, I have to establish a perfect timetable for my study. It will help me to manage the time for my study and for other work as well. ii) I have consulted the problem of remembering with my family. One of my relative has suggested meditation. According to him, it will increase my focus on study.

1-year Goal

Action Steps: i) I will try to maintain the timetable and balance my other activities with study. I will change my habit of late rising. This habit will be beneficial, as I will be getting more time to finish my other work. ii) As suggested by my relative I will try to meditate for at least 15 minutes in a day, so that I can focus on my study.

Measures: I can measure my performance only after the result. Exam results will show my growth after implementing those new strategies in my daily routine (Cottrell, 2015).

Goal (3-5 years): After completing my high school study, my next target is to pursue higher study from my dream university. My family wants me to complete higher education.

Obstacles: i) I have to go to other place for pursuing higher study. I have never stayed away from my family in my life. Being a pampered child I am completely dependent on me family. This is the biggest challenge for me. ii) I have to deal with different type of situation, such as- new people, new place. Being an introvert, it is very difficult for me.

Strategies: i) I have to manage things by my own. I have to practice to do my chores independently without depending on my mother or other members of my family. ii) I will maintain a routine and use alarm clock, so that I can balance my activities and maintain time.

Action Plan: I will try to cope up in unknown places and try to express my view in front of everyone. I will have to be more careful about many things, as it is not easy to stay alone in an unknown place. I have to learn punctuality from now, so that I do not need to face any problems regarding time (Gurdjian, Halbeisen & Lane, 2014).

Measure: I will be able to measure my progress once I learn the process to manage own work independently.

Goal (10 years): After successfully completing studies my next goal is to become a social worker and establish an (non-governmental organization) NGO for the underprivileged people.

Obstacles: There are many obstacles I may have to face during this period, such as: i) In spite of having a very supportive family, I may have to face some obstacles from them. They may have some other plans for my future, so convincing my family is one of the biggest challenges for me. ii) I have to go through some social barriers as well. iii) Monetary issue can occur during this time. Establishing a nonprofit organization is not an easy task. Financial support will be highly required (Nixon, 2013).

Strategies: i) At first, I have to convince my family for approving my dream, as family support is essential for achieving such goal. Every obstacle can be overcome with the help of family. ii) I need to overcome the social barriers as well. It is not impossible but I have to put some effort to do so. iii) I have to contact with the organizations that provide financial support to the NGO (Leask & Terrell, 2014). iv) I have to look for some loyal and responsible people who will help me to fulfill my dream.

Action Plan: I need to be more focused and take every step very carefully towards my dream.

Measure: My progress in achieving this goal can be evaluated through the development of my NGO. It will show how successfully aims have been achieved.

Conclusion:

It can thus be stated, I have to fight against many obstacles for achieving my dreams, but these obstacles can be avoided with proper strategies and planning, as mentioned in previous Personal Development Plan.

Reference:

Baker, K. L., Perkins, J., & Comber, D. P. (2014). International students and their experiences of Personal Development Planning. Active Learning in Higher Education, 15(2), 129-143.

Bassett, J., Gallagher, E., & Price, L. (2014). Personal Tutors’ Responses to a Structured System of Personal Development Planning: A Focus on ‘Feedback’. Journal for Education in the Built Environment, 9(1), 20-34.

Cancer, Support Groups, Counseling, Education, Publications, Financial Assistance | CancerCare. (2017). CancerCare.

Church, K. S., Schmidt, P. J., & Smedley, G. (2017). Casey's Collections: A Strategic Decision-Making Case Using the Systems Development Lifecycle—Planning and Analysis Phases. Journal of Emerging Technologies in Accounting Teaching Notes, 13(2), 31-81.

Cottrell, S. (2015). Skills for success: Personal development and employability. Palgrave Macmillan.

Gurdjian, P., Halbeisen, T., & Lane, K. (2014). Why leadership-development programs fail. McKinsey Quarterly, 1, 121-126.

Leask, M., & Terrell, I. (2014). Development planning and school improvement for middle managers. Routledge.

Nash, M. (2015). Personal development planning: a voyage of discovery. Dental Nursing, 11(2), 104-108.

Nixon, S. (2013). Personal development planning; an evaluation of student perceptions. Practice and Evidence of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 8(3), 203-216.

Strampel, K., & Lewis, A. (2016). Personal development planning and ePortfolios in Speech Pathology: Student and staff perceptions. Journal of Teaching and Learning for Graduate Employability, 7(1), 22-41.