Setting And Achieving
Personal Development Plan Goals

Once you have identified the highest adventure of your personal development plan as well as some of the challenges you'll be facing, it's the perfect time to detail mid term goals.



These will help you gain the skills and knowledge necessary to attain your self development mastery. It's important that you have completed those two previous steps because they give you the essential motivation and reference to identify and implement these vital goals central to your success.


Completing individual development plan step 1, ie. identifying your highest vision, lets you see where you want to go and gives you a strong reason to go there... you have a grand vision to achieve. The passion and purpose you recognized act like a 'towards' motivation to your goals. A 'towards success' motivation is an excellent long term tool to encourage setting and achieving goals, and moving you toward your ultimate destination.

Personal development plan step 2 let you spot the challenges and trials you want to overcome. This creates an 'away from' motivation. You have an urgency to move away from these difficulties. An 'avoidance away from' motivation provides an excellent reason to get you to quickly act on your shorter and mid term goals, leaving the troubles behind.

By creating a personal development plan using this format, you are providing yourself with the firmest foundation possible, incorporating both powerful motivation theories of 'away from' and 'towards' achievement motivation.

Armed with these motivating factors, it's time to specify and monitor the appropriate goals that will substantially move you towards your ultimate aim. The new skills and knowledge gained through these mid term goals will then boost you toward the bigger picture of your ultimate personal development plan.

Actively Setting And Achieving Goals

Step 3 aim is the active stage of setting and achieving goals that will enhance your knowledge and skills necessary to take you to self development mastery, which you are enroute to.

Useful tools:

• The AAAT goal system is an excellent way to identify the steps necessary to set and accomplish your goals in each step.
  Decide on your:
  
  
  • Aim - what goals do you want to achieve to overcome obstacles and take you closer to your highest vision
  • Action Plan - how are you going to accomplish these goals
  • Achievement Evidence - how will you know you have reached your goals
  • Time frame - when will you complete them byAn example is: your aim is to learn more about indigenous flora; your action plan is to take a course on indigenous flora offered at your local university; and your achievement evidence is having completed the course at your designated pass level; and in the time frame you stipulate.

  You may be familiar with the SMART goal setting system: Specific; Measurable; Achievable; Relevant; Time bound. You can easily incorporate those principles when using the AAAT outline as there is a lot of overlap.

• Daily attention, focus, and visualization on achieving your goals is a very worthwhile tool. Studies with athletes indicate that the power of vivid imagination is such that our minds don't know the difference of whether we are actually doing an action or whether we are simply 'imagining doing' the action. To utilize this power, spend time every day thinking, feeling and visualizing your desired outcomes.
  Do this through:
  
  
  • positive self talk and positive thinking
  • create a dream board or personal treasure map and review it daily

Insight Through Personal Development Plan Goals

1. Highest Vision: Identify that you want to inspire people to respect diversity and live in peace with their neighboring cultures and countries. This creates self motivation to move you towards your highest purpose.

2. A challenge to deal with: You recognize that your communication seriously lacks diplomacy at times. This creates a motivation to quickly begin learning diplomatic skills.

3. Achieving your goals: You have a number of short term goals taking you toward your highest vision, such as:
   
   • talk to authorities on diplomacy and peace, negotiation and communication
   • research community roles that you can play a part in to promote the beauty and benefits of diverse cultures
   • study relevant courses to gain the skills and knowledge to effectively communicate the power of peace

   Let's consider what the possible bonus knowledge referred to by Joseph Campbell could be in the above example. Look at the shorter term goal of 'studying relevant courses to gain the skills and knowledge to effectively communicate the power of peace'. Say that while you are studying this course and practicing the communication techniques, you acknowledge that there is more peace in you, your family environment, and your professional relationships. As you put these principles to work in your life, you come to fully experience and subsequently know the power and truth of the phrase "to see change, be the change". This is an example of the greater gift that Campbell was referring to. You gain an unexpected and very welcome additional bonus while pursuing your specified goals.

4. Personal Success: You accept a job at local council working for their 'welcome immigrants' program.

5. Mastery: Every day you share your insight that spreading peace on a global scale begins with practicing peace in yourself, your family and community.

Setting and achieving goals are important building blocks in the structure of your personal development plan. With each goal pursued and accomplished, your ultimate vision is reinforced with another pillar. These pillars of new skills and insights become the support framework to continue building on towards your success.

Heroic PDP Planning

PDP Adventure | PDP Challenges | PDP Goals | PDP Success | PDP Mastery

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