The Importance Of Personal Development

With out a plan nobody can reach their destination. As Bob (2010), described that “Personal development refers to activities that improve self-knowledge and identity, develop talents and potential, build human capital and employability, enhance quality of life and contribute to the realization of dreams and aspirations. The concept is not limited to self-development but includes formal and informal activities for developing others, in roles such as teacher, guide, counsellor, manager, coach, or mentor. Finally, as personal development takes place in the context of institutions, it refers to the methods, programs, tools, techniques, and assessment systems that support human development at the individual level in organizations” Personal development planning is a supported process which helps to focus on individual performance and helps to achieve and develop their carrier. The main objective of personal development plan is to improve the capacity of individual.

According to careereducationweb.com personal development is repeatedly putting a person in a position where we need to be change or developed or motivated to reach our destination. It takes control of a person to grow and forcing to become stagnant. Personal development and growth are vital to success. Most of the people fail to achieve their goal because of lack effort, time constants or an incapability of focusing on the goals.

According to heacademy.ac.uk web site PDP is defined as “a structured and supported process undertaken by an individual to reflect upon their own learning, performance and/or achievement and to plan for their personal, educational and career development. PDP embraces a range of approach to learning that join planning (an individual’s goals and intentions for learning or achievement), doing (aligning actions to intention), copy (judgment, facts, experience, in order to recognize and evidence the procedure and results of learning) and expression reviewing and evaluate experiences and the results of learning.”

Personal development plan is a process which gives a persona a clear view of life. And every conscious professional should have a personal development plan to achieve their objective and reach their destination.

Importance of Personal Development

Every body got its own talent inside. Every individual has its own idea and talent. But most of us can not explore it because of lacking of personal development. Without growth life is like dull existence. Due to lie situations many people can not develop personally. Growth is essential part of life of a person. Personal development helps to learn which we are capable to learn.  Personal development is very important. It helps to find out opportunity to create a better life mentally, physically and spiritually. There are few reasons why personal development is important.

First reason is personal development helps you to focus on important things of your life. There are many things in u your life which can divert you from important things. For an example it could be short – term pleasure. Short term pleasure may make us feel good for short time but it will be cause the long term suffer for future. Only personal development can direct you on the right path.

Second reason is personal development develops our capacity. Personal development not only focus on important things of our life but also helps to handle a critical situation. We are capable to face some specific challenge but personal development increase our limit to handle more difficult challenge.

Third reason is personal development helps us to connect with positive people. When we will involve us in personal development then we will found many positive people around us. Having this positive people around us , we will be more motivated to move forward.

Personal development means hard work. it takes consistence, patience and time. According to scotthyoung.com web site if we want our personal development we need to focus on gaining courage which thing we fare of, decilpline, more learning, hope and power. Personal development is an investment for our life. Personal development helps to improve our knowledge. Personal development is an attitude which helps to improve our life.

If you want development in our personal life we need to focus on Understand yourself.

Improve your awareness, Work on your attitude, Believe in yourself, potentials Develop your skills, Set your goals, Begin with the end in mind. It is very important to under stand my self fist because we need to know where is our weakness and straight and believe on yourself and be confident. And then set our goals it is very important to set our goal it is impossible with out a goal to achieve something. And last one is set up mind. It means we must have to be confident and promise that I will do it by any chance.

Allen and Adair (1999) state that “There is no ‘end’ to the self-development process.” The also show that why this is important for professional life and where to focus on. Personal development helps to improve our performance , develop appropriate skills and competences and realise full potential. Every body want a position to work but most of them don’t have proper set of goals. Only for this reason most of us can not reach our desired destination. Only personal development program can help us to know where to go how to improve our self and help us to reach our destination.

From the above discursion it is clear that personal development is very important for our life. It gives conscious effort to grow up.

Every body grew up with their own individual talent and skills. Personal development helps us to find out these skills. Like that I have some skills in my professional life.

Team worker : I believe that I am very good team player because when I work I like to involve every one into work, look after individual needs and seeks to gain commitment by participation. I am very good listener and willing to lend my hand if needed. For my hard work and as a good team player I became associate of the month from my working place.

Co- ordinator : I am confident at my work place. I am able to work at busy time and able to take the challenge. I am always committed to my organizational goal and objective. For those activities I became crew trainer at my working place.

A Good Presenter : Presentation skills is very important for professional life. I conducted a professional skill course and learned how to do it properly. On the first day of my presentation exam I run away from speech desk but after that I took that challenge and I got second height marks on my final exam.

I discussed about my three skills which I poses. But I believe that I need more practice on it. And I need to go farther for more skills which will help me in future for my professional life.

Importance of Professional Skills

According to answer.com web site skills defined as “Proficiency , dexterity that is acquired or developed through training or experience.”

Professional skill is very important for personal carrier. We must focus on it. Professional skills is a kind of skill that we learned from a company and applied on professional life.

The skill and importance are described below :

Communication Skills : Communication skills are very important for professional life. It is very important to have a good communication skill. With out a proper communication it is impossible to communicate with other and achieve the objective.

Performance Management : Performance management should be consider very strongly. It is about to find out recognized staff and reward them, conduct coaching sessions with staff etc.

Customer Service : As a manager it is very important to focus on customer service. It is all about to improvement of customer service.

Organizational skill : To achieve an organizational goal we must have to have organizational skill. Which includes effective at delegating work , time management system etc.

Professional development : Professional development is very important for professional life. It is important to know department roles plans and regulation of working place.

Legal Issue : Legal issue base on understanding the all employment laws. Effective legal employment interview etc.

Leadership : Make decisions easily and effectively monitoring assignments without micromanaging.

Team work: Positive atmosphere which helps to team work together. Creat opportunity for other.

Problem solving : With out problem solving attitude it is impossible to run a company. It most important for professional skill.

From the above discursion , it is clear that it is very important all professional person.

To make a successful carrier those skills are very important.

From the Belbin team roles – “Self Perception Inventory” using this tools we can get into depth of importance of professional skills. Plant , resource investigator , co-ordinates , monitor evaluator , team worker, implementer , complete finisher those are the key factor of professional skills.

I completed Belbin Team Roles assessment and found my self as a team worker. Which indicate that like to involve with everyone, I like to looks after individual and perceptive and diplomatic. And find my weakness as I could be influenced and indecisive in crunch situations. I attach the table below.

Belbin Team Roles Inventory

Key

Team Role

Team contribution/personal style

Allowable weakness

PL

26

Plant

Generates ideas. Creative, imaginative, unorthodox, solves difficult problems

Ignores details, too preoccupied to communicate effectively

RI

27

Resource investigator

Maintains awareness of resources available outside the team. Extrovert, enthusiastic, communicative, explores opportunities, develops contacts

Overoptimistic, loses interest once the initial enthusiasm has passed

CO

48

Co-ordinator

Ensures internal resources are applied to the team objective. Mature, confident, a good chairperson, clarifies goals, promotes decision making, delegates well.

Can be seen as manipulative, delegates personal work.

SH

43

Shaper

Shapes the way the team operates. Challenging, dynamic, thrives on pressure, has the drive and courage to overcome obstacles

Can provoke others, hurts peoples feelings

ME

38

Monitor evaluator

Assesses team progress against the objectives and milestones. Sober, strategic and discerning, sees all options, judges accurately.

Lacks drive and ability to inspire others, overly critical

TW

51

Team worker

Involves everyone, looks after individual needs, and seeks to gain commitment by participation. Co-operative, mild, perceptive and diplomatic, listens, builds, averts friction, calms the waters

Indecisive in crunch situations, can be easily influenced

IM

48

Implementer

Turns ideas into practical actions. Disciplined, reliable, conservative and efficient.

Somewhat inflexible, slow to respond to new possibilities

CF

24

Completer finisher

Ensures the job is properly finished. Painstaking, conscientious, anxious, searches out errors and omissions, delivers on time

Inclined to worry unduly, reluctant to delegate, can be a nit-picker.

(Source: Conducted by Class Tutor)

My weakness are complete finisher . I need to ensure that the job is properly finished or not. I need to develop on time as well.

To get more clear view of professional skills, currently which I use Memletic Learning style inventory. Which is given below :

The scores are out of 20 for each style. A score of 20 indicates you use that style often.

Style Scores

Visual

4

Social

13

Physical

10

Aural

13

Verbal

11

Solitary

12

Logical

13

Memletic Learning Styles Graph:

(Source : www.learning-styles-online.com)

Everybody has its own strength and weakness. Memletic style helps me to find out which my straight and weakness. From this graphs it is clear that my main weakness is visual , verbal and solitary. And my main strengths are logical ,verbal and social.

To became a successful professional I must need to improve my weakness because those are my main obstacle. From graphs it is clear that my main weakness is on visual. Think it is very important for a professional person.

This graphs helps me to know where I need improvement. And it helps me to improve my personal skills

Importance of Skills Audit

A skill audit is an essential process which helps to measure and record the skills of individual or group. The purpose of conducting skills audit are to identify the skills currently we have and the skills we need to improve. Skills audit helps to restructure and develop personal life.

Importance of Skills audit : with out skills audit it is impossible to know where to improve. Using this skills audit information we can improve and develop our future plan. The main benefits of skills audits are ;a)Improve knowledge and skills)Valuable and valid work place plan., c)Increase productivity.

The skills audit based on three things, those are a) Behavioural skills, b) Technical knowledge, b) Other knowledge. I have conducted self assessment skills audit which I given below.

Skills Audit

Knowledge and skills which I consider to be important for my current Job

Your Ability Rating (1-5) or strong / weak / somewhere in between

I am a good team player.

Always try to help other

Friendly which helps to our job done properly.

I am conscious about customer needs.

I never ignore customer complain.

Strong

Knowledge and skills which I consider to be important for my future career

Your Ability Rating (1-5) or strong / weak / somewhere in between

Involve my self in different places at my work

Need more experience in particular position.

Need to improve communication skill.

Legal issue.

Lacking of organizational leadership skills

Poor

(Source: Conducted by Class Tutor)

Rating Ability

• Some awareness but not sufficiently competent to use it,
• Familiar with and able to use the knowledge or skill (some competency),
• Proficient in the knowledge or skill and able to show others how to use it
• Expert with a high degree of skill and/or comprehensive knowledge

From the skills audit tolls I found myself need to work hard on communications skills, because it is very important and need to know more about organizational leadership skills. And my main strengths are helpful and hard worker and customer service.

SWOT Analysis and Priorities

SWOT analysis is tool through which we can identify our Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat.

For the Personal strategy, SWOT analysis has a bold impact. It helps us for future plan and my current situation, where I have improve for my bright carrier. According to quintcareers.com web site Randall and Katharine described that SWOT analysis helps to capitalize our strength and over come the future. The demonstrate that SWOT analysis dived into parts -a) Internal personal development , b) External personal development.

Personal SWOT Analysis

Internal

Strength

Weakness

Education

Transferable Skills

Personal characteristics 

Good contacts

Lack of Work Experience

Weak technical knowledge

External

Opportunity

Threat

Enhancing education

Positive trends

Opportunities for professional development

Strong network

Lack of the advanced education/training

limited professional development 

From this SWOT analysis , I found that I still I have some strength and opportunity and some weakness. For my personal development I can study more which will help me develop my carrier. I have another strength that is transferable skills which helps me to be a good team member. My weakness are lack of work experience and technical knowledge.

My opportunity and threat , I can go for further education to build up my career and then I will get to be involve with more professional development and strong network.

My Five Future Priorities

Higher Education: After completing this course I will go for further education which will help me develop my carrier.

Travelling: Beyond my higher education I will try to travel because it will help me to contract with different culture and different people which will help me to my future.

Technical Knowledge: Using of technology is increasing day by day. So I will try to involve my self to keep my self up to date with technology.

Involving with Multinational Company : will work for multinational company because this is a place where I will get opportunity to develop my carrier.

To reach the goal: After completing my degree and doing avobe work I want to reach my destination and I want to open my new company and develop my own organization.

Personal Development Plan

Developing a PDP

My needs

How can I meet those needs?

My Future Objective

What are the challenges in my job current that I need to meet?

Improve Personal development

Opportunity to work at management Position

 Work on personal development that will help me to work at management position

Where do I want to be in 2 years?

To become resource investigator

Awareness of resources available outside the team. Extrovert, enthusiastic, communicative, explores opportunities, develops contacts.

Where do I want to be in 5 or 10 years?

To become a shaper

 Shapes the way the team operates. Challenging, dynamic, thrives on pressure, has the drive and courage to overcome obstacles

How does that fit in with what the practice wants?

 To become a completer finisher

 Ensures the job is properly finished. Painstaking, conscientious, anxious, searches out errors and omissions, delivers on time

What adjustments will I need to make to achieve what I want?

Go for further higher education.

Be more confident and positive

What adjustments will other people need to make for me to achieve what I want?

 Provide me good training

 After having my training I want to work as resource investigator

How can I overcome my technical obstacle?

 Go for further training

It will help me to be up do date about my working place.

What helps me to be social?

Be more friendly and helpful

It will help me to be more acceptable in my professional life.

What should I consider to achieve my goal?

To make a personal plan and set a target.

Personal plan will helps to achieve my goal;

Why I need a balance life?

Practicing personal development and follow them properly

It will help me to success all the point of my professional life.

Without a plan it is not possible to reach a destination. A is a path way where it is written very clearly from where to start and how to finish. To achieve a desired destination every body must have to have a plan. A person without a plan means a bird with out wings.

Here I developed my plan in table which showing, my needs second one is how can I meet those need and last one is my future objective. Here I tried to explain my current needs which is most important for me to achieve my objectives. Obstacles is everywhere. To achieve my goals I would have to face some problems. But in my development plan I found some solutions how to over come it.

The last one is my future objective . where I tried to find out after my needs and how can I meet those needs what will be my achievement. Not it is more clear for me that what is my personal development plan and how can I achieve my destination.

Obstacle to achieving objectives:

Objective

Problem I can face

What are the challenges in my job current that I need to meet?

Work Experience

Communication skill.

Lacking of Information and training.

Less Job Opportunity

Time management.

This world is changing very first. Every day we are facing new problems and able to solve as well. New opportunity are rising and new problems come to front to achieve them.

Like that I have some obstacles of my carrier to achieve the obstacle. First obstacle is my current job need. I am working for a company as a trainer but I want me to see more higher position but I cant reach there. I must have to have higher education, work experience, trained myself for suitable position and improve my communication skills.

Question is that how to overcome those obstacle? We know that there is problem, there is a way. So every problem has its solution. First things is that I must have to work hard and set a goal to over come those obstacle.

My first obstacle is lacking of training. In every company where we want to grow up we need a training. I believe with a proper training I can overcome my current job needs. To overcome this problem I can contract with my senior managers who can help me to give right direction.

Work experience is my another obstacle, to over come this problem I think I need to focus on time management. First I need to set my time how to utilize it. It could be give some more time for work place through which I can get more experience.

Communication skills are became main key point for a professional. There is no other choices without having a communication skill education. I think if I study communication skills and practice it will be very helpful for my professional life.

Reflective Report

I have covered a wide range of topics in Personal Development Skills. The aim of this course is to know our skills and weakness and how to develop them and helps to take any challenges. This subject gives right direction for life who wants to pursue their goals and success.

Personal development skill helps me to understand my own personality and ability to change. It shows me where is my strengths and weakness. For example I need to pay attention on organization and time management. This subject helps me to set my objective and helped me to know how can I achieve them. Now I know my opportunity and threat and where I have to pay more attention. For example – enhancing my education which will help me to be more confident.

I have covered couple of assessment here such as Belbin team role assessment which helps me to know what types of worker I am. I found myself as a effective team player. Which is my threat but still I need to improve to take challenge in critical situation, communicative and creative. Memletic assessment helps me to know what kind of personality I have. Which is quite interesting and informational to know yourself. It is very useful tools to improve personality. And another one is skill audit tools. Using this tools now I able to know where I can work effectively and what skills still do I need to become successful in professional life. I conducted personal swot analysis. It very important to know the personal strength, weakness, threats and opportunity. This analysis helps to identify obstacle of carrier and show how to over come it.

Personal development skills helps to evaluate our skills. This subject helps to set up my goals and shows the path which is full of opportunity. After studying this subject it is clear to me that which is my strength, weaknesses where I have opportunity. To become a successful professional in future I know at which point have to work more. This is a subject which breaks the obstacles and open the new doors for future. At the end I would like to say that studying of personal development skill takes charge of future.