Having a personal development plan is critical to your growth for so many reasons. It helps you define your goals and keeps you motivated for the rest of your life.
Do you have a plan? If not, you need to keep reading.
When you have a plan, you know where you’re going and what your goals are. When the pandemic happened, many of us got out of alignment. When you have a plan, you know where north and south are, so when you get shifted off course, your plan will help you make the adjustments required to get back on track.
If you need help building a personal development plan, look no further than the five steps below:
Know what you value.
Many people set enormous goals and grandiose visions for themselves without ever really understanding what they personally care about. If you’re going to climb a mountain, make sure you’re taking your values with you. People who set and achieve goals but don’t maintain their values are successfully unsuccessful.
Get clear about what you want.
What is your Bamboo and what are your dreams? Do you know what you want out of your career and life? The more vivid you can paint the picture of your life, the easier it is to build a plan to get there.
Adopt a Water the Bamboo philosophy.
Having a Water the Bamboo philosophy means you have both a sense of urgency to water your bamboo and the patience for the bamboo to grow. It means you know what your bamboo is and you’ll keep watering even if it doesn’t grow right away. Then one day, it will grow 90 feet in 60 days, and it’s all because you adopted this mentality.
Identify high-value activities that will get you where you want to go.
Bamboo Farmers that I have interviewed on my podcast know which high-value activities will contribute to them achieving their goals. Look to the Pareto Principle for guidance. The principle says that 20% of our efforts will produce 80% of the results. Find the 20% of your highest value activities that will get you where you want to go, and focus your time and energy on those!
Create a Bamboo Circle.
We need each other to grow. Invest in your relationships so that you have a strong Bamboo Circle. Your Bamboo Circle of supporters will help accelerate your growth. There’s a myth of the singular genius that we can go at it alone, but don’t believe it. We need each other to succeed.
This post is based on a podcast episode by Greg Bell.
Listen below for the full episode: