Personal Development and Effective Goal-Setting
You might be welcoming in the new year with a touch of trepidation: two years of a global pandemic and a fresh wave of uncertainty for businesses, it’s not been plain sailing recently. But there are also plenty of fresh opportunities, and you have the power to steer your own ship calmly through these turbulent waters by taking control of what you can: your personal development and your life goals. Here, we offer 4 tips for successful goal setting that won’t be abandoned by 1st February!
#1 Looking back and taking stock
It’s always a good idea to start by looking back at the past year and taking stock of how things have gone. It’s a time to be proud of what you’ve achieved, often against the odds, and to realise how capable and resilient you are. It’s also a good opportunity to recognise your weaknesses and the things that didn’t go so well, but treating these as learning opportunities, not sticks to beat yourself with! Applying this self-awareness to setting personal and/or work goals for the coming year will help you to pinpoint exactly what it is you need to do over the next twelve months, and to adjust course if things have gone a little wrong somewhere.
#2 Small changes, big rewards
The first goals that come to mind may be ambitious: a new venture, a promotion, more money, etc. However, these things can be somewhat ephemeral, and without a clear plan and smaller, bitesize goals and progress steps towards achieving them, they can quickly crumble. You may also not need those big things for the changes you want to see in your life; often setting small goals – and holding yourself accountable with clear timelines for achieving them – will produce big rewards and set you onto the right path for the bigger vision.
#3 Personal development plan
Rather than having a singular goal then, you might like to think of a small set of objectives with intrinsic value, that is to say, things that will bring value to your life, whether or not they culminate in the success of something larger. By setting out your aims like this, it creates a more holistic change in your life, as well as increasing confidence in setting and achieving goals in the future. In this sense it functions more as a personal development plan. You may like to ask yourself: what small changes could I implement into my daily, weekly, and monthly routines? Which of these changes would give me the most joy and be the most significant in my life? Which ones would bring the greatest rewards?
#4 Self-Kindness and self-care
In all of this goal-setting and personal development planning, it can be very easy to focus exclusively on progress and productivity, and to castigate yourself for any failures, missteps or delays. Consciously building self-kindness and self-care into your personal development plan is essential, both for your wellbeing, and to actually help you succeed. Giving yourself grace if things go a bit wrong, gently readjusting course, and making sure that your schedule includes allotted periods of time for self-care to re-centre and gain perspective are some useful strategies.
To go deeper into personal development planning, do check out our The Pioneer programme, which holds you to account on your actions and provides a powerful framework for writing your own personal development plan.
