Why you need a Professional Development Plan?

The majority of the success you can achieve in your professional career won’t happen by accident. It also won’t be a result of dumb luck or circumstances. Instead, you will probably find that the professional situation you’re in will be largely a result of your decisions over the years that have compounded.

Jeff Bezos: “All overnight success takes about 10 years.”

But unfortunately, many professionals fail to take a structured approach to plan out their careers, relying on intuition and circumstances. And that doesn’t always get them where they truly wanted to go which leads to frustration, constant career shifts, reliance on vices and perhaps depression.

When you map out every part of your career and set clear goals, you can begin making conscious action towards achieving those goals. It also enables you to set the right priorities and make compromises where necessary

What is a Professional Development Plan?

It is a plan whereby you map out the entire process, crystallise career goals, and figure out what needs to be done to get there. Being deliberate about your career goals can also help you identify the types of opportunities you want to pursue. Whether it’s certifications, mentorships, experience, or other types of credentials, you can determine what stands between you and your career goals

A professional development plan depends on your goal, you can continually update it accordingly as you discover more about your field and what you want to do. Having that clear roadmap at every step of the journey is an invaluable resource for any professional who wants to think about their career more methodically.

Putting together a professional development plan is not exciting. But even though the process does require effort, it can be incredibly rewarding as well. You get to map out a journey you want to take as a professional in your field, and the sense of direction alone can be a huge motivating factor that propels you forward.

So what are the upsides?

• Have Structure – Having structure as you progress your career is essential. Without it, it’s easy to get distracted by different possibilities and end up in a position that does not satisfy you
• Maintain Direction – Maintaining focus and direction throughout your career isn’t easy
• Lay Out an Action Plan – If you want to be proactive about where your career goes, you must be able to take action consistently
• Identify Opportunities – If you’re going to identify the best opportunities for career development, you need to be aware of what you want to achieve
• Track Progress – As you achieve the goals you set out, you will see yourself getting closer to fulfilling your career trajectory, and that will allow you to track progress and make adjustments accordingly

What are the steps?

Assessing the Situation – Before you begin work on advancing your career, you must first identify what career you want to pursue in the first place. And for most people, that means evaluating their skills, interests, talents, past experiences, and life goals. Only then can you start narrowing down the specific careers or professional opportunities you should and could pursue.

Investigating Your Options – You need to get a general idea of what’s available by building upon foundational knowledge by speaking to other professionals

Committing to a Plan – As you progress through your goals, you will usually have to commit to specific work opportunities and gain the necessary experiences to grow professionally and move forward.

Identifying Next Steps – As you reach a point where your current career trajectory can’t rise anymore, you can start reevaluating your career goals from a broader perspective and looking at what the next phase of your career could look like

So we have spoken about the why, the why and the upsides now let’s focus on the hard part, the how?

You should after reading have an idea of what goes into an effective PDP but perhaps you are unsure of the process to develop one. No worries, to help let’s look at a few steps you should go through.

Identify Your Role

If you already work at a company, the first step you’ll need to go through is identifying your current role and figuring out how it plays into your overall professional development plan.

If you’re already in a position you enjoy and want to grow from, that’s a great starting point. But if you find that you want to end up in a different field or at least a different specialisation, you will need to consider how you can leverage your current experiences to transition into the areas of work that are more appealing and more aligned with your goals.

Assess the Skills You Have

Before you can move into a new field or start mapping out your journey towards your career goals, you must have a clear understanding of what you can do right now and how you can build on those skills in the future.

To do that, make a list of all your current skills and what value you can add as a professional in your field. Also, consider your weak areas or things that you are less knowledgeable about. Then, you can come up with a plan to round out your skills and knowledge so that you can move forward as a professional and specialize in an area that interests you the most.

Write Down Goals

Once you know where you are right now, you can start looking at the future and setting specific goals about what your career should look like. Without the previous two steps, this step can be a little generic. Still, if you identify what you already know and what you can improve, the goals can be very actionable, specific, and valuable for where you want to be.

Make sure you list both goals that are more immediate, such as skills or certifications you should pursue, as well as goals that stretch out through the months, years, and even decades.

Put Together a Plan

At this point, you should have a list of goals with various timelines and urgency levels. Now it’s time to put those goals into an actionable plan that will get you moving in the right direction.

You won’t be able to achieve everything at once, so you need to use the available time wisely and prioritize your focus according to what you need to address the fastest. If you feel you’re missing a critical skill that would allow you to become better, that’s an excellent place to start, as that can allow you to pursue better opportunities and provide a broader range of experiences you are seeking.

Track Progress

Even if you put together the most detailed and insightful plan you can right now, there’s little chance that it will remain unchanged for the duration of your timeline. As you move forward, you will also learn more about yourself and what you want to pursue, which will open up even more opportunities to expand your professional development plan and zero in on your priorities.