Personal Development Plan (PDP)

Last week I took a disc-profile assessment. It broke down my strengths and weaknesses and also included a section of what motivates me, such as money, knowledge, power, etc. I have to say it was one of the most interesting self assessments that I have ever taken. It thoroughly broke down my personality traits and helped me to understand why I do the things I do. I decided to take this assessment in order to create an effective personal development plan (PDP). Like I previously said, I will be using my senior honor thesis as a means to work on individual growth. This will help prepare me for my transition between college life and the "real world". For example, my study habits will directly translate to my work habits. So for the rest of my senior year I am focusing on three main weaknesses:

1. Procrastination
2. Motivation
3. Patience

Personally I think these are three characteristics that many people struggle to accomplish. I mean lets be real, no one is perfect, but why not strive to be.

So the biggest question is HOW am I going to work towards strengthening these characteristics. Well the answer is, one step at a time.

1. Blogging-
      First, I plan to blog about my journey during these final months of my college career. This will help to hold be accountable for the things I say I am going to do. A great professor once told me, "a goal will never be accomplished unless you write down. It is only then that it becomes concrete." Starting today I plan to blog every weekday to track my progress of both my PDP and also my senior thesis. Blogging will also help me to reflect on what strategies are working and which ones aren't.

    My very first blog!

2. 3 Daily Goals-

       To work towards improving on my procrastination habits, every morning I plan to write down 3 daily goals that can each be accomplished in 30 mins. This will help me to not only use up the "in between" time I have between activities (the time that I normally thought wasn't enough time to get anything done), but it will also help me to break up my work load, making everything seem more manageable and not as overwhelming. This will also help me to change up my homework assignments and prevent me from losing interest in one particular subject (and also losing motivation to continue working on the same subject.

Not only will I write down my three goals, but I'll also post them in a place that I will frequently see them.

 

3. Staying Organized-
     To help me be most effective with my time and energy, I plan to keep a daily planner to write down all of my work shifts, classes, and meetings and also to write down all of my homework assignments and exams. Although I have been doing this since middle school, I think I still need to improve on looking at my schedule more frequently, so that I know what is to come and to help me be patient by focusing on one thing at a time.

Not only will I write down all of my commitments, but I will also schedule in some "me" time to relax and rejuvenate.

While I will try many different study and personal development strategies, these 3 steps will always be constant. I'm so excited to see where this goes!

Signing off,

the new ME