Building Your Personal Growth Plan - Step 4

Step 4 is relatively simple. Step 4 is "Deciding Areas of Growth" that you wish to pursue. Now, it is easy to brush this off. Of course, we know where we need to grow, don't we? I mean, we must know. It is our life, our family, our plan. We know best where we should go, right? Wrong! We don't see ourselves as we see others. We just don't. This is the perfect form of bias.

We don't see these things clearly enough to adequately judge ourselves, so we rely on other sources to enumerate our shortcomings and potential areas of growth. If you are like me, I want to see data from multiple viewpoints. This information may take some time to gather and review the data, but I promise, the time you spend exploring YOUR GROWTH POTENTIAL will be well worth the benefit you will receive.

FINDING YOUR Areas of GROWTH

Behavioral /Personality Assessment - Strengthfinders, Myers-Briggs and DISC are only a handful of the available tools that allow you to get an unbiased view of your personality type. But like everything else, the devil is in the detail. Most of these reports provide Specific Personal Growth Areas for subjects to work on. In one recent subject's DISC assessment, the report provided the following, specific "areas of growth"

• Strive to be an "active" listener

• Be attentive to other team members' ideas until everyone reaches a consensus

• Be less domineering and more friendly and approachable

• Develop a greater appreciation for the opinions, feelings and desires of others

• Put more energy into personal relationships; show your support for other team members

• Take time to explain the "whys" of your statements and proposals

This type of growth is difficult for anyone, but it is not something you can pick up just anywhere. We may not believe it when our wives tell us we need to be a better listener, but they are telling us what everyone is afraid to say. Using a report to do that "dirty work" is more consistent and easier on all concerned.

Annual Performance Reviews - Even if you are right on the path you want to be on concerning your career, stop and take another look at your last 2-3 performance reviews. Look at any comments regarding the growth and improvements recommended. Typically, leaders are going to make recommendations that you may not fully process at the time of the review, so brushing up on these items is important. The old performance reviews can often reveal things we haven't wanted to face.

Important Conversations with Important People in Your Life - Take some time to reflect on the important conversations that you have had over the last year or so. Who were the important people that you engaged with? Why were they important? The "Important People" may be your boss, a community leader, or your spouse or child. What makes them important is not their stature in this world but their importance to you. If there are things that these "Important People" have asked you to consider in your growth, they must make the list.

Career Aspirations - This is where your reflection practices will help you. If you reflect frequently you should have a good handle on the direction you need to steer your career to go where you need. One of these, along the way, was for me to specifically focus on strategic thinking. To do that, I spent time learning about my leader's KPI's. Making your leader successful is always a way to be successful yourself. I also spent time asking my leadership more and different questions helped me better understand the thought process behind the "whats" and "whys" that I saw. The point is, that this action requires a specific plan for you to be successful. If your career goals require training, consider asking your employer to facilitate the training by providing it as part of your growth plan. Be prepared to discuss these goals with your leadership. Then schedule a meeting with your leadership. For the highest impact, try to focus this meeting only on your future and goals, not current or past performance.

Dreams - None of this is possible without allowing yourself to create a dream, or vision and allow your mind to play upon the successes of the "what if..." If you are like me, i find it hard to conceptualize my future. I guess I am not creative in this way. But it is important to take the time and explore. This is why Reflection time is so important. I know, it seems like we keep going back to Reflection. We are.

This is a process, and why I have decided to spread this over weeks, instead of only providing a checklist. So far, if you reflection has not brought you to the place where you can devise a plan for your future, it is OK. Keep up the reflection time. Ask yourself some guiding questions:

• Where do you see yourself in 1 year, in 3 years, and 5 years? Apply this question to your:

  1. Personal Life

  2. Work Life

  3. Financial Health

  4. Relationship Health

Next Week - We will explore Values.