How to Know What You Don’t Know: Designing a Self-Improvement Plan
The job market is always changing, so the skills you have today aren’t necessarily the skills you’ll need for future opportunities. Upskilling involves adding new skills to your toolbox, ensuring you’re prepared for whatever the professional world throws at you.
Whether you’re transitioning to a new industry or seeking a promotion in your current company, upskilling is a critical component of an effective professional development plan. Get tips for creating a personal professional development plan that helps you achieve your career goals.
What Does Personal Professional Development Look Like?
For many people, the term “professional development” conjures up images of attending conferences and completing required training sessions. Although formal training is important, it’s only one piece of the puzzle. An effective development plan focuses on the future, so it should be personalized according to your goals and interests.
Personal professional development is also self-directed. Instead of checking off training tasks assigned by someone else, you get to take control of your learning.
Do you want to learn how to use pivot tables in Excel? Go for it!
Are you interested in joining a networking group for young professionals in your industry? Make it a part of your professional development plan. Self-directed learning gives you the freedom to explore your interests in an informal setting.
How to Design and Implement a Self-Improvement Plan
Like other aspects of personal and professional development, self-directed learning requires careful planning. Follow these tips to create a development plan that helps you reach your goals.
1. Conduct a Self-Assessment
The first step is to perform a thorough assessment of your skills, interests, strengths, weaknesses, personal values, and career goals. If you have a tough time getting started, think about what you like and dislike about your current job. Perhaps you thrive on interpersonal interactions and hate feeling like you’re drowning in paperwork.
2. Set Goals
Next, set goals based on the results of your self-assessment. Each goal should be SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. “Learn how to code” isn’t a good goal because it’s not specific, you can’t measure your progress, and there’s no deadline. Something like “Obtain the PCEP — Certified Entry-Level Python Programmer credential by Dec. 31, 2026” is much better.
Once you identify your goals, break each one into a series of objectives. Think of an objective as a small action designed to help you reach your goal. If you want to pass a certification exam, for example, your objectives might be to complete 10 practice questions every night, complete an online study course at least four weeks before your scheduled exam, and publish at least one coding example on GitHub before you take the test.
3. Identify Skill Gaps
A skill gap is a discrepancy between the skills you have and the skills you need to reach a goal. For example, you may lack strong conflict-resolution skills, making it difficult to achieve your goal of becoming a manager. Identifying skill gaps gives you an opportunity to correct them before they derail your personal and professional development efforts.
4. Embrace New Opportunities
When you’re ready to start upskilling, embrace new learning opportunities. Take classes, attend industry seminars, or pursue a professional certification. With every activity you complete, you’ll gain new knowledge and skills.
5. Find a Mentor
Mentoring gives you access to guidance from someone who’s already where you want to be, making it an important component of any professional development plan. The right mentor can also help you build your network or serve as a sounding board for your ideas.
Not all industries or employers have formal mentoring programs, and informal mentoring or peer mentoring can be valuable, too. If you can’t find a mentor in your current workplace, turn to local networking groups or online communities.
6. Track Your Performance
A professional development plan isn’t something you write down and then forget about — at least not if you want it to work. While you’re learning new skills, working with a mentor, and taking advantage of new learning opportunities, you should also be tracking your performance. Use the SMART goals you developed in step two to monitor your progress. For example, if you committed to completing 10 practice questions every night, have you been doing it consistently? If not, think about whether you’re truly invested in reaching your goal.
7. Update Your Plan Regularly
It’s common for goals to change over time. You may discover you’re not as interested in an industry as you thought you’d be or you don’t really want to spend the next 10 years using the same skill, day in and day out. In some cases, your interests stay the same, but market conditions change, making it necessary to adapt.
If you’re truly committed to professional development, you’ll update your plan instead of abandoning it entirely. The more adaptable you are, the more likely it is you’ll end up on a rewarding career path.
As an owner of the Dale Carnegie Mid-Atlantic franchise, McKonly & Asbury is able to offer an extension of services to our clients and friends of the firm, expanding our expertise in the areas of leadership, team building, and people development as Dale Carnegie offers programs in leadership, management development, customer engagement, service, sales, communication, and more.
About the Author
McKonly & Asbury is a Certified Public Accounting Firm serving companies across Pennsylvania including Camp Hill, Lancaster, Bloomsburg, and Philadelphia. We serve the needs of affordable housing, construction, family-owned businesses, healthcare, manufacturing and distribution, and nonprofit industries. We also assist service organizations with the full suite of SOC services (including SOC 2 reports), ERTC claims, internal audits, SOX compliance, and employee benefit plan audits.
