Easy Step-By-Step Guide To Create Your Self-Development Plan

You’ve been thinking about it for a while now!

A self-development plan!

A step-by-step guide tailored to your persona, your life, and your dreams. It would be the perfect guideline to follow so you can grow to your full potential.

But where do you start?

How do you know if you are doing it correctly? Is there a process you can follow?

Uhmm… not really!

Creating your own self-development plan is such an individual experience that the closest thing to “following a procedure” that can happen is to ask yourself questions.

Many of them!

I also like listening to how other people have managed to create their self-development plans.

I am here to help you with both of those.

I will give you ten questions that will help you create your perfect self-development plan. This isn’t the only way you can do it; it’s just one of many that can work for you.

10 Questions To Help You Create Your Personal Development Plan

Where are you currently going?

This is a surprise start-question. But it’s necessary!

Where you want to go is very different from where you are currently going.

You might want to become an actor, but if you are currently studying biology at the university, you are on a completely different path than the one you crave.

That’s okay!

Examining carefully where you are and where your current actions are taking you is an inevitable part of gaining clarity on your situation.

This category includes everything that comes to mind – your education, habits, daily routines, evenings and weekends, who you communicate with, and what you give your attention to.

The secret to answering this question correctly is to be brutally honest with yourself. Nobody is going to read your answers but yourself. So, if you feel like you need to hold something off, ask yourself why you would avoid the reality.

Here are a few questions to get you going. Answering them and going through this section could take an hour or a few days. Don’s rush anything.

• What is your job? If you worked this for five years, what would you become? Are you happy with the answer?
• What do you do after work and on weekends? If you did that for the next five years, how would you evolve? Who would you become? Are you happy with the answer?
• What are your daily routines? How would they impact your life a year from now? Are you happy with the answer?
• What are your habits (morning, evening habits, communication habits, relationship habits, mindset habits, eating habits, learning habits, health habits)? How would they impact your life a year or five years from now? Are you happy with the answer?
• Who do you spend your time with? How do they make your life happier? How does communication with these people impact your life? Are you happy with your answer?

Where do you want to go?

Now that you know where you stand in life, you need to clarify your long-term goals.

This part has a few sections, and I will include an example, too:

• How do you want your life to look like ten years from now? Go as far as possible, dream about everything, and write it all down. There is no such thing as too much.

For example, in 10 years, Jane sees herself as a successful bookshop owner in a big city. She spends her days overviewing the shop, making sure everything goes smoothly and people are happy to buy books from her shop. She ships books worldwide and has established her place in the book world. Her evenings are spent with her spouse and children; her weekends are dedicated to traveling around. She goes on multiple vacations every holiday and is content with the way her life unfolds.

• What would your life look like in five years’ time if you were to pursue that 10-year goal?

Following our example… If Jane wanted to have a bookshop in a big city 10 years from now, a 5-year plan would probably already include an open bookshop, even if it hasn’t grown wildly. 5 years from now, she still works full-time in that shop. She is actively working on attracting authors for book signings and promoting her shop both on social media and locally. She spends quality time with her spouse or is in a healthy relationship.

• What would your life look like in three years’ time if you were to pursue your 5-year goal?

To have a big bookshop already open in five years, Jane believes she would need to have a small bookshop first. So, three years from now, that small bookshop is blooming. She is the only full-time worker in there. She spends her days arranging books, working on promoting her shop to locals, establishing a good social media profile, engaging with readers and followers, coming up with fun games, local authors’ book signings, and more. She is probably in a healthy relationship or actively dating.

• How would your life look like one year from now if you were to pursue your three-year goal?

To have a small bookshop open three years from now, Jane would need funds. A year from now might look very different, depending on others’ starting point. Jane would need to save for it. A year from now, she might have a small online bookshop on Etsy (vintage books there only), eBay, or her own self-hosted online bookshop. This would help her pile up some funds to open a small local bookshop. Alternatively, she might be working hard on a higher-paying job, living below her means, and saving up for her dream. She needs to decide which option suits her better.

Think carefully about where you’d want to be in 10 years and work backward to understand the process.

Yes, things can change many times throughout the years, but those changes are outside your control. Today, you need to work with the knowledge you have while understanding that this is a very hypothetical but achievable plan.

What’s fun about it? (Why?)

What’s fun about the life you want so badly? What does it bring you? What feelings? What emotions?

Finding your “Why?” and being clear about the internal reasons for your desires will be your main source of motivation when you are missing out on such. Trust me on this one: You will get discouraged countless times, and that’s okay!

In those moments, grabbing that list with “WHYs” would help you keep going regardless of the obstacles.

Who do you need to become to get there?

You are halfway through your self-development plan!

Yes, I understand that this is still the 4th question only, but trust me, if you got this far, the hard work is basically done (uhm, almost).

Who do you need to become to achieve your dream life?

Yes, you need to change because if the person you are today were the person who would achieve your goals, you wouldn’t need to create a plan for it.

So, who do you need to be? What are the qualities of that person living your dream life?

How do they speak? How do they dress? What do they eat?

How do they spend their time?

What are their values, boundaries, non-negotiables, habits, routines, and everything in between?

What are you already doing well?

The simple fact that you are here, trying to improve your life and actively searching for the best ways to do it shows that you are already doing much better than many people out there.

While many people accept their life as something that happens to them, you are ready to change your perspective and take control of it.

List everything you already do well and overlap with that “future You” we talked about above.

Be generous and honest about it. This isn’t time to work on self-confidence, but time to be realistic and say things as they are.

If you are already eating healthy, write it down.

If you are already one step into your plan, write it down. If you are already in a healthy relationship with yourself, studying something that “gets you there,” and doing your part in this plan, write it down.

What’s missing?

Look at who you want to become. Look at who you are now. What’s missing?

Where do you need to put more sweat and make things happen? What changes do you need to make? What’s missing?

Pro tip: List only things that are within your control.

Possible setbacks and workarounds!

Expect the best, but be prepared for the worst! What could be your personal setbacks?

Most of the time, we are our biggest enemies. We talk ourselves in and out of plans and ideas quicker than anyone around us would ever do it.

Taking this into consideration, what would your biggest setbacks be?

Essentially, you are looking for your weak spots. This requires you to know yourself well and be honest. Do you have an unhealthy relationship with your phone?

Do you lack the discipline to stick to routines? Do you lack self-belief? What about knowledge about the work you’re going to do?

Are you clear about the exact process you’d need to go through?

In our example above, Jane might lack knowledge of what running a bookshop really is. She might not know how much money it would cost her monthly, or she might not know where to get her books from. She might also lack the self-confidence to run a bookshop by herself.

Your honesty can be painful, but it will be a huge step ahead because only by exposing those weak spots can we work on strengthening them.

How am I going to have fun while working on myself?

Let me throw the cliche out there: we live one life only, and if what you do isn’t fun, you are going to give up on it.

I wish I could be one of those gurus who shout, “No pain, no gain!”, but in reality, I am going to dim your lights with this realization: The process might be longer than you expect. A mere dream of what “could be” isn’t going to be enough for more than a year or two.

You want to have fun while working on your dream life. Learn to love that process and everything it brings you (or most of it).

So, how are you going to have fun while building your dream life?

What am I sacrificing to get there?

You will sacrifice so many things; I can’t even begin to list them all. For some, it will be sleep; for others, it is relationships with people that hold you back. Sometimes, you will sacrifice your beliefs that have been part of you for your whole life.

You might need to sacrifice a few summers by not going on fancy holidays, or you might sacrifice your evenings so you can build your dream life.

Make no mistake: you will sacrifice a lot before you get where you want to be. Why?

Because you can never add something without making the space for it.

What is the next actionable step?

This is the final question you want to answer: What is the next logical actionable step?

It might be just another step on your journey, or it might be the very first one. Find it and make it happen. Then, ask yourself, what’s the next actionable step? With one foot in front of the other, you will get where you want to be.