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Create Your Own Personal Development Plan
Understand the 5 simple steps to create your personal development plan part 3 of this PDP series.
You Can Read the Full Transcript Below:
Nathan Simmonds:
Rah, right. We are in getting carried away with a deep conversation looked up and it’s one o’clock. Good afternoon everybody. So good to see the people here. Oh, fantastic. Seeing some wonderful people turn out. I see you. Julie’s here. Evan’s here. Gina, again, thank you very much for being here. My pronunciation on this is gonna be wrong, but I wanna say Carra or Ciara. You can correct me on my pronunciation. Please do . See you too. Really appreciated that you are here. Fantastic.
Nathan Simmonds:
We’re just gonna give it 30 seconds just to see if anyone else is turning up like Kira. Thank you very much Kira, thank you for being here. Very appreciated. Let’s making sure as we’re just waiting for any last people to turn up that we are setting ourselves up for success. It is one oh one. Let’s get the phones on flight mode, zero distractions. We have a drink regret to advise. This is lukewarm tea.
Nathan Simmonds:
It’s as good as it’s gonna get right now. And we have a nice blank piece of paper in front of us ready to go. So on that piece of paper at the top you are gonna write keepers. These are the things that you want to remember here at Sticky Learning at MBM. This is what we refer to the reminders. So when you read back through those notes, it’s gonna support your new thinking, your new thoughts, and that new learning to stay in place for a much longer period of time. So let’s dive into this day three. Day three of the PDP session. Welcome to Sticky Learning Lunches with me.
Nathan Simmonds:
Nathan Simmons, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM making Business Matter, the home of Sticky learning. We are the leadership development and soft skills provider for the grocery and manufacturing industry. And the idea of these lunchtime sessions is to help you be the best version of you in the work that you do right now in this situation where you’re working from home and preparing you for the return back to work so you have a whole new set of skills and thinking that’s gonna help you become more incredible than yesterday. Where are we today?
Nathan Simmonds:
What actions? Let me ask this question. First of all, to everyone that’s here, if you’ve been in the previous sessions, what actions and you’ve seen the other videos, what actions have you taken so far from what we’ve talked about in the last two days? What have you put in place? What are you doing differently? What have you written down as a result of the previous two sessions? Let’s see those in the chat box, in the questions box. For those that haven’t, we’re gonna dive into this session. I’m gonna give you a bit of a recap shortly and then we’re gonna get some momentum.
Nathan Simmonds:
Started to think about my exit plan. Absolutely taking a stab at where I want to be in five years. Amazing. Still trying to work out my exit strategy. The fact that you are working it out right now, that’s the key thing. Started working on my PDP with the concept is not a format, it’s a way of thinking. Absolutely. This written goals for myself for the next three months. Amazing Chris. Thinking about the big goal, getting it bigger. So when you set your big goal, when you put it in place, ask yourself the question, when this happens, what does it enable me to do? And then that way what we can do is start to seeing what comes after that moment.
Nathan Simmonds:
Because what happens is, is when you are setting a goal, it becomes like a conveyor belt. As you start to move towards it, it starts to evolve. So although you may achieve that goal, there’ll be another goal that starts to form because you’ve achieved it. The faster that you work through or process this thinking and development, the quicker these goals start to to increase and expand. Five year plan started. Amazing Gareth, personal development planning. That’s exactly what it says on the tennis personal. So we’ve got everyone here continuing the structure. We’ve got everything sorted. Just making sure the housekeeping’s right. Yes. Good. Continuing with our structure.
Nathan Simmonds:
So yesterday we looked at the OAG, the overarching goal. This is what we started to think about and we asked three questions to help us start designing that overarching goal. The first one was what fills us with pride? The second one, what creates excitement for us? And the third one, what are our values? ’cause when we understand what creates pride for us or what we’ve done that created pride or what we’ve done or we’re planning that creates excitement and what it, what our values are and how we’ve then what we’ve contributed that have created or demonstrated these things, we can start to get a real understanding of of who and why we are. Because when you can see this, you can start to be inspired.
Nathan Simmonds:
You get inspiration. Once you have inspiration, then you can use your imagination. Once you’ve applied your imagination, then you can put into practice your innovation and those lights are bang on that right? Bear with me. It’s not much better. Goodness, it’s a bit better. So once we’ve got the inspiration, we can apply imagination and innovation. When we start looking at those things, then we can start building our over, uh, overarching goal. They talk about necessity being the father of invention phrase that you may have heard. But the truth is, inspiration is the mother that births all of this. So when you tap into this because, and you start looking at the things that have caused these sensations, these emotions, you can tap into that inspiration
Nathan Simmonds:
Which creates this, which then leads to this the thinking that creates action. It’s really important. We get into this and we start to understand, ’cause this is where your purpose comes from. This is what your purpose actually is. And by doing the analytics on these things, you can then start designing something that’s actually in line with that purpose from a deeper point of view. You may have heard me say this before, and the difference between motivation versus inspiration.
Nathan Simmonds:
Motivation is external. Now the double pay overtime, the packet of Harry Bow for doing a good job, all of those things, but it’s fleeting. Whereas inspiration is constant. It’s an energy, it’s an internal source that you can tap into at any given point in order to, he says, thank you very much Ivan for reminding me. Appreciate it. In order to create that thing that actually feels good, that creates fulfillment so that you want to go after it because it’s exciting and it’s engaging. That was the headline recaps number two.
Nathan Simmonds:
What we want to do though is because this can be overwhelming and it can be big and, and it can seem too far away for us, is we then wanna break it down. I’m gonna dive onto a poll here ’cause I’m interested to see out of this though, before we start giving you the structures to break it down, I wanna find out when was the last time your leader spent time helping you with your plan? So let’s get, let’s have a look at this first before we start getting into the internal leadership first. So we’re gonna launch this poll. When was the last time your leader spent time with you?
Nathan Simmonds:
Someone’s already answered that. I’m not sure we even have an answer to that on the, on the poll. When was the last time your leader spent time with you to help you with your plan? And one of the responses here was never, not surprised. So 40%, 12 months plus 10%, 12, 30%, six. We’ve got a few never nevers, also never crikey. I’m, I’m a part of me is not surprised. Regrettably.
Nathan Simmonds:
So 40% on here has said 12 months plus I didn’t put never on here as an option because I thought every leader would’ve done at some point 10%, 12 months, 30%, six months, 20% or one month. So the majority is more than 12 months. And a handful of people over here saying never. How does it feel when your leaders take that little interest in what you are actually doing? Light up the question box or the chat box. How does it actually feel when your leaders show that little interest in what you are doing, whether you need it or not, to struggle shi and that’s not my words, that’s someone else’s words only number and get not a person.
Nathan Simmonds:
Absolutely ignore, demotivate, disheartened left out, insignificant, undervalued, unhappy, bam, demotivating. It’s not. Okay. So as leaders, so the people here that have leaders or, or have people in their charge, in their gift, um, you know, it is not your responsibility to run their personal development. It is your responsibility to be interested in their personal development, to ask them how they’re doing. Are there any obstacles that maybe they need, um, to have cleared so they can move forward faster or to have someone to bounce the ideas off of.
Nathan Simmonds:
So if you feel like this about your leaders or whatever level you are in the business or in your, or in your organization, it doesn’t matter if you feel like that, is it okay to potentially have people in your teams that feel like that as well? And I know what the answer is, but the truth is that the people that maybe your leaders haven’t been in a room with me having this sort of conversation to say how important it’s or how it actually feels. They’ve never been shown how to have the conversation, how to design their own personal development plan.
Nathan Simmonds:
So they don’t know how to have that conversation with you because they don’t know how to have it with themselves. Leadership development starts internally before you give it externally. You cannot lead yourself. You cannot lead anybody else. You cannot give more than you have yourself. So it’s important we understand this.
Nathan Simmonds:
If you know how this feels, if you are aware of this, then it’s important that you do this for other people. It is a reminder that it is my career and my responsibility. Absolutely. This Chris, it’s absolutely this. This is your personal development. It is your responsibility, it’s everybody’s. But at the same time, people have never been shown how to fill their form in or to, to have the mindset to actually work on their own personal development because they’re expecting somebody outside of them to tell them what to do. That’s not how it works. Because your career development, your career trajectory, your outcomes, your overarching goal is yours, not somebody else’s.
Nathan Simmonds:
So let’s give you a couple of structures here to break this down. He says, looking at the time, ah, there’s too much to cram into this. One of the first elements is when you’ll get into this space is you wanna learn how to break some of this stuff down in order to get here, start using some of the open questions again, you know, I’ve talked about it in this every session and I know some of you have already bought packets of them is the coaching cards. We sell them on the website.
Nathan Simmonds:
They’re a huge value for what you’re actually getting, um, for the amount you’re actually paying for them. Now, there are a series of questions in there that will just help you to think differently. You can use ’em on your, on your own to yourself. You can use them with your team and other people in your charge. And you can use the questions to ask them to help them develop their thinking. So it just starts asking ourselves some open questions to break down the thinking.
Nathan Simmonds:
The first stage we wanna do, how I break it down is, is in three categories. First of all, if we are setting up our personal development plan and we’re doing it because we want to get promoted and we wanna move into a different part department, there’s three aspects we need to be aware of. If we’re working inside an organization. The five key traits of the business.
Nathan Simmonds:
So that you are aligned to the organizational vision, the, the values, whatever it is they hold important. What are the five key traits that that company, that this organization holds dearest. That I need to make sure that I’m ticking that I’m, I’m, I’m really clear on. ’cause if I’m not doing this when I walk into an interview and a promotion, I’m not gonna be displaying or airing those values in a congruent and authentic way. Therefore, I’m making it more difficult for me to move forward. So this is the first thing we break down the first, um, section. What are the top five traits for the organization?
Nathan Simmonds:
The next box we wanna be working on is the five traits for the role I’m in now. Because if you’re not doing a good job where you are at this point in time, who’s gonna give you a promotion? Who’s gonna say, oh, you’re doing a fantastic job over there, let’s give you a job over here. Because obviously that’s working out really well. It’s not good business sense. So what are the top five key things that I need to be getting right in this space right now? So I know I’ve got, um, a sense of, um, focus certainty about myself so that I can present some of this content.
Nathan Simmonds:
The next five traits or elements is of the job that I want to be going for. So I’m working here in the organization, I’m getting this right, I’m doing my job here, I’m getting that part right for certain. But then the next part, which is the interesting bit is am I doing or working on the elements now in the job that I want to be in? ’cause in order to get the job, you have to be doing the job. And, and most of us know this when we think about it. If you go for a job interview and, and someone will say, can you gimme an example of where you’ve done so and so and so and so, and what they’re looking for is where you’ve given.
Nathan Simmonds:
Given examples of where you are doing the job or have the experience they’re looking for. ’cause they want you to come in and hit the ground running, you know, at least walking if not running before you get there. And by having done and got the experiences here while still doing the job that you are in the interview is just a almost a box ticking exercise because you’ve already got the experience, you’re already doing it and you’re already adding value at that level.
Nathan Simmonds:
And what you are doing is opening the door so that actually you can walk in and say, yes, I’m doing this. So we start to work in these five spaces. We’ve got a clear view of company current future, and you are working in those three spaces. Breakdown number 2.3 on this is we then wanna start turning some of these elements into a hundred day plans. And actually we want three of these.
Nathan Simmonds:
So this overarching goal could be three years, five years, 10 years, whatever. Great, fantastic. It’s right over there. But what am I doing now to get the understanding? Okay, so I’m getting a viewpoint of where I am in in close proximity little bit. No, the here and now, a little bit over there, but then we wanna break it down into a hundred days nine. I did 90 to a hundred day chunks of time where we can focus our attention. And in this we then start documenting the actions that we’re gonna take. Now you, I most of us in this room right now, having this conversation as.
Nathan Simmonds:
Let’s see who here right now is in a full-time job and I yes, full-time job. Couple of years to come in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, yes, yes. Me. Yeah, good. When we break this down, you cannot give, you know, you can’t work on a project for a whole day. You cannot work on your own personal development for a whole day simply because you’ve got your own responsibilities and expectations and obligations that are sitting inside this for seven and a half, eight hours a day, depending on what your job is you’re doing.
Nathan Simmonds:
So as we start to see some of these traits and elements we need to be working on, we can then start to break down what we wanna be doing or aspects we need to be working on and take up a level, sorry. So we break it down into the three 100 days and we start to give these things headlines as in kind of a theme of aspects we need to be working on. So what you may find is you may have an r and d element, or you may have a learning element or um, a networking element. And these, what these will be is they will be your titles for your 100 days
Nathan Simmonds:
And you’ll, you’ll see certain parts you need to be working on it in order to move you towards where you want to be at the end of the 12 months. So the idea is that the end of 12 months, you want to be in a position where you are moving towards your overarching goal, that you are taking steps to make that happen. You break it down into the 100 day chunks and each one of those chunks will have a title, but you will find there’s a chronological order to making that year goal happen.
Nathan Simmonds:
I realize that I had to backtrack slightly. There is everyone with me and what I’m saying, lemme just check this right now. Good, good, good, good, good. I missed a step and I had to come out, but it’s good. So we take the oag, we, we, we chop it up, what are we gonna do for the next 12 months? And then we break that 12 months down into 100 day chunks, three of them. What’s the reason we break it down into three 100 day chunks.
Nathan Simmonds:
Conscious of time. Last question before we get into some of the, before I, I’m giving you some elements to this. When is the best time to set goals? When is the best time do you think yesterday , when is the best time to set goals do you think? When I’m open to them it’s a good shout. No better time than the present. Absolutely anytime. But before you achieve the current one, absolutely keep the momentum. Ongoing process.
Nathan Simmonds:
Absolutely when I make the decision. Good. So there’s some good stuff in here. The common misnomer though that we have to work with with goal setting is the time they tell you to set goals and do all of this stuff is New Year’s Eve, you know, is in December. And that is what I’ve come to realize recently. The problem with December is if you are not on holiday, everybody else’s.
Nathan Simmonds:
So if you are doing work in these elements here and you are sending out emails or trying to get some elements of learning done, if you are not on holiday, somebody else’s. So it takes two weeks to get an answer and then you are in Christmas and then you’re not gonna get a response. So de December in itself is challenging, uh, for, for networking and working with other people. Yes, you can still do your learning, but you need to be, to be conscious that it’s gonna be a slower month then right in the middle of winter when it’s.
Nathan Simmonds:
The shortest days and it’s the coldest and it’s the most miserable and all of those things people tell you to set your goals at New Year’s Eve. And then you wonder why 21 days later that you know, you haven’t followed through on your resolutions, you’ve broken all your, you’ve fallen down on all your goals.
Nathan Simmonds:
And you’re not going where you wanna be and then we get to the third week of, of January and blue Monday, which again was just a marketing tool, you ended up, you’ve got more month of money and you’re miserable because you haven’t done anything that you set out to do and you haven’t even got to the end of January. So when I say about the three blocks of 100, it is about using the time from around mid-February onwards through until kind of the the the end of November period. And we use these blocks of time to focus our energy and our efforts every single day.
Nathan Simmonds:
Now when we have work, we are not gonna be able to spend seven and a half hours doing this one task. If we’re working, we give ourselves one hour a day. It might be your lunch break, it might be on the way home from work. It might be when you get home from work that you, you factor in eight o’clock. So the children have gone to sleep and it’s eight o’clock, I’m gonna do an hour’s work on my own development. But you break out 100 days of one hour actions in each of these sections.
Nathan Simmonds:
So you are giving yourself one hour of focus attention to get into what it is you need to be doing that’s moving you forward every single day to that 12 month objective that’s moving you towards the OAG. I definitely try to squeeze too much into today’s session. Conscious of time. So let’s look on the questions box. What has been useful from what I’ve covered so far today?
Nathan Simmonds:
Three blocks of 100. Good. The five traits. Absolutely. And we can just break this down, uh, Gareth, you know, the five traits, company values, job necessities, future role where I’m going and start doing the job that you wanna move into. Three blocks of 100, yeah, three groups of traits. Fantastic. All of it. Thank you. 5, 5, 5. Yeah. Five traits. Good. Three blocks of 100. Breaking it down to little steps. So earlier deal deal with yes. The way of continuously combining personal development with day job.
Nathan Simmonds:
Absolutely. It’s amazing when you go and sit down on your lunch and you work in a big organization, how many people are playing games or texting the person on the other side of the table. And actually how we utilizing the time we’ve got, whether we’re driving home, listening to audio books, listening to a podcast, using our lunch to, to add elements to essays and degrees that we’re working on.
Nathan Simmonds:
Um, OA shall fill me with. Yeah, absolutely. Your OAG when you get, when you know that thing you wanna, it’s about understanding that job that you can do that gives you that sense of pride and excitement. More than 80% of your day it exists. You just have to work it out. And this first two, so recap, very helpful, particularly about inspiration. Adriana, it is good to see you here again, really appreciate it.
Nathan Simmonds:
Those videos that’re on YouTube now go and watch them. Um, yeah, I’ve really enjoyed those sessions as much as I did today. Uh, traits for next level sectioning themes. Absolutely 100 days Inspiration and imagination gives in the absolutely gives innovation. Going back to the beginning, what the best way to create reminders for when you pick it up again, going back to the beginning, what are the best ways to create the reminders for when you pick it up again?
Nathan Simmonds:
Is this a place for forms or are mind maps? Yes, I’m currently working on the form to help log some of this stuff. I have a very, uh, kind of fun foundational level, fundamental, basic level of, of Excel sheet that’s covering this. And we’re, we’re building a document at the moment that’s gonna give us some extra elements to this, um, just to make it super clean. So you’ve got that stuff to fill in and then that helps keep your mindset on track because it’s not, um, it’s not the form, it’s the mindset that makes the form work.
Nathan Simmonds:
The mind comes first thinking, it was always the thought that precedes the action. Um, one here, you know, suggestion from Darren is using outlook reminders or book one-to-ones with someone. Absolutely get this stuff in. What gets scheduled gets done. We’re starting to get some of this structure. I know we’re getting into a little bit of the technical elements of it. Mindset first, thinking activity, brilliant mindset that makes the form work absolutely this every single time. We don’t want the process to run us. We want to use it to, its our to our advantage.
Nathan Simmonds:
Questions, what questions have you got for me right now about what I just downloaded for 20 minutes with you? What questions have you got for me this very moment? And that tea is stone cold now waiting for those questions to come in. One thing that I will talk about a bit tomorrow, and I’m gonna headline with you to this now, is when you set these 100 days up, you will find that there is a chronological order to what happens in these things.
Nathan Simmonds:
So when you are setting the 100 days up, for example, um, previously I ran a a 16 week personal development program online. Now I’m, in order to make that happen, what I did was I needed to do my r and d, I need to do my research and then I needed to test it with an individual to see if it was the right content and then I needed to launch it.
Nathan Simmonds:
So there’s a chronological order to each, all three of those steps. You can’t launch a product that you haven’t researched, you can’t test a product that you haven’t built. So you’ll find a running order. And it’s the same when we’re looking for say, a new job or we’re going for the next step in our career. Well actually what are the running orders of these 100 days? Is it, you know, that I need to learn about that role?
Nathan Simmonds:
So I need to go and speak to people in order to understand what these five traits are. Okay. So I need to go and find out they’re teaching me this stuff. They’re networking. Okay, what, what’s the next stage? What comes after this questions starting to come in? Suggest using competency frameworks to then? Absolutely. So we at um, sticky learning at MBM, we have the competency frameworks.
Nathan Simmonds:
So if there’s certain elements that you need to be working on, we have a list of these. Um, we will share these in the email afterwards and you can see what those elements of areas are that we can then support on. So if you see there’s certain from the virtual classrooms, from the coaching, from working with me, either one-to-one or in group environments with your team, we can work through those and we can really build them up. Is there an inconsistency in working on aspects sequentially?
Nathan Simmonds:
Are I um, and learnings versus opportunity to develop them, crop develop them cropping up. Um, as a co There is, and I’m gonna talk about this a little bit tomorrow, is that con context switching to making sure we’re working on one task. It doesn’t mean though that if you are working in one space, so you are working in your r and d phase and all of a sudden something becomes for me, becomes aware in my launch aspect that I completely ignore it.
Nathan Simmonds:
But what I do, I call it octopus thinking. I send out one of my tentacles, I grab that idea and I hold onto it. So at the right time when I’m in that, that phase, that element, I can bring that stuff in and and utilize it. But I’m also aware of kind of the distraction as your brain starts to kick in, oh, I’m learning this and all these other ideas and all these other learning comes in and you become overwhelmed ’cause you’ve gone down 15 different rabbit holes in 37 different ways.
Nathan Simmonds:
So when we work on the 100 days, we want to try and sit in that space of focus for as long as possible until we tick all those boxes. I talk a bit more about that tomorrow though. Um, why is there such a lack of interest in people with development from management? Because no one did it to them. Simple as that. We do unto others as was done unto us, predominantly in leadership, which is, you know, one of the reasons I get so agitated and, and and emotional about this is when we’re working with people is, you know, leaders and managers will do to you.
Nathan Simmonds:
That was done to them. And if their managers and leaders didn’t have any, uh, leadership development and they didn’t have any when they were Ted, you are not gonna get anything from them. Now it we, the they, all they will do is accentuate the gaps that existed in their knowhow because they don’t want to go and face into that learning ’cause it feels uncomfortable and they have to acknowledge that they don’t know something or they haven’t got all the answers and people don’t like to feel like that.
Nathan Simmonds:
Um, again, it’s why I get so emotional about this stuff and I’m so engaged in it because I want to help change the, the world of leadership through these sorts of conversations that the reason that you are here in this room, having this conversations mean that you means that you now know something different and it’s not for you to then go and bash people with a stick of, well I know how to do a PDP, you are wrong and da da da.
Nathan Simmonds:
No, you now know something different so that when you go back into your own head space, you can develop yourself, which means you can develop other people. That’s the importance of what we do. I have one last question before we, we we, before we leave this space, what would happen if your team was having this sort of training with me right now? What would happen in your business, in your business area if we were to have a group conversation, what do you think would happen to your team if we were to have a group conversation about personal development planning, penny dropping?
Nathan Simmonds:
What do you think would happen to your business results if we had a session that we’ve covered this week and we haven’t even finished with your team? Improved communication cohesion as a whole and better self-awareness. Absolutely. When all of a sudden you’ve got all your people in your team and they’re looking at the five traits of what they’re doing right now, I see how this links to where I am going. All of a sudden I need to be the best version of myself because if I’m not being the best version of myself now, I’m not gonna be creating the best version of what I see in the future.
Nathan Simmonds:
And we can start to build this stuff in and then people start to put their plans in because no one in your team is always gonna stay in your team. The idea is that they develop and move, but in order for them to develop and move, they have to be the best version of themselves in the job that they’re doing right now so that they can move. As you start doing this, your results improve. We’ve become a better team. Excuse me. And the veterans would have a better experience when they come to the hospital. Absolutely.
Nathan Simmonds:
Absolutely. This people doing the jobs they’ll be doing now would do a better job where they are now because they’ve got an understanding of where that is taking them. Rather than feeling like they’re being told what to do, they’re actually living up to their own expectations of what they’re capable of doing. And they’re starting to live into their potential and their purpose. ’cause they’re looking for things that fill them with pride. They’re looking for things that excitement.
Nathan Simmonds:
They’re looking for ways to display their values. Win-win. Thank you very much for today. I hope it’s been useful. I’m aware that kinda my brain was going a little bit with the technical stuff here. I wanted to give as much of this as possible to you. We’ve got the link down there for the coaching cards. A couple of other things to bring into one, remember to tomorrow’s session, it is available.
Nathan Simmonds:
Please click on the link. Book yourself in. If you are not booked in for tomorrow, get booked in. Make sure you’re getting up to date with the emails and the links for whatever reason. If you can, um, attend, attend, if you need to watch the replay, watch the replay, it’s there. But if you can be there live, you get to talk to me, interact with me and talk to me and ask questions. The second thing is virtual classrooms.
Nathan Simmonds:
We’ve got the virtual classrooms available if we can help you, click on the links, have a look at the virtual classrooms. Finally, if you want to bring me into a room to have a conversation about personal development, you want me to help you up, um, help you to up the game of your teams and get these results and embed some of this thinking mindset and skillset and heart set.
Nathan Simmonds:
’cause this is important to me, into your businesses. Let us know. We are here to help you. We’re here to help to develop you and, and help your guys be the best version of themselves. Thank you for a wonderful day. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow for day four and we’re gonna start breaking down some of this technical, a little bit of neuroscience, a little bit of mindset stuff to keep the daily action going. Thank you very much everyone. Look, have a lovely rest of your day. Any questions come up, you know where we are. Please ask. Really appreciate it.
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