Apparently, I can't leave HR without giving myself a development plan.
I spent six years helping people write their Personal Development Plans.
Now I've left corporate.
And what did I do with my newfound freedom?
I gave myself a PDP.
Apparently, you can take the girl out of HR, but you can't take HR out of the girl.
The difference?
This might be the most personal Personal Development Plan I've ever written.
I've always believed in the power of having a PDP.
Writing down your goals, being clear about what you want to focus on and regularly reflecting on your progress can be incredibly powerful.
But I've also seen the other side of it.
PDPs that become a tick-box exercise.
Something you write once and then don't look at again until the next performance cycle.
And sometimes, goals that aren't really yours at all.
They're the things you think you should develop.
Maybe even the things you think your manager wants to hear.
And I'll admit, even though I spent years encouraging other people to take their development seriously, I've been guilty of this myself.
My PDP often contained things I was working on anyway.
I'd write them down, make them SMART, and then not necessarily use the plan to actively guide where I was spending my energy.
Now, for the first time in my career, there is no corporate structure around me.
And suddenly, having a Personal Development Plan feels more relevant to me than ever.
Because I have a lot of freedom right now.
And freedom also means a lot of possible directions.
I'm building my own business.
I'm developing as a coach.
I'm practising and learning more about yoga.
I'm writing.
I'm travelling.
I'm experimenting with new wellbeing practices and routines.
I'm trying to figure out where in the world I might want to live for a while.
And I'm trying to build a life that feels much more aligned with who I am.
All of that takes time.
And all of it could easily compete for my attention.
So whether you call them development goals, intentions, things you're manifesting or simply things you want to work on, I think there's something powerful about being really clear about where you want to spend your energy.
Putting the PERSONAL back into Personal Development Plan
The biggest difference with my new PDP is quite simple.
I only want to put things on it that genuinely matter to me.
They don't have to make me better at my job or prepare me for a promotion.
They don't even have to be skills.
A development goal could be a mindset I want to practise.
A routine I want to establish.
A way I want to feel.
One of mine, for example, is:
Learn how to rest without feeling guilty.
I'm pretty sure I never would have put that on one of my corporate PDPs.
But right now, it might be one of the more important things I could learn.
I want wellbeing to be an essential part of my life rather than something I build my schedule around.
I want to step into my creativity again and enjoy the freedom of creating whatever I think is worth creating.
I want to build a successful business combining coaching and yoga and create work that I'm genuinely passionate about.
I want to explore where in the world I could see myself living and what "home" actually means to me.
And then there's probably my biggest development focus for the rest of this year:
Courage and exploration.
With several months of travelling ahead of me, I don't just want to go to beautiful places and tick countries off a list.
I want to deliberately do things that scare me.
I'm already looking at my travel plans differently.
What makes me slightly nervous?
What would I normally tell myself I couldn't do?
What experience would push me outside my comfort zone?
And can I intentionally choose some of those things rather than avoiding them?
I want to finish this year with a collection of moments where I can say:
I was scared. And I did it anyway.
But I don't want to turn my life into another performance cycle.
That's the part I'm still figuring out.
Because the old HR person in me could very easily turn all of this into a great template.
Development objective.
Measures.
Success criteria.
Timeline.
KPIs.
And suddenly I'm giving myself a performance rating for how successfully I've been unemployed.
Absolutely not.
I don't care how many countries I've visited.
I don't want a KPI for the number of scary things I've done.
And I definitely don't need to optimise every hour of the next few months in the name of "personal development."
I still want to measure progress.
Just differently.
Do I feel more aligned?
Happier?
Healthier?
More curious?
More free?
Braver?
More creative?
More adventurous?
It's definitely fluffier than "complete three training courses by Q4."
But I don't think that makes it any less real.
I can journal about it.
I can reflect on it in my daily and weekly check-ins.
I can bring the same topics into my coaching sessions and notice how my perspective changes over the coming weeks and months.
Because maybe some development isn't something you can count.
Maybe you have to embody it.
So I'm redesigning my PDP too.
This time, opening PowerPoint and creating another table just felt... wrong.
Nobody else needs to approve it.
It's mine.
So I wanted to actually write it myself.
By hand.
I used the last page of my daily manifestation journal - the journal I already open every day to write about the life I'm trying to create.
That somehow felt like exactly the right place for it.
Just me, a pen, a blank page and the question:
Who do I want to be at the end of this chapter?
Not: What do I want to have achieved?
I wrote:
Aligned. Happy. Healthy. Open. Curious. Free. Brave. Creative. Adventurous.
And yes, I drew little symbols next to all of them because apparently my PDP can look however I want it to now :-)
Then I wrote my intention:
To consciously spend my energy on the things that matter to me, build a life that feels aligned and use this chapter to become more of who I already am.
And one more thing that definitely wasn't part of my old PDP:
I give myself permission to…
Change my mind. Rest. Fail. Be a beginner. Be scared. Say no. Say yes. Change the plan.
Then came my five growth areas:
Courage & Exploration
Wellbeing & Rest
Creativity & Expression
Purpose & Business
Home & Belonging
I didn't completely throw away the old, corporate structure either.
I kept the parts that were useful and made them feel more like me.
What do I want to grow into?
Why does this matter to me?
How will I practise it?
How will I know I'm embodying it?
Progress doesn't always fit neatly into a number.
Sometimes you notice it in your behaviour, in your thoughts or in how you feel.
Sometimes in how something that terrified you three months ago suddenly doesn't feel quite so scary anymore.
That's why my final piece isn't a deadline.
It's reflection.
I want to keep asking: What am I learning?
And maybe that's what I've learned after six years of working with PDPs:
Put the personal back into it.
Write down what actually matters to you.
And don't only think about what will make you better at your job this year.
Think longer term.
Who do you want to become?
What kind of life are you trying to create?
What deserves more of your energy?
And if this chapter of my life teaches me one thing, I hope it's to trust myself enough to live my own life.
Other people's expectations will always exist.
But I only get one life.
And if there's something I genuinely want to do, I want to have the courage and trust to do it anyway.
Maybe that's the most personal development goal I've ever written.
Namaste, Sarah x
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