Personal Development Goals for Employees (and Examples)

Are you asking yourself, what are the examples of personal goals at work?

Indeed, setting personal development goals is pretty good. But following them through is a more rewarding exercise if you have made up your mind to achieve success. Whether as an employee or as someone running your own small online or physical business.

Recall when you first appeared before your interviewer for your current job. You had so many things on your mind, as per what the job will offer you. And apart from the salary, you also thought of the possibility of personal growth and development through the job.

In retrospect or introspect, do you think you’re still very much committed to achieving your personal and professional development goals?

Well, in this blog post, we shall explore the following:

• Personal development goals for work examples
• Why Personal development goals for work examples?
• Personal growth objectives examples
• Creating Personal Growth Objectives examples By Yourself

 

Personal development goals in the workplace examples

Everyone has one challenge or the other, but the ability to identify areas of challenge can lead to creating a list of actionable plans.

That said, what are personal development goals for work?

In simple terms, personal development goals are objectives you want to achieve based on the need you identified in your life. But that’s after evaluating your strengths and weaknesses in terms of your skills, attitude, character, and competencies.

But as an employee, examples of personal goals at work are those realistic and achievable objectives that you’ve set for yourself. Which will, in turn, enable you to achieve improvements in some identified crucial areas for the sole aim of maximizing your potential to the full.

 

Why Personal development goals for work examples?

You’ll agree that every individual that is not complacent wants to grow personally, even as they experience career advancement in their professional life. The reason many people write up personal development goals.

On this note, the following are the benefits employees derive from having personal development goals in the workplace examples:

1. Keeps you focused

Having clear personal development and business goals give you clear direction as to what you want and how you plan to achieve them. Without giving in to tons of distractions that are likely to spring up along the way. In other words, well-thought-out personal development goals for employees can provide them with a clear sense of direction.

2. Stimulate dedication

Putting before you plain goals on paper stimulates dedication as you begin to take pragmatic steps in the right direction. Because you know that it would be impossible to realize these goals without the right attitude to work.

Thus, your set examples of personal development objectives can be your motivation to build and maintain good ethical behaviors like dedication, and discipline, to name a few.

3. Fosters sound relationships with colleagues

When the accomplishment of your goal becomes a driving force, it won’t take you a long time to start building quality relationships with your colleagues. Owing to that fact, you’d realize that there is only little you can do or achieve individually without cooperation from others.

4. Efficiency level shoots up

When you’re focused and committed to your goals, naturally, the extent of your efficiency at work rises. It’s like a farmer reaping the fruits of his labor during harvest time, long after planting seeds, and thoroughly caring for the plants.

In other words, staying focused on your personal development goals at work as an employee (or employer) increases your productivity as a person.

 

Personal growth objectives examples

Every working environment can be overwhelming. But having definite personal development goals for yourself at work is what you need to keep yourself relevant at your place of work. As the saying goes, you earn more by learning more. Hence, the following are personal development goals for employee examples:

1. Becoming an active listener

Mastering the art of active listening is an example of personal goals at work. However, while listening is an essential communication skill, not everybody is an active listener.

Perhaps, you’ve observed that you’re not listening the way you should during interpersonal relationships, developing good listening skills is a goal you would want to commit yourself to learn.

You can approach colleagues you feel are good and active listeners to mentor you. They could provide resources or recommend programs you can enroll for or what books and tapes you need, while they are keen to see you get better at active listening.

2. Getting better at time management

Time management is not just a skill one will need in his workplace or business environment. It is a life skill that everyone will keep mastering as they keep spending the “currency” called time. Think of the saying: Time is money.

As you know, you would always have tons of projects to execute. And every so often, you’d allocate time for the execution of each, or maybe your superior will give you deadlines to get these projects done.

That said, achieving peak performance at what you do will require you to improve your time management skills. Therefore, getting better at time management it is an examples of personal goals at work.

3. Increasing your EQ

What is EQ? You’re probably asking yourself. Well, it’s something you know, and perhaps not sure if you should consider it as an area you should work on.

EQ, in this context, means Emotional Quotient, which is another name for emotional intelligence. Yes, it is an ability that helps one handle the pressures and stress inherent in every typical workplace.

You would agree that every business or company has its unique associated stress. That’s why you (or any other person) may want to include developing emotional intelligence as a part of your personal development goals.

Because learning and mastering this life skill will only not make you do well on your job but will help manage situations that can trigger stress and unhealthy mental conditions.

4. Learning new things

There are many things to learn in the corporate world, let alone life. We live in an ever-changing world, influenced by a technological explosion.

New technologies are being made and introduced, and some affect how things get done at your office. And this explains why you should always push yourself to learn new things.

So, learning new things can be seen as an example of personal goals at work.

Henry Ford once said: “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.” Remember, learning is not static but continuous. Therefore, you can decide to acquire new skills that will boost your productivity personally or professionally. It may be to polish your typing skills, your report, or minute writing skills, to name a few.

5. Networking with others

While working on ourselves as humans is undoubtedly great, polishing your networking skills will do you better. That’s why you need people to climb the ladders in your career path.

Thus there is little you achieve all by yourself. A time would come when you may need the recommendation or endorsement of others, say for an official assignment, nominal position, or perhaps promotion.

So staying to the personal development goal of getting along with people at work, especially people that can influence decision making, is worthwhile in the long run.

6. Improve your public speaking skill

 Deciding to improve your public speaking skill is an example of a personal goal for work.  That’s because public speaking skills for both business managers and employees for career success and advancement.  It becomes more relevant in business meeting, conventions, and seminars.

 

Creating Personal Growth Objectives examples By Yourself 

Having goals is a good thing, but they are not an end in themselves and require an actionable plan for their attainment.

On that note, the following are practical steps in developing a result-oriented examples of personal development objectives for yourself:

1. Write out your plan 

Planning requires a lot of envisioning and foresight. And most times gives you a reason to use a notepad and a pen. Hence, in creating a personal development plan, you must first carefully think of areas you want to improve on. After that, the next thing is to set time limits against which you plan to measure your progress later on.

But note, you must be brutally honest with yourself. Do not write out unrealistic goals that are not specific, measurable, achievable, and time-bound (SMART).

2. Getting practical

At this point, you’re already implementing your written plan. Therefore, it can be said to be the execution stage. For instance, let’s assume that one of your personal development goals is to polish your networking skills. And to implement this goal, you can decide to initiate conversations with at least two or three people daily.

3. Checking out your progress

You cannot override the importance of checking out your progress. Even as you have applied your due diligence in following your goal to a large extent, you need to keep track of your progress.

And to do that, you’d have to examine your progress based on the time limits you’ve set for yourself while writing out your plan on your notepad, on word processing software on your mobile or personal computer.

4. Reviewing and re-planning

You must have heard people say it is better to work with a plan than without one. That cannot be nothing but the truth. But then, every planning outcome is subject to re-planning. In other words, you should always review your plan, and if there is a need to tweak it, do that with discretion. Remember, the goal is for you to achieve personal development both at work and in your personal life.

 

Conclusion

In this post, we have been able to look at personal development goals for employees examples, how one can benefit from them, and the typical personal growth objectives examples for work. But remember achieving success at anything is not automatic. It takes time and consistent efforts, and patience.