What is your action plan for Professional Growth?

Hard hitting question I know.

I bet if I asked 100 people on my LinkedIn list, Less than 5 have a clearly defined action plan- so don't worry if you don't have an answer to this question.

And many of us have teams that we lead... and we are supposed to inspire them to grow when we don't even have a clear plan for ourselves?

I was going to start writing a newsletter series on building growth action plans for your employees today. Although, if you've noticed from previous newsletters- I'm a big fan of practicing what you preach- so lets make sure we have our own action plan in place first.

So today's lesson:

The 5 Most Important Parts of an Growth Action Plan.

Most people do not have any plan for growth written down. And if they do, the majority of the time it is mandated... and doesn't actually inspire growth and learning.

To me, true learning is behavior change. We need to inspire people to learn and grow, then allow them to apply what they've learned. The quicker and more efficient we do this, the greater the results will be.

For the purpose of today's lesson, we are just going to hit the 5 most important parts of a growth action plan quick. Here they are:

1. Self-Assessment. What skills/competencies related to your current (or future) job description would you like to improve? Where are the gaps? My last newsletter is a great introduction to this topic.
2. Gather Resources. Where is the best content for these skills/competencies? This could be books, articles, seminars, webinars, online courses, trade associations, coaches, mentors, and much more.
3. Build the Learning Habit. Learn every day, preferably up to 10% of your working hours. The ROI is there in many ways, including increased self worth.
4. Implement what you've learned. This is actually the step most people don't follow through on. The quicker you implement, the better. Sharing or showing someone else what your learned helps the lesson sink in. Sometimes having a 3rd-party validate you've acquired the certain skill set/competency is extremely helpful here.
5. Adjust and Repeat the loop. Figure out what worked, what didn't, and make adjustments to your process. Some people learn better in different ways for different topics. Maybe its a change in time of day to learn. Pick a new area to develop and continue on. Keep that daily learning habit streak going.

Here's a real life example.

If someone asked me "What is your Growth Action Plan currently?" My answer would be "To Learn and Implement Airtable into my daily work". I personally have a big skills gap when it comes to tracking all of the action I take at work. I've identified all of the training videos I need to watch, and started yesterday. I am immediately applying what I've learned by building my dashboard within Airtable. More to go... although I'm positive I'll be an expert within weeks as I know I'm committed to learning and implementing daily.

See, this is a fast and efficient action plan. Upon mastery of this topic, my confidence increases, I'm more valuable to my company, and after seeing the results I'm ready and motivated to jump to the next skill I want to improve. Imagine building these skill improvement loops for yourself and all of those around you. What effect would it have?!

Action Time.

1. Most people get caught up in the PLAN and really don't follow through on the ACTION part. Decide that TODAY is the day that you will start your own Growth Action Plan. Define the skill set. Gather your resources. And start learning today, even if it is only 5 minutes.

I will formalize this process for employees and go into greater detail in future newsletters... although it is very important to take fast action to get the 10% learning habit in motion.

Thank you. As always- this is a no-selling zone... my cup is filled by giving value and knowing people will take action and inspire others to grow.

-Dan