TRANSCRIPT:Hey guys! Welcome to this week’s podcast! I am excited to share with you a simple process for your personal or professional development plan that really works. I first heard of it from Lance Wallnau, a business consultant out of Texas.

So here’s the problem. We all want to improve ourselves personally and professionally. I think that’s part of an entrepreneur’s DNA. But with the busyness of our lives and businesses, our development often gets put on the back burner. Here’s a way to get it upfront and center in minutes a day.

90 DAY SEGMENTSThe first part of a working personal and professional development plan is to focus in on your goals in 90 day segments. The brain loves this. Sure, it’s great to have a 5, 10 or even lifetime plan. But for it to be workable, it must be broken down into a year and that into months, and that into weeks and that into days and that into today. By the way, this is a great way to approach projects, too.

Here’s how it might look:

1. You decide on 4 big projects you want to accomplish over the next year and assign them a quarter to accomplish them in.
2. Next, you break down what all you will need to do to complete the project. For example, if you want to launch a podcast, you need learn HOW to do a podcast, research best practices and the equipment you need, write your podcast scripts, record them, upload them, create your cover art, and advertise your new podcast. You might need to build a website dedicated to your podcast or at least a blog if part of your current business and, possibly, dedicated platforms for it on Instagram and Facebook.
3. Once you have a list of your steps, you then take that to-do list and break it down to daily tasks. Some will only take a few minutes. Others might take days or weeks like a website or writing your podcast scripts.

I do this myself. I just launched my new course, and I’m now working on a true crime podcast that will actually take six months to launch, so I divided it into 90 day segments. The first part is research and writing of the podcast scripts, which takes a bit. The next 90 days will be recording them, editing them, and building a website. But you get the gist.

THE FIRST STEPNow it’s time to pick what you want to develop. It could be emotional intelligence work, tighten up your finances, learn a new skill like how to build and launch a course (or podcast), a fitness goal, your marriage, or anything that you have been telling yourself, “I really need to work on this.” Wherever you hear yourself saying that is the area you need to develop a plan for.

THE THREENext, you need to look at three areas to develop during the next 90 days to accomplish your goals—skill, knowledge, and personality constraints.

1. Skill is the training you need to accomplish your goal. For example, when I built and launched my first course, I needed three skills—time management to focus, how to build my email list using Facebook ads, and how to build a course. So I purchased two courses to learn the Facebook ads and building a course parts and then read a book recommended to me that changed my life on how to laser focus called, “The One Thing,” by Gary Keller. Time management is a skill. Believe me.
2. Knowledge is an acquisition of facts, truths, and principles and then putting those things into action. In fact the word “knowledge” has the idea of practice and action in its original meaning. Now you’re taking the skills you’ve acquired and the principles you’ve learned and executing them. As you execute and gets some feedback and data, you perfect your process until it becomes part of your life and business.
3. Personality constraints are those aspects of your personality that might prevent you from reaching your goals. These are not only the vulnerable areas of your personality but also any strengths that are overextended and become a weakness. For example, a C personality’s greatest fear is criticism and being wrong, and while that helps you to dot those i’s and cross those t’s, it can stop you from pulling the trigger on a new venture or make changes. In fact, you might go into a data loop in the knowledge step and enjoy learning new things so much that you never implement what you learn. When I was learning how to get my finances in order, I recognized that my strength of making decisions fast was actually contributing to impulse spending. I use the DISC personality assessment, and you can take one for free at tonyrobbins.com/disc.

The tools for gaining skill and knowledge are online courses, in-person courses, books, research, coaches and mentors, masterminds, and so much more. If you decide on a book, divide the chapters into how many you can read a week and implement what you learn. That might be only one chapter. That’s ok. Same thing for courses. Do a video a day and another day to implement what you learned.

IN SUMMARY We know that life rarely goes unexpected, and you might have a week or weeks where you can’t seem to get to your 90-day plan. That’s ok. But don’t make it a life habit. Make it a priority. I have a golden rule for personal and professional development: I never move onto a new thing until I have implemented what I last learned and have acquired some mastery of it. And if your 90-day has to become a 180-day plan, that’s just fine. The main thing is to keep moving forward!