Professional Goal Setting Guide

When you can set a goal, something you can see in the future, you are much more likely to get what you want. Your goals keep you on track and help you make decisions. If you have worked a bit on self-knowledge, goal setting is a great tool early in your professional development.

Steps to Success 

Creating an Individual Development Plan (IDP) Individual Development Plans (IDPs) are a great way for you to plan out how you will develop professionally and prepare for the next steps in your career. An IDP should be flexible enough to suit your interests and personal working style and it should be rigid enough to ensure that you make active progress toward your goals. It will be helpful to review our quick online course on Professional Goal Setting (above) as you get started with this process. Pro tip: be sure to set aside time periodically (perhaps over the summer and at the start of a new year) to check in on your progress and see if you need to make changes; you most likely will and that is ok. Feel free to use one of our templates below to start creating your own IDP now:

IDP Plan for Everyone

IDP Plan for Biomedical PhD’s