The Individual Development Plan: Creation and Sustainability

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The Individual Development PlanCreation and
Sustainability

• Denise Douglas, Associate Dean
• Rachel Begley, Postdoctoral Coordinator
• Office of Postdoctoral Affairs School of
  Graduate Studies

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Discussion Topics

• Why is an IDP important?
• Postdoc Responsibilities
• Taking Control of Your Career
• Next Steps-Developing Your IDP
• Sample IDP

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Why is an IDP Important?

• Helps you to identify both short-term and long
  term goals
• Milestones along the way can be acknowledged
• Serves as a communication tool between postdoc
  and faculty mentor

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Postdoc Responsibilities

• Obtain the experience necessary to advance in
  your career
• Contribute to mentors program through research
  accomplishments, publications, presentations,
  etc.
• Take charge of your own professional development
• Communication is crucial!

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Taking Control of Your Career Self Assessment

• Ideal Self
• Real Self
• Strengths
• Gaps

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Self Assessment Ideal Self

• How you view your knowledge, skills and abilities
• Values, philosophy, purpose and aspirations
• Sometimes based on facts that you collected
  along the way
• Lack of self-awareness may cause inflation or
  deflation of the ideal self

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Self Assessment Real Self

• How others view your knowledge, skills and
  ability
• Receive this type of feedback through performance
  reviews and other assessment opportunities

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Self Assessment Strengths/Gaps

• Strengths where your ideal self and real self
  are similar
• Gaps where your ideal self and real self are
  different
• When setting goals, balance is important
• Source Boyatzis, R. Intentional Change Theory
  (1970, 1999, 2000)

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Defining Goals

• Meaningful to you
• Have concrete action steps
• SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable,
  Realistic, Timeframe)

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Defining SMART Goals

• Specific be able to answer who, what, where,
  when, why
• Measurable establish a criteria for measuring
  progress
• Attainable if it is important to you it becomes
  attainable
• Realistic Are you willing and able to work on it
• Timeframe Helps you establish and endpoint

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Defining Goals

• Common Roadblocks
• What if you dont accomplish the goals you
  established?
• What if I dont like to write things down?
• Is this really useful beyond my postdoc position?

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Developing Your IDP

• Opportunity to create a sustainable document
• Useful practice in both academia and industry
• Helps you to articulate to others who may be
  interested (networking tool)

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Sample IDP

• Handout Discussion