What to Include in Your Personal Development Checklist
"Charity begins at home...yet is every man his greatest enemy." --Sir Thomas Browne, 1642
Flash-forward four hundred years and it's still true. Sustainable good of any kind starts with personal growth.
A personal development checklist is a personal coach on paper, a structured action plan that keeps you focused on your development journey. It helps you set goals that are time-bound and aligned with the areas of your life that matter most.
At Catapult Groups, we’ve seen firsthand how executives who intentionally cultivate personal growth (personally and professionally) unlock stronger leadership performance and work-life balance using a clear, disciplined approach.
Here’s what to include in your checklist if you want to drive personal development goals that also benefit your company.
Professional Goals and Strategic Direction
Your checklist should begin with a clear strategic goal that ties your personal and professional development to your company’s direction.
Identify areas you need to grow, set realistic expectations and connect your long term goals to tangible leadership outcomes. It’s the foundation for aligning your growth with measurable business impact.
Ex: Let’s say your company is expanding into Latin America next quarter. Your personal development goal might be to strengthen cross-cultural communication skills through targeted coaching sessions and mock boardroom presentations.
Leadership Skills to Strengthen
Everyone faces recurring challenges. But if we improve our skills, we increase the ways we can lead others.
Use your checklist to focus on personal leadership skills that will improve results for your team and organization. Developing these skills may require stepping outside your comfort zone, but it's worth the trip! When you intentionally choose one skill to master at a time, your overall leadership impact grows significantly.
Ex: A CEO with flatlining department performance might redesign one-on-one meetings to focus on ownership and/or accountability.
Emotional Intelligence and Self-Awareness
Strong leaders use time to reflect and cultivate deeper understanding of their own triggers, strengths, and blind spots. This part of your checklist should emphasize practices that sharpen emotional intelligence and build resilience under pressure. Reflection, journaling, or assessments create clarity in your decision-making and help you stay composed during complex situations.
Ex: A founder preparing to restructure leadership might complete a DISC assessment and debrief with an executive coach to better understand how their style influences team dynamics during tense transitions.
Continuous Learning and Skill Building
A high-performing personal development plan includes ongoing learning. By committing to a structured learning process, you ensure that growth is steady, not sporadic.
Reading leadership books, taking online courses, or attending workshops all expand your capabilities and support your development journey. More importantly, they prepare you for your long term goals as a leader.
Ex: A business owner preparing for a merger might take a course on organizational change management to learn how to communicate through uncertainty and retain key staff during integration.
Health, Energy, and Stress Management
Your effectiveness depends on your energy. This part of your checklist formalizes how you maintain work-life balance and protect your health. Include habits that help you manage stress, recover faster, and stay focused on the highest-impact work.
And remember, it's not indulgence. Indulgence is self-focused energy for its own sake; stress management is a leadership necessity.
Ex: Late in the quarter, do you suffer a condition called DDD? (Declining Decision-Making Disorder). At the end of each month, consider blocking out a full day for rest and strategic thinking, without calls, meetings or other distractions.
Time and Focus Management
Without disciplined time management, even the best personal development goals fail. Use your checklist to guard your attention and focus. By applying a clear action plan, you create space to think strategically rather than reactively. This keeps your efforts time bound and aligned with your highest-impact work.
Ex: Try reviewing your calendar each Friday. Remove an unnecessary meeting and replace it with 90 minutes of deep work on strategic planning.
Accountability and Feedback Loops
Feedback turns intention into momentum. Building accountability into your checklist helps you identify areas where you’re succeeding or falling short. Whether through a coach, a mastermind, or a trusted colleague, these loops keep your personal and professional development on track and move you outside your comfort zone.
Ex: A Catapult Groups member shares their personal development focus with their CEO peer group each month and reports back on progress, creating a consistent rhythm of accountability and course correction.
Let’s Turn Your Checklist Into Action
Personal development doesn't happen in isolation. If you're ready to turn your checklist into real leadership growth, with accountability, clarity, and support from experienced CEO advisors, schedule your free 30-minute strategy call with Catapult Groups today.
