Congratulations! 
You're in college, ...

. . . well on your way to being FULLY accountable for your own life, ... and your own future!

But, to get to that future, you need access to power. In the real world you're about to enter, decisions are made by people who have POWER ... personal power to take control of their own personal lives . . . and effective power that helps shape the forces, determine the rules of the game, and influence the people who make things actually happen around them.

so, Why SHOULD i build a growth plan?

Reason #1: Gain access to power. The experience of building and step-by-step benchmarking your Growth Plan will give you the navigational skills and tools you need to make things really happen in today's highly competitive, fast-paced, results-oriented world you're about to enter. Without these growth planning skills and tools, you'll most likely be sitting on the sidelines, just reacting to what others have decided.

Reason #2: Avoid becoming "future-planning adverse." While it may not be true for you, some college students today are actually future-planning adverse in the way they live their everyday lives. This means that, deep-down, they have a negative, cynical, and mostly present-focused, "live for the moment" MINDSET that usually turns into an other-directed, reactive, fear-of-failure driven, "lay back, go-with-the-flow and take advantage of whatever happens" LIFESTYLE. 

Put another way, while they talk a good game about their desired future, they don't know how to make the tough, trade-off, prioritized choices that smart living always requires.  Nor, have they developed the self-motivated personal discipline critical to making their desired future actually happen. The experience of building and implementing a Growth Plan in college will give you the navigational skills and tools you need to avoid becoming future-planning adverse right now during your critical college years ... and throughout your entire life.

As a part of building and implementing a personal Growth Plan you will identify and begin living your everyday life grounded in your own distinct SELF-IDENTITY, LIFE-PURPOSE, and LONG-TERM DIRECTION for your life ... thus helping you succeed and be personally pleased with your life at school and in everything else you do.

Reason #3: Leave college ready-for-success in your entire personal and professional life.  First, let's be clear right upfront what growth planning is all about - it's a self-identity, mindset & lifestyle change and development process. 

So, by building and implementing your Growth Plan while you're in college, you will learn, practice, and then begin to actually live your everyday life with an optimistic, positive, & future-focused MINDSET and a proactive, self-motivated, & self-disciplined LIFESTYLE. 

Taken together, this new growth planning self-identity, mindset & lifestyle will enable you to (1) continuously improve yourself as a person, (2) set and actually achieve your goals and step-by-step benchmarks, and (3) leave college truly ready for success in all areas of your everyday personal and professional life. 

Reason #4: Be eligible to be hired as a part-time Growth Plan Coach.  We hire college students who have built a personal Growth Plan to work as part-time Growth Plan Coaches during summers and the school year.  As a Growth Plan Coach you would work in a team of coaches who train and support @risk and other 8th thru 12th grade youth in learning and developing the power of growth planning in their everyday lives.  [Click here to see a Growth Plan Coach Job Description.]

how would i go about

building & achieving my growth plan?

Step #1: Take 12-stop online journey. It will take college students approximately 15 hours to build your Growth Plan and to train you in "the art, skill, and power of growth planning." To create your Plan, working alone or in a small group of students, you will be guided by your personal Growth Plan Coach in taking a 12-stop online interactive journey in your private Growth Plan Data-Center on this website.  [To see a description of the 12 Worksheets, click the College Students tab at the top of this page.]  

At each stop, you will complete one of Our 12 Growth Planning Worksheets. Each Worksheet is a mental exercise, stretching your mind to think deeply, honestly, and imaginatively about where you are now in your life, and where you want to be in the future. As you complete each stop, your key planning data is automatically combined into a Growth Plan you can print out and frame. Along the way, you'll take three online personal assessments -- the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the Newly Revised Strong Interest Inventory, and the Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation - Behavior (FIRO-B). Each helps you understand better who you really are as a unique person ... as well as what you want to do with the rest of your life.

After you complete stops #1 thru #10, your Growth Plan draft is complete. Stops #11 and #12 help you implement your Plan.

Step #2: Apply Life-Skills & Bio-Sketches to your everyday life. You will also learn, analyze, discuss with one another, and begin applying Our 10 Growth Planning Life-Skills and Our 30 Bio-Sketches to your everyday life. Each Life-Skill is needed to develop a growth planning mindset and lifestyle.

And, each Bio-Sketch shows how that person used one or more of the Life-Skills to help them overcome challenges and succeed in life. [To see a description of the 10 Life-Skills and 30 Bio-Sketches, click the College Students tab at the top of this page.]  

Step #3: Form & begin using your Support Network. In stop #11 of your 12-stop growth planning journey, you form and then begin learning how to use your own personal Support Network. Support Network members offer their advice and help as you do the hard, day-to-day work of reaching for your stars, achieving your goals, and realizing your future vision. Members could include a parent, favorite teacher, coach, clergy, relative or family friend, your best friend, or a career mentor whom we'll help you identify. You'll give them access to your private Growth Plan Data-Center so they can see and comment upon your Growth Plan and offer their help.

Step #4: Begin benchmarking your step-by-step progress. At the beginning of each quarter of the year you'll use growth planning journey stop #12 to select your Quarterly Performance Progress Benchmarks to really focus on in the next three months. They are called benchmarks because you use them to mark your step-by-step progress towards achieving your 5-year and longer-term goals. Special emphasis is put on making sure each benchmark is measurable. Benchmarking is a critical life-skill to learn and master since it helps you develop the self-motivated personal discipline you need to succeed in school, and throughout your entire life.

how long can I use this website?

As long as you want! Throughout your college years and beyond, you'll be able to use your Growth Plan Data-Center on this website to update your Growth Plan and track your progress in achieving your benchmarks and goals.