Professional Development Plan and Career Legacy Map for Nurses: Template Guide, Sample and Example Map

What is a professional development plan?

A professional development plan (PDP) is a written roadmap that describes who you are as a nurse, where you want your career to go, and the concrete steps, resources and timelines that will get you there. In a graduate nursing program, the PDP connects your coursework in leadership, health policy and advocacy to your future practice, so your growth is purposeful and intentional rather than accidental. O’Connor (2019) describes a career legacy portfolio as a way for advanced practice nurses to link scholarship, practice and long-term impact.

What is a career legacy map?

A career legacy map is a one-page visual of your career destination and the milestones, activities and supports that lead to it. It comes from the idea of career cartography, a structured way for nurses to plan their careers so that research, practice and policy reinforce one another. Feetham and Doering (2015) describe four core elements: a destination statement, a career map, a supportive career team of mentors and colleagues, and communication and dissemination strategies that share work with diverse audiences, including policymakers. Wilson et al. (2017) build on this model by showing how nurses at different career stages used career cartography to turn their personal stories and interests into programs of science and scholarship.

A related approach asks nurses to declare their legacy, meaning what they want to be better in healthcare because of their efforts, and then map the steps toward it; nurses who declare a legacy tend to stay focused and find meaning in their work (Hinds et al., 2015).

Professional Development Plan: section-by-section guide with a sample

The sample below follows an illustrative nurse, “Jordan,” a medical-surgical charge nurse in an MSN leadership program. Replace every detail with your own experience, goals and organization.

1. Professional profile and current role

What to include: your current position, years of experience, specialty, education, certifications and key strengths.

Sample: I am a registered nurse with eight years of experience on a 32-bed medical-surgical unit in a rural community hospital, where I have served as charge nurse for three years and precept new graduate nurses. I hold a BSN and am completing an MSN in nursing leadership. Many of our patients are older adults with heart failure who return to the hospital within weeks of discharge.

2. Mission, vision and legacy statement

What to include: your purpose as a nurse, the future you want to help create, and a one-sentence legacy statement answering “What do I want to be better in healthcare because of me?”

Sample legacy statement: Because of my work, older adults with heart failure in rural communities will stay home, safe and well after hospital discharge.

3. Self-assessment (SWOT)

4. Leadership development

What to include: your leadership style, the competencies you will build, and how. Link to a leadership theory (for example, transformational or servant leadership) and to the AACN Essentials, especially Domain 10, personal, professional and leadership development (American Association of Colleges of Nursing [AACN], 2021).

Sample: I practice transformational leadership by inspiring staff around a shared vision and supporting their growth. To build financial and data skills, I will complete a nurse manager fellowship, lead my unit’s heart failure quality improvement project and pursue the Certified Nurse Manager and Leader (CNML) credential within three years.

5. Health policy goals

What to include: the policies that affect your patients and practice, and how you will learn about and influence them at organizational, state and national levels.

Sample: I will learn how Medicare readmission penalties and telehealth reimbursement rules shape care for my patients, join my hospital’s policy and procedure committee, and, within five years, provide testimony to state legislators on funding for rural transitional care and remote monitoring.

6. Advocacy goals

What to include: how you will advocate for patients, the profession and communities, consistent with the ANA Code of Ethics (American Nurses Association [ANA], 2025) and the call for nurses to advance health equity (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine [NASEM], 2021).

Sample: I will join my state nurses association, start a monthly heart failure education class for patients and caregivers, and advocate for affordable scales and blood pressure monitors for low-income patients.

7. SMART goals and action plan

8. Professional engagement and networking

List professional organizations, committees, conferences and networks you will join, for example a state nurses association, the American Organization for Nursing Leadership and a specialty organization such as a heart failure nursing society.

9. Mentors and support team

Identify mentors and supporters for each area of your plan, such as a faculty mentor, a nurse leader mentor, a policy mentor and peers. Career cartography emphasizes that a supportive team is essential to reaching your destination (Feetham & Doering, 2015).

10. Scholarship, dissemination and lifelong learning

Describe how you will contribute to nursing knowledge and share your work: evidence-based practice projects, posters, presentations, publications, continuing education and, if relevant, doctoral study.

11. Evaluation and revision

Explain how you will review your plan, for example every six months with a mentor, measuring progress against your SMART goals and updating your map as your career evolves.

Part 2: Career legacy map (last page of your template)

Your legacy map should fit on one page and show your destination, milestones over time and the main areas of development. The example below organizes activities by time (now, 1 year, 3 years, 5–10 years) and by “lanes”: leadership, policy, advocacy, scholarship and support team.

How to create your own legacy map

1. Write your legacy (destination) statement at the top: the change you want to make for patients or communities.
2. Mark your starting point: current role, education and strengths.
3. Add milestones along a timeline (for example 1, 3, 5 and 10 years): degrees, roles, certifications, projects.
4. Show the lanes that move you forward: leadership, policy, advocacy, scholarship and practice.
5. Add your support team: mentors, sponsors, organizations and partners.
6. Show dissemination: how you will share your work through presentations, publications, policy briefs or community education.
7. Use visuals: a road, staircase, mountain or grid; color-code each lane; keep text short.

Tips for a high-scoring submission

• Use your template’s exact headings and complete every section.
• Make goals SMART and realistic, with clear timelines and measures.
• Explicitly connect your plan to leadership, policy and advocacy, the assignment’s core elements.
• Reference course resources and scholarly sources in APA 7, including Wilson et al. (2017) and O’Connor (2019).
• Make sure the legacy statement, goals and map all point to the same destination.
• Place the legacy map on the last page and make it readable when printed.

Related reading: Academic Success and Professional Development Plan (Walden), Philosophy of nursing practice, Florence Nightingale’s legacy and EBP and PDSA practice improvement plan.

See also: pros and cons of mandatory continuing nursing education.

Conclusion

A professional development plan turns intentions into a purposeful career by defining who you are, the legacy you want to leave, and the leadership, policy and advocacy steps needed to get there. Adding a career legacy map, based on the career cartography approach, gives you a one-page visual guide that keeps you focused, helps mentors support you, and shows how each milestone moves you closer to making a lasting difference for patients and communities.

References

American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2021). The essentials: Core competencies for professional nursing education. https://www.aacnnursing.org/Portals/0/PDFs/Publications/Essentials-2021.pdf

American Nurses Association. (2025). Code of ethics for nurses. American Nurses Association.

Feetham, S., & Doering, J. J. (2015). Career cartography: A conceptualization of career development to advance health and policy. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 47(1), 70–77. https://doi.org/10.1111/jnu.12103

Hinds, P. S., Britton, D. R., Coleman, L., Engh, E., Humbel, T. K., Keller, S., Kelly, K. P., Menard, J., Lee, M. A., Roberts-Turner, R., & Walczak, D. (2015). Creating a career legacy map to help assure meaningful work in nursing. Nursing Outlook, 63(2), 211–218. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2014.08.002

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2021). The future of nursing 2020–2030: Charting a path to achieve health equity. The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25982

O’Connor, L. (2019). Career legacy cartography portfolio for advanced practice nursing. In The nature of scholarship, a career legacy map and advanced practice: An important triad (pp. 93–138). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91695-8

Wilson, D. S., Rosemberg, M. S., Visovatti, M., Munro-Kramer, M. L., & Feetham, S. (2017). Career cartography: From stories to science and scholarship. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 49(3), 336–346. https://doi.org/10.1111/jnu.12289