Even the best laid plans can fall asunder, but that doesn’t mean they need to be abandoned altogether.
The idea of a new year’s resolution has always rankled me, as it puts an insane amount of pressure on a person for the first four weeks of the year, during a month that is always a little bit duller in comparison to the previous month’s festivities. As a result, when you do fail in some regard, be that a personal or professional misstep, it can be tempting to forget about your improvement goals altogether.
But it doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing scenario. A strategy designed to meet your goals is exactly that, a strategy or well thought-out plan that is never going to be immune to internal and external forces. Pivoting your plans and reassessing is just one way for professionals to stick to their career goals all-year round.
Keep it SMART
The SMART system, an acronym for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound, is a brilliant way for professionals to devise and navigate a career plan that focuses on set goals and skill. The system works by being specific about your goals, tracking progress, grounding objectives in reality, ensuring that they add something of value to your professional life and sticking to a rigid timeline, to avoid procrastination.
SMART can take a long-term goal that seems complex and break it down into smaller, more manageable objectives. Say for example your upskilling goal was to improve your leadership skills for future promotion – it is a lofty target but somewhat vague.
The SMART system would tell you to be specific about the style of leadership you are aiming for, to engage in courses or mentorship where you can be critiqued, to identify how this new skill can help you achieve a better position, to quantify the ways in which being more adept at this skill would further establish your career, and to set a realistic timeframe, perhaps for it to end just before a performance review or a high-stakes presentation.
Break bad habits
One of the factors most likely to result in a person not sticking to their career goals consistently throughout the year is a failure to address poor habits, be it procrastination, disorganisation, poor time keeping, whatever it might be. No matter how achievable or positive your goals are, you aren’t going to be on target if you are fighting against yourself the whole time.
To break bad working habits, first identify the problem area, change negative behaviours gradually in a manner that doesn’t overwhelm you or add too much to your workload, note the changes in productivity and confirm that you are meeting targets, use simple and efficient tools to aid your progress, and be mindful that there will be missteps here and there. There is no need to abandon plans at the first derailment. Moreover, mistakes are actually a valuable learning opportunity.
Build a community
Some of us work well independently, others depend on a tight knit network of peers, but for the most part, many of us fall somewhere in the middle. Regardless of which category you fall into, it can be helpful to tap into the workplace community now and then, to ask for help, share resources and verbalise your goals. You would be surprised how many others share similar objectives and it can empower you to stick with it when you know someone else is on the same path.
Furthermore, even if a colleague doesn’t have the necessary know-how to assist you on a project or upskilling opportunity, it doesn’t mean that they don’t know someone else who does. A company network is like a spider’s web that is constantly expanding outwards and by developing your own network you are making connections far into the future, before you even know you need them.
Choose to improve
Even when you want to perform a task or are excited about change, there can be a degree of procrastination or anxiety attached to it. Especially if you view it through the lens of additional work on an already busy schedule. But by incorporating change into your lifestyle and making professional self-improvement a daily activity, it becomes less of a chore and more of a choice driving upskilling momentum.
In order to make your upskilling goals a part of your daily routine, aside from having a plan in place and a clear target, make sure you are doing all of the usual activities that help you stay motivated and productive at work. For example, getting plenty of rest, drinking water, eating well, taking breaks when needed and leaning on your professional network.
Change doesn’t happen overnight and it can be disheartening to feel as though you aren’t making any real progress, but a transformation is occurring. You just need to give yourself the time to see it in action, be that a week, a month, six months or a year from now and that starts with sticking to your goals today and tomorrow.
Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.
