It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Coffees are filled with eggnog, homes are filled with wrapping paper and ribbons, calendars are filled with festive get-togethers and (hopefully) some vacation days. Meanwhile, the New Year is peeking around the corner, reminding you of all the things you’ve been meaning to start or stop doing.
While it’s important to enjoy the last few weeks of 2019, it’s also the perfect opportunity to reflect on the past year and think about what you hope to accomplish professionally in 2020.
Where to start
Reflect
When making resolutions, the best place to begin is where you’ve been! Write a list of everything you’ve accomplished professionally this year- what made you proud, what contributed to your career, what improved your practice? Big or small, write it down! The achievements you are most proud of could help you realize not only what you value professionally but also what has had the biggest impact on your career. For example, projects you enjoyed or things you learned that added obvious value to your work. All of these achievements could give you a good idea about the kind of resolutions you want to set for the upcoming year.
Be specific
It’s all well and good to say that you want to improve your sales or advance your career. The issue with those resolutions is that they’re so broad that they don’t provide any guidelines or checkpoints making it hard to know when you’ve actually succeeded. They also leave lots of room for you to feel like you’ve failed.
Instead, make sure that your resolutions (whether it’s one, or a list of 20) are as specific as possible. If it’s to improve your sales, be clear on the exact metrics you want to hit. If it’s to advance your career, determine if that means getting a title change, a raise, leading your team in a project, or gaining a certain amount of new clients.
Strategize
Strategizing about how you can get there by adding actionable items and checkpoints to your professional resolutions will make success that much more likely! Create a visual aid to keep yourself motivated, such as a whiteboard where you track sales or the new leads you generate each week. When it comes time for your next review, you will have a record of what you achieved.
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Potential resolutions
Connect with your team
Think of small ways you can strengthen your relationship with your team. There are lots of ways to do this (big and small), and what works for your team may not be the same for everyone else’s. This resolution could include out-of-office team building activities, but it could also be small, more routine check-ins. If you have weekly meetings, have each member share one positive thing that happened to them that week (personal or work-related). Have periodic lunch and learns, coffee catch-ups, one-on-one meetings—there are so many ways to connect with the people you work with.
Team of one? No man is an island, even those who work alone. Make this the year you proactively reach out to your professional network and strengthen old connections. Even commenting on a LinkedIn article (oh hey!) or making plans with a peer for coffee can put you in a good position later on if you need help.
Expand and enhance your knowledge
One of the most popular professional resolutions is to invest in personal development! While we think all learning is great, remember to be specific. Identify one or two areas to learn or improve upon that’s useful in your current position, or that will help you get the next one. Examples could include attending a conference or seminar, signing up for a specific course or training program, or even finding a good podcast or book. The best part of these types of resolutions is that you could commit now. Many learning opportunities (like workshops or classes) allow you to enroll in advance. Investing now means you are less likely to renege later.
We offer a variety of courses at CacheFlo Learn to help you become fluent in behavioural spending concepts, debt management, and cash flow formulas.
Find your work-life harmony
Everyone is trying to find balance However, it’s almost impossible to split your time and effort between work and home evenly. Instead, focus on finding harmony by making choices that work well together (like two musical notes complimenting each other), but are not necessarily equal or constant. At times, one realm may take precedence over the other, but as long as they are always in tune, you have a better chance of being happy overall!
Although finding work-life harmony isn't an easy resolution, try to identify small, specific actions you could take to make changes. Ask yourself what aspects of your work are affecting your personal life, and vice versa. Also, remember that finding harmony isn’t always about saying, “no.” It’s about saying, “yes” to the things that will add the most value to your life - Sometimes that’s working late, and sometimes that’s getting home for dinner!
Based on a blog post originally published on December 17, 2015, by The Money Finder Blog.
References
McCready, K. (2017, November 7). Work-Life Balance vs. Work-Life Harmony. Medium. URL
Wilding, M. J. (n.d.). 3 Resolutions You're Going to Break—and What You Should Resolve to Do Instead. The Muse. URL
