3 Steps to Set A New Year's Resolution For Your Career
Have you set your annual career goals yet?
The New Year is a common time to assess where you’d like your career to take you, and creating meaningful goals is probably easier than you think.
There are three categories to consider when shaping your goals – identifying your strengths, prioritizing your brand and seeking support.
Answer questions in each of these categories to help yourself create tangible and immediate goals (that don’t feel overwhelming).
Step 1: Identify Your Strengths.
Take some time this year to tune in to your strengths and what tasks give you energy. Your path to identifying your strengths may include:
1. Keeping a weekly journal of what lights you up, projects that attract you and when you’re in flow.
2. Recording your accomplishments and achievements.
3. Seeking feedback from your boss, colleagues, clients and team. What do they see as your strengths?
According to Gallup, those who 'have the opportunity to focus on their strengths every day are six times as likely to be engaged in their jobs and more than three times as likely to report having an excellent quality of life in general,' so starting here can inform your next steps in taking on new projects or going after a new role.
Step 2: Prioritize Your Brand.
What would you like to be known for? Knowing your personal brand and the projects you’d like to be involved with can help you determine which opportunities will benefit your brand (and career) long-term. Your goals in this area may be around attending courses to build your expertise and getting involved with new projects or they might be about letting things go.
Consider how you can avoid tasks that take valuable time away from building and developing your personal brand, and focus on projects that are aligned with the brand you'd like to cultivate.
Step 3: Seek Support.
Who do you call when you have a work related question? It could be a question about a conversation with your boss, a new system or best practice. If there are questions around work that you can’t answer on your own (and there are!) it’s time to put together your dream team.
Staying connected to colleagues in your industry and beyond will help you immediately answer questions about your work and also help when it’s time to move on from your role. Work to get the right people in your world so you can set each other up for success.
We regularly create goals based on what we want to achieve – the next role, degree or award. Consider starting with YOU instead. Establishing and knowing your strengths, brand and team can inform goals that you’re more motivated to accomplish and don’t fade into the background in mid-February.
