A new year can signal a new beginning with new goals and resolutions, new plans and new directions. Lots of people find New Year’s resolutions intimidating and daunting, but you can take some small actions to achieve your goals as you head into a new year at work.
If you write out your New Year’s resolutions, it will make them seem real, and you will restore and revitalize your spirit to take advantage of all the possibilities of the coming year, making this your best year ever! Here are 5 ideas that you might like to adopt as you move into the new decade.
- Keep a journal
Putting thoughts on paper is one of the best ways to move things forward and create goals for yourself. Thanks to Instagram millions of people now consider using a Bullet Journal as the best way to plan, reflect, and meditate.
Equal parts day planner, diary, and written meditation, bullet journaling turns the chaos of coordinating your life into a streamlined system that helps you be more productive and reach your personal and professional goals. With sections to log your daily to-do’s, monthly calendar, notes, long-term wants and more.
- Have regular meetings with your boss
For a lot of people, January is performance evaluation season, which is a good reminder to get yourself on your boss’s calendar more often.
Try scheduling a 20-minute chat every two weeks, or set a calendar reminder to pop into your boss’s office or grab a coffee on a regular basis.
Have regular one-on-ones means you can make sure you’re aligned with each other’s priorities, but also means you can catch up about how you’re doing and what you’re doing.
- Connect with other people
Make this the year you proactively reach out to people in your network and strengthen old connections. Doing this puts you in a good position later if you need help.
Have lunch once a week with someone you haven’t seen in a while. Choose a few people who have made an impact on you and endorse them or write a recommendation on LinkedIn. The New Year is a good time to make a list of people you want to reconnect with.
- Expand and enhance your knowledge
No one knows everything they need to know about everything; there’s always a way to improve yourself. How about identifying one or two actions you can take—industry meetings you can attend, publications that will offer insight about the future. You might also take a course to learn or improve a skill that’s useful in your current position, or that will help you get the next one.
- Evaluate your big projects
Look at the main things on your plate, the things you do in your job that take up the most time and energy. Are they helping you work toward the next step you want to take?
It is rare that we take the time to sit down and think, ‘If I do an amazing job on all of these things, will it help me take that next step?”
Ideally, the things you’re putting blood, sweat, and tears into should be the building blocks that are the foundation for a long and successful career. If they’re not, start looking for the projects that will be!
Above all be accountable and choose the resolutions that most resonate with you, the resolutions you’re most likely to stick with – the resolutions with the greatest opportunity to transform your world.
Here’s to a productive, resolution filled 2020!
