The start of another new year beckons

And now is a great time to review your career and by looking backwards, decide what you want next.

To make a fresh start in 2021.

 If that sounds interesting,

 Keep listening and I will explain how …

 

 

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In this episode, I’m going to be talking about your future career

 

How you have the ability to shape it and direct it

 

How, by reflecting on your career you can set some new goals for yourself

 

Using a plan that actually works 

 

Hello again everybody

 

Thanks for joining me again on the podcast

 

So, let’s dive into today’s topic. 

 

Which is about how you have the ability to shape your career in the next 12 months, to achieve some things that are important to you

 

I’m going to be explaining what you can learn from the last 12 months, whatever you thought of 2020

 

And how you can use this information to plan exciting goals for the next 12 months

 

To make a fresh start to the year

 

But crucially, I’m going to explain how to set goals that actually work for you and that don’t get forgotten after the first 10 days.

 

And, I think that is one of the reasons goal setting, particularly at the beginning of a new year, tends to get a bad rap. 

 

Goal setting at this time of year can sometimes be all about inspiration without the implementation. Leading to goals that get quietly forgotten after a few weeks.

 

And I will say from the outset that I don’t necessarily believe that January is the only time you should be reviewing your career – this should be an ongoing process throughout the year. I will talk about this aspect.

 

That said, I do think there is a lovely window post-Christmas and at the beginning of January to look at your career. 

 

The motivation for change and for something different is high and married with a sound plan, which is what I’m going to be talking about, this can be a very good way to start the year.

 

One of my favourite books on this subject is Brian Moran’s book the 12-week year. And in the book, he talks about this idea that 12 months is too long a time span to plan your goals. That you start strong, fade quickly and then end up panicking towards the end of the 12 months because you haven’t stayed on top of your intentions and your goals.

 

That’s of course if you haven’t already quietly forgotten your goals in the middle of January.

 

Instead, Moran advocates a much shorter window for setting and achieving goals. 

This is how I set my goals, and this is one of the things I will be talking about later in this episode. 

 

But first

 

I want you to think about your last year, particularly as it relates to your career

 

This annual reflection provides a vital career evaluation process 

 

Here are some questions that can help you: 

 

If you can, write down your answers to these questions and if not just think through your answers. I will put the questions in the show notes. 

 

Ok, here goes.

 

What went well during this last year? Even though it may have been a challenging year, there will still be things that went well for you.

 

What goals did you meet? Which plans fell short?

 

What did you enjoy about your job? What aspects didn’t you enjoy?

 

What did you learn about yourself and your career journey?

 

In which direction is your career heading? How does the direction look?

 

These questions will help you to reflect on how your year went and start to invigorate your thinking about what might be possible or interesting for you in the next year.

 

So, now we have done that we need to create a gap, a fire break if you like, to talk about your career clarity and to remind you of the mindsets that we discussed in Episode 1. 

 

That was the responsibility mindset and it’s always good to heave a reminder and to make it a decision to adopt a mindset of responsibility when it comes to your career. Particularly in relation to what we are talking about today.

 

And this goes well with the second mindset which is the possibility mindset. The ability to see the possibilities in your career is vital.

 

With these mindsets in mind:

 

Think about …

 

What do you want in your career?

 

What is your definition of success? Your definition of success, not anybody else’s

 

Because, your career and how it turns out, is not pre-determined, you have the ability to shape what happens next, in this new year and in the rest of your career.

 

Steven Pressfield, the author of Turning Pro and The War of Art, said that ‘most of us have two lives: the lives we live and the lives we are capable of living’

 

Which echoes one of my favourite authors Hermina Ibarra who in her book Working Identity talks about this idea that we can and should explore new identities of who we can become in our careers.

 

So, bear this in mind as you begin to think about your career in the next year.

 

So,

 

Here are some questions to get you thinking: 

 

Again, write down your answers to these questions and if not just think through your answers.

 

Ok, here goes.

 

So, what’s important to you in your career? Think here about your values. Think big picture as well as some of the smaller things.

 

What do you want to learn in the coming year?

 

What projects or other work do you want to spend more time on in the coming year?

 

Where is it time for you to take the next step in your career? What skills do you need to do that?

 

And the last couple of questions:

 

What support do you need to move forward in your career? 

Where will you get that help? 

 

Now I want you to make a list of the things that you want in your career, based on your review of last year, your reflections on what you want in your career and in considering the answers to those questions.

 

Write your ideas down.

 

Review and refine your ideas. 

 

And whilst I’m not a big fan of SMART for goal setting – it’s overused as a concept and underused as a useful framework; it can be very helpful to be more specific with your goals.

 

So, instead, just ask yourself – ‘Can I be more specific about what I want to do?’ ‘About this goal?’

 

Do some further refinement of your list. Make your goals more specific if you can. 

 

And then, looking at your list again

 

Are these things on your list, your goals, attractive? Are the things and outcomes you really want? If not can you re-word them to make them more attractive?

 

If the goals are challenging that’s a good sign, but it’s also vital that they are attractive.

 

Ok, you now should have a list of your goals for the next year.

 

And in the next part of the show, I will be showing you 5 things you can do to make sure that you achieve your goals in the next year.

 

 

How to look back over the last 12 months and with a mindset of possibility set some goals for yourself for the next 12 months and beyond.

 

Next, we are going to get into the execution park of goal setting.

 

And, I am going to give you 5 ways that will help you to take these goals and make sure you achieve them.

 

So, the first one is about staying motivated with your goals.

 

Make a list of the reasons you want to accomplish the goal. In our busy, distracting world, it’s easy to get blown off course. This is why you need to ground yourself in your goal. For extra “success insurance,” write your list with a pen. Studies show that when we write by hand and connect the letters manually, we engage the brain more actively in the process. Because typing is an automatic function that involves merely selecting letters, there’s less of a mental connection.

 

Secondly, I want you to break down goals, into 3-month goals.

 

You see when you look at some of your bigger goals, they can seem a bit exciting but also quite difficult to achieve. However, when you break them down, they become much more achievable.

 

Thirdly, I want you to look at your 3 monthly goals at the start of every week and break down these goals into subgoals for the week.

 

The fourth thing you can do is, think about who can help you with your goals.

 

I don’t think you should share your goals with everybody, equally I don’t think you should keep them to yourself. I recommend you selectively share your goals with those you trust and who can help you.  This might include:

-        Your manager – although you might want to be selective about how much you share

-        A supportive friend or colleague

 

And finally,

 

I want you to review your goals each quarter and do a bigger review at the end of each year.

 

Review your plan in 3 months’ time; how did the first 3 months go? Make adjustments? Set the plan for the next 3 months.

 

You might want to do that at Easter and around your summer holidays and again at the start of September before again doing a bigger annual review next January.

 

 

Ok, so let’s summarise this episode

 

We have been talking today about taking a fresh look at your career at the start of this new year and identifying attractive goals for the next year.

 

But first I explained how reflecting on your last year helps to set up what you want next, and, I showed you how to do this.

 

Then, with the possibility mindset, I asked you to think about the next year or so in your career and to identify what it is you want. And, again, I gave you some questions to get you started.

 

So, having captured your ideas and goals you then refined them,

To make sure they were specific, rather than being general, and they were goals that were attractive – they were things you wanted. ‘You’ being the important part here. Not what other people might want for you.

 

And then in the second part of the episode, I gave you 5 ways to make sure you achieve your goals.

 

So, the first one is about staying motivated to achieve your goals. And I asked you to make a list of the reasons why you want to accomplish your goals.

 

Secondly, I asked you to break down your goals, into more achievable 3-month goals.

 

Thirdly, I explained why you should look at your 3 monthly goals at the start of every week and break down these goals into subgoals for the week.

 

The fourth thing I talked about is getting help you with your goals. Identifying who can help you to succeed in your aspirations.

 

And finally,

 

I explained why you should review your goals each quarter and do a bigger review at the end of each year.

 

So, I hope that all makes sense?

 

Please let me know what you thought about the content

 

As this is a new podcast, feedback really does help me to shape future episodes, and make the content as relevant and helpful as possible.

 

You can email me at mark@bravocoaching.co.uk and you can find the show notes at bravocoaching.co.uk/podcast

 

And to remind you that you can download your free Should I stay or should I go guide at bravocoaching.co.uk/Go

 

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Have a wonderful week and I will speak to you again in a couple of weeks time.

 

Bye for now.