Set your work and personal goals for the year ahead

It’s not succeeding (or failing) at the goal that is of importance. It’s more about the progress toward the goal. Think about what you want and then schedule little pockets of time for small steps towards it. 

Setting your work and  personal goals - Transcript

"I really need to get out there more. I'll do that next year." Yeah, most of us just go around carrying this thought in our head about what we'd like, but we don't pin it down. So this is about taking those thoughts in your head. The ambition, the focus, the requirement, perhaps, and pinning it down so you can achieve more through the year. Quite often we get to the end of the year and go, oh, I didn't achieve that new years' resolution, that goal, that ambition. So, therefore, I have failed. No, you've made progress.

I want you to think about making progress towards your goals.

That might be that you need to engage the people around you, bring them along and inform them. It might be that you want to share thought leadership with a wider industry or with your clients to get more sales. Whatever, it doesn't really matter what your ambition is. Rather than leaving it to chance, this, I hope will help you really nail down how you might do that day to day, week to week, month to month. And at the end of the year, you can go. Do you know what I flipping well achieved that, amazing!

Objective, strategy tactics

This is about helping you identify what your objective is, setting your strategy if you like and then what? Your tactics. Objective, strategy tactics. Because we forget, don't we? We forget about raising our profile. We forget about trying to engage others and build relationships. We don't mark it as something important. Quite often we might just have it as a thought. We really need to, uh, get out there more. I'll do that next year. Yeah.

Now, some people are brilliant at this, and they are very focused. And they might even have a mood board in, like one of those visual mood boards to aid them in remembering to do this stuff. Some people write it down. Great. But most of us just go around carrying this thought in our head about what we'd like, but we don't pin it down.

All right, so this is how it might work. So say that you think I need to be seen externally a little bit more in the industry and the wider industry. I need to attend some events. I need to maybe speak on panels or even speak or run events in settings where other people can see me. I've got stuff to say. I've got interesting ideas and our business or organisation is moving on this. So we want to share that with others. Great. That's a really good ambition to have. How are you going to achieve that? How are you going to pin that down? This might be scheduling an hour or two half hours every week to focus on that and saying right, I want to do that four times. I want to attend an event four times, an industry event through the year, and at three of those I want to speak or I want to achieve X at this event, or I want to have content for social media. I want to write a blog about this event and post that on social media, there are a million ways you can raise your profile. But scheduling those two half hours or one hour a week to do that is how you're going to move the dial on that and then reflect.

Have I achieved that halfway through the year?

Have I got one or two or three of those events in the diary? You know, for the back end of the year, Perhaps if you're starting, another way of engaging people is, of course, to talk to them. So it might be that you're a leader or you're in a leadership position where finding out about others in your workspace is important. And there might be teammates, colleagues, juniors who you could do with engaging and, rather than being, you know, show off here at an industry event. It's actually about having a coffee with that person, isn't it? So, again, scheduling time, I know a leader who did this. They had a breakfast moment once a week with new employees. They made time. It was called coffee with Claire, she would meet new people. She was the chief boss and so far removed from the people in the organisation that it was important to her to engage them and get to meet them. And it had it really paid dividends, actually, So I think that was scheduled once a month. Dead easy to do. It's making use of your time to do that and holding yourself accountable. If you can't do that, get someone else to help you with that. So lots to go at lots to learn. And if you're new to this and you don't have the skills, then learn the skills and make that part of your journey.

Do not find yourself in a year's time, having not really moved on any of this

What I'm saying is, Do not leave all this to chance. Do not find yourself in a year's time, having not really moved on any of this or it's been a bit up in your own mind, and you haven't really thought about it or pinned it down or scheduled it or focused on it or held yourself accountable. And maybe you need to ask why you've not done all that. Is it because you're frankly frightened of failing? Uh, that's basically how it rolls for most of us humans, isn't it? So be kind to yourself. Scheduled this stuff and then action it and be proud of yourself, even if it's just baby steps that you're making towards your goal. So good luck. Let me know how you're getting on through the year. You can email hello@bitfamous.co.uk