Ways to Make Your Resolutions Work

5 Ways to Make Your Resolutions Work

Welcome to 2010. It must be a big relief as you remember the events of last year and hopefully look forward to this year with great expectations. The holidays are past and your leave days are now numbered if not already over. You may have started the process of drafting the now-so-common New Year resolutions and could be about to document them. In addition to losing weight, and managing time better so that you can be more present with families, you may actually resolve to improve your professional life this year. In readiness to making the resolutions regarding your career, you may want to consider the following.

1: Explore your career options: As the year 2009 dragged on, you must have formed an opinion about what you would want to do with your life. Did you find the year fulfilling what your heart has always desired to do? Might there be experiences you went through that made you feel like you were at the right or wrong place in relation to your job? Might you be feeling as though the year was a wasted opportunity for you? You may then want to explore the options that you have. It could be that you have no problem with the career but have issues with the employer. If this is the case, seeking for a change of employer could just be what you need to have a fulfilling career. In case the challenge is with the career path you took, you have ahead of you an opportunity to make things right.

2: Set realistic career goals: There is a popular saying to the effect that if you leave your house without knowing what your destination would be, you will not get lost. The reason we say someone has gotten lost is when they fail to get where they had destined to. In terms of our career growth, many people’s journeys fail to take off because they never plan and document what they want with their lives. In setting goals for your career, consider engaging other persons other than yourself so as to ensure you make realistic goals. Making realistic goals implies considering various factors in terms of feasibility and timelines. Consider your current strengths, weaknesses, challenges and threats in informing your best options.

Making realistic expectations will help you avoid suffering from guilt when you find challenges meeting the resolutions. How many times have you made resolutions that could not be met? In all these cases, the expiry of the set dates leave a trail of guilt in many people’s hearts hence the need to take care of this from the onset. Think of the steps that are required to get to your goal and put them down on paper. Remember that becoming the Chief Director of an organization does not come over night. Be realistic.

3: Start immediate preparations: As you recuperate from the hangover of the holidays, this might be the best time to start off the process of preparing for your career growth. What are you waiting for? I have heard of people who waited to start to implement their career resolutions through the months and only attempted to start when the year was ending. Take the holiday season as a period to engage with strategic partners in setting your foot on a level ground to start off the process of growth.

4: Improve on your work relationships: One of the reasons why we either fall or rise in our careers relates to our relations with people. We need to check on how we relate with others and mend fences where need be. There are times we have imagined that other people need to change to conform to our expectations yet we have done little to conform and accommodate others. It might be the greatest season when your heart is still softened by the festivities to consider change of approaches in managing and interacting with people.

5: Follow on your actions: Finally, making great plans and not following them through is one of the greatest messes of our generation. A dormant plan is as good as no plan at all. Remember that a good plan has timelines and means of measurement. How do you tell for instance that you have improved on your relations with people? You need an instrument to help you realize when you reach your goal otherwise you would reach your destination and keep on moving. Now, that is not favorable either.