The new year will be here before you know it. Instead of another year making empty resolutions, start considering some personal goals that can carry over to your professional life. With work-life balance becoming a focus, tying our personal growth to our professional growth makes sense. Here are several personal goals that can have a direct impact on professional growth as well.
Read More
Consider setting a goal of reading more. Whether it is science fiction, biographies, self-help, or technical journals, reading can help expand your view of the world, providing you with new knowledge and/or perspective. You do not have to limit your reading to business books to have an impact. A biography or fiction book may give you insight into how other generations or cultures think and what they value, helping you improve how you interact with colleagues.
To step the goal up a notch, consider creating a book club within your organization, encouraging others to read, and then discuss those books. The coordination of a club will bolster your leadership skills and potentially introduce you to different people across the organization who can help advance your career and further your exploration and understanding of the topics you read about.
Focus on Time Management
Understanding where you can improve your use of time will make you feel more efficient and help relieve stress and anxiety. Gaining insight into how you spend your time at work requires a scientific approach to measuring and recording how you spend your days. Take a week and record the start and stop times of key activities. Note if there were interruptions or breaks within that time frame. Seeing how long it takes you to complete a report might indicate a need for automation to improve efficiency, or it may show you that the task does not take as long as you think.
Tally up how much time you spend in meetings and examine where that could be streamlined. Be honest about how much time you spend off-task during the workday and how that impacts your productivity. If you can get your work done more quickly, that leaves more time for personal pursuits.
Another goal to consider is to try showing up to meetings (either online or in person) two to five minutes before they start. This is a great tactic for people who are chronically late, but it also may help relieve meeting anxiety by giving you a couple more minutes to prepare before the real conversation starts.
Improve Financial Management
Do some reading or take a course on personal finance. Gaining a better understanding of budgets, investment options, and more will not only help you personally but will also impact how you work. You can apply this financial knowledge to business decisions, ensure teams stay on budget, and make suggestions for cost savings or efficiencies. Understanding budgeting and financial planning can also lead to a better understanding of why certain decisions are being made within your organization, lessening uncertainty, anxiety, and confusion over business direction.
Get Social
Challenge yourself to attend more events in the new year. These could be office-centric happy hours or industry conferences, for example. Set a goal of going to a certain number of events each quarter, and then set a goal for each event you attend. At an office get-together, it may be connecting with someone you’d like to have a mentor relationship with. At a conference, the goal may be to talk to three new people.
Improving networking means not just taking from others; it requires a good bit of giving. Be prepared to offer your advice and experience and reflect on how you or your organization can help someone meet their objectives.
These relatively basic goals can have a significant impact on how your work gets done. Each one drives a deeper understanding of how you, your colleagues, and your organization work, feeding a more productive new year both at home and at work.
As the founder of GovEvents and GovWhitePapers, Kerry is on a mission to help businesses interact with, evolve, and serve the government. With 25+ years of experience in the information technology and government industries, Kerry drives the overall strategy and oversees operations for both companies. She has also served in executive marketing roles at a number of government IT providers.
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