Three simple steps will accelerate your career this year and for years to come; easily plan your career, network better, and develop new skills.
It's a new year and you’re ready to move forward and make a change. Whether it’s finding a new job or getting promoted here are three simple things you can do right now to start the year off right. (And if you’re reading this sometime other than January, good news, it works anytime!)
Create a calendar meeting for thirty minutes and have it repeat every three months. Title this event “Career Planning.” When it comes up, spend those thirty minutes thinking about your career. Ask yourself what you like and don’t like about your current job. Ask what job you want next and if you’re ready for it. If not, what skills or experience are missing and how will you address it? Consider asking yourself any of the career planning questions here (or ask your favorite AI for some career plan questions). Heck, even if you do nothing but web search and read a few career articles (consider my many articles on career planning as one source of them), you’ll be ahead of the game. The point is, investing even thirty minutes a quarter will put you miles ahead of everyone else. If you’re looking to make a change sooner, set it weekly or bi-weekly to get through those questions faster.
Set a calendar reminder every month that says, “Reach out to someone in my network.” When this comes up, look through your Linkedin connections or other set of contacts and find someone you haven’t spoken to in a year or more. Simply reach out and ask, “How are you doing? Let’s catch up over coffee / a phone call.” This will set you up in the habit of strengthening connections in your network. Remember, networking is not about simply adding connections but creating and strengthening relationships. (If you’re feeling ambitious, instead of once a month, set it for every other week.) If you’re not sure who to reach out to, look at someone who has a recent or upcoming birthday (Facebook often shows that, and your personal connections qualify as people in your professional network, too.)
Determine one new career related skill you’re going to learn this year. Maybe it’s public speaking or getting better at social media. Perhaps it’s learning a new tool at work. It could even be something as seemingly small as learning excel skills (who doesn’t love pivot tables?). Take thirty minutes or so to think about the skill you want to develop. You can also ask your manager, HR, and/or mentors, for advice on what that is. Create a plan to learn it. This might mean taking a class, or maybe it means investing time each month to work on it. Either put that time in your calendar now or create a calendar event now to think through this and come up with skills to focus on (and then create the calendar events for executing on it).
That’s it, three simple things that will put you far ahead of your peers. If it helps, in the calendar event link to the URL in this article or even copy and paste the relevant paragraph into your calendar event to remind you what to do.
The secret is that you’re not trying it all this month. If you picked the most canonical new year’s resolution of losing weight you know that it’s not about losing tens of pounds in the first few weeks but a long-term commitment of better eating and exercise. “Long-term commitment” being the operative words and the place most people fail. The good news here is the commitment is very small, it’s relatively infrequent and you can do it right from where you sit. Putting it in the calendar helps you commit. (Advanced readers may want to find an accountability partner and both do it together.)
Good luck with your new year’s goals (or anytime goals)! Let me know how things go for you.
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