Happy New Year and welcome to 2011. Are you ready for a new year?
Did you book time for yourself to reflect on 2010? If you haven’t it is not too late. Give yourself an hour or two and reflect on 2010 used the questions in my last post as starting point.
Now what are your professional goals for 2011? Have you written them down? It has been proven over and over again that if we are specific and write down our goals we dramatically increase the likelihood of meeting them.
A practice that I have found extremely useful is my Yearly Action Plan. It is a one page view of what I want to achieve professional. I update it at least twice a year, in January and during the summer. I keep it posted beside my phone so that I’m easily reminded of my goals.
One Page Action Plan
Professional Vision – What is your professional vision for the next 2 to 3 years? Have you thought about this and written it down. Examples:
- I am self employed with a profitable business that challenges me professionally and allows me to give back to the community.
- I am a well respected executive in my firm with regional responsibilities.
Objectives – What are your top 3 to 5 professional/business realistic (with a little bit of stretch) objectives for 2011? Examples:
- Be a senior manager by the end of 2011.
- Increase review from 2010 by 10%.
Strategies – what are the strategies that you are going to employ to achieve your objectives? Examples:
- Create a social media marketing strategy.
- Take 1 or 2 development courses.
Behaviours – Which behaviours are you going to continue, eliminate, change and add? Examples:
- I will be on time for all meetings.
- I will attend 2 to 3 networking events per month and set up at least 1 follow up meeting from each event.
Support – Who is going to support your in achieving your goals? Examples:
- I will engage an executive/business coach.
- I will work with my manager.
Accountability – how will you be held accountable to acheive your goals? Examples:
- I will share my goals with a close friend and report back quarterly.
- I will share my business goals with my leadership team and report on them monthly.
In the first couple of weeks of January take time to create your Action Plan for 2011. Place it some place that you will see it frequently as a reminder of what you want to achieve.