PREPARING FOR THE YEAR AHEAD: Celebrating Our Wins and Reaching Our Goals
As we launch into 2023 and everything that’s before us, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by everything we’ll face in the new year, anxious about the leadership challenges ahead, and unsure of how we’ll fit it all in.
The best thing about our Leadership Quest, is that we know that our path to growth as leaders is a process, and everyday we commit to practicing a new habit and implementing a new tool, we are getting stronger and more capable to lead our teams well.
Though 2022 seemed to go by in a flash, it’s important to reflect on all the ways you’ve grown and everything you and your teams have accomplished to get to this point. Taking time to look back and celebrate your wins and understand the challenges you’ve overcome will help propel you through whatever lies ahead.
Grab some time this week to pull out your Leadership Quest planners and review what you’ve done this past year. Review your end of month pages and “This Month’s Accomplishments” from each month and work through the questions below to help you start out the new year strong:
1) What were my biggest accomplishments last year? What am I most proud of having done as a leader, in my role, and at home?
2) What challenged me the most last year, both personally and professionally? And, how did I overcome and work through those challenges?
3) What relationships fed me the most this past year and which relationships would I like to invest more into this year?
4) At the end of 2023, what would I be most proud of having accomplished? What are the steps I’d need to take to achieve that goal?
5) Where do I need the most support this year and who can I ask for help?
TALENT TRACKS: Reaching Goals Using Perseverance and Resilience
The start of the New Year is a great time for setting goals, but many times, we can find ourselves worn down after a few months and waning on our progress.
Let’s make 2023 the year we push through and persevere with our goals. This 30 minute course from TalentTracks will show us how.
Key takeaways:
-Goals are feelings or achievements that we really desire.
-Achieving goals takes commitment and time. In order to achieve a goal, we need to know the time it will take to accomplish, whether there is change involved, who needs to be involved, and whether the goal is a stretch for us and will take discipline to accomplish.
-Crucial steps for starting a goal:
1) Clearly and specifically define the goal
2) Set a definite time frame for accomplishing the goal
3) Determine how we will tangibly measure progress
–Factoring perseverance into our goals is essential to making them achievable. Here are five steps to factor perseverance into our goals:
1) Recognize our goals and keep them top of mind
2) Establish short-term wins
3) Ask for support or coaching
4) Avoid negative self-talk
5) Be realistic about obstacles we may face
-By adjusting our expectations to match reality and knowing that obstacles will arise, we can avoid disappointment that might damage our perseverance. We must keep our focus on the next right step. Persevering is about taking one step at a time.
-For most of us, time is short. There are lots of demands on us at home and at work and sometimes we can lose sight of our goals. We have to consider a range of factors when we decide to keep on persevering to achieve our goals:
1) How valuable is our goal to the company now and in the future?
2) What progress has been made so far to get us where we want to be?
3) If progress is slow, what needs to be changed?
–We must keep the bigger picture in mind when pushing to achieve our goals.
1) Take stock of the situation and consider our objectives in context to our role in the company and the company’s mission and vision
2) Get crystal clear on what “done” looks like
3) Readjust and reset expectations when necessary
4) Gain support and insight from colleagues and supervisors
-We must schedule our time effectively to turn an obstacle into an opportunity. Chunking tasks can help us work even quicker.
-We can use communication and negotiation skills and build a circle of trust to help overcome obstacles.
-We need to surround ourselves with positive people and communicate openly with those who may resist our goals. Open dialogue can help bring hesitant people onto our team.
-Take a break from perseverance! The brain is the most energy hungry organ in our body and if we don’t give it a chance to rest and repair itself it loses efficiency. We become less effective. We’re on edge all the time. We can’t think straight and we make bad decisions and choices. Perseverance isn’t about doing one thing constantly, it’s about balancing tasks and ensuring we’re physically and mentally able to work well. We must build in margin and white space. Rest is vital.
-Sometimes the resilient thing to do is to stop persevering. Here are the right reasons to stop pursuing a goal:
1) Is what we’re doing clearly failing?
2) Are there no physical or emotional reserves remaining?
3) Are there logical reasons to stop?
4) Are there business-critical reasons we should move on to something else?
–It’s okay to take what we’ve already accomplished and apply it to something new, something that may be needed more. When we started a project, the reasons might have been sound. But now changing circumstances mean it makes sense to move on to something else. It becomes logical to change. It’s the right thing – the resilient thing to do.
-Resilience isn’t about rigidity – it’s actually about being flexible: having the ability to bounce back or change when necessary.
Click here to access this course and gain perseverance toward achieving your goals.
SAVE THE DATE! January Leadership Roundtable
January 24 | 12:00pm – 1:00pm | Skyline Room
Rachel MK Headley, PhD, will help us develop a Growth Mindset as we launch the new year and prepare for the move to the HCMD.
Dr. Headley will walk us through different personality styles and approaches to change and give us tangible tools on how to lead each personality type through transition.
Dr. Headley is the co-author of iX Leadership: Create High-Five Cultures and Guide Transformation and serves as CEO of Rose Group International, a project management, change management, and leadership consulting firm dedicated to helping leaders and businesses solve problems around teamwork, productivity, time management, and retention, so leaders can more effectively achieve aspirational goals.
Dr. Headley is a Forbes coach, TedX Speaker, and former NASA scientist who resides in Spearfish, South Dakota. She has over two decades of experience leading complex and groundbreaking achievements, managing big projects, uniting diverse international stakeholders, and guiding teams through change. You can rest assured that she has actually led teams and knows what works.
Click here to RSVP. See you then!