How do you orient yourself at work?

Coming into a new company can feel like landing on the moon (you heard us right). The journey has gotten you pumped up, but when you take your first step on the moon’s surface, you feel, well, extra-terrestrial. 

Now, if you’re still at the same company but joining a new team, dealing with a lot of changes, or even coming back from an extended leave, you might not be feeling quite like Neil Armstrong but the sense of being out of place may still be there. (Like getting dropped off in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language. See? We’ve got analogies for everything). 

Whether you’re coming into a new workplace or just need a fresh start in your work, follow these five steps to get oriented. 

Step 1: Get acquainted with the culture 

Familiarize yourself with the company’s culture, starting with the core values, mission, and overall work philosophy. Figure out who your company serves and how…who are the customers? What do they really care about? Then, understand what the organization stands for, its long-term goals, and how your role fits into the bigger picture. Write all of this down so you can reference it. Use this information to guide your actions and decisions while also using it as a blueprint for understanding those around you.

Step 2: Understand your role and responsibilities

Gain a clear understanding of your role and responsibilities within the organization. Be able to answer these three questions: 

1. What do I do? 
2. What is expected of me? 
3. How does my work contribute to the company’s goals? 

And then make sure to familiarize yourself with processes, tools, and workflows that are essential to your role. When you know what you’re doing and can communicate it, you’ll work more efficiently and enhance your impact.

Step 3: Know your team and build relationships

Success in any workplace is built upon solid relationships. Take the time to get to know your colleagues – not only structurally (who reports to whom and who specializes in what) but also philosophically. Learn about their preferred communication styles, work habits, and collaboration preferences. This understanding will facilitate seamless teamwork and foster a positive work environment. Strong networks are great and important in getting the work done, and having fulfilling work relationships are also important in feeling settled and satisfied at work.

Step 4: Clarify the Vision

You likely already have a great grasp of the company’s vision after diving into its culture, now establish your own vision. What are your personal goals? What do you want to get out of this work? How do you want to show up for your colleagues? (More on goals in our article – 3 ways to achieve your professional goals this year)

Write that down in one or two sentences and be sure to connect it to the company vision. Understand how your daily tasks align with the company’s mission and values. This alignment not only provides a sense of purpose but also enhances your motivation and dedication to your work.

Step 5: Embrace Curiosity and Seek Help

No one expects you to have all the answers from day one. And at day 1,000, you’re still going to have questions. So ask them. Be open. Seek guidance when you encounter challenges. Embrace a curious mindset that drives you to understand processes, tools, and best practices. Remember that your colleagues are likely more than willing to share their expertise and help you overcome obstacles. Asking questions not only accelerates your learning but also showcases a proactive approach to problem-solving.

Orienting yourself at work is a continual process

One-moon landing does not make an astronaut. Ok, well, yes it does, BUT most astronauts go on multiple space expeditions in their lifetime. You will find new careers and search for new ways to love your current role many times over and as such, your journey of orientation and integration is a continuous process. Following these five steps can help you navigate your way through a new workplace or embark on a fresh chapter in your career.

The post 5 steps to orient yourself at work appeared first on SNP Communications.

Still not following? OK, so you like pie, right? We all (mostly) like pie. A good pie is a good pie, but it’s a good pie because of the quality of the ingredients and the skill of the baker, not solely because of its taste. 

The sum is pretty great but the parts have to be great too. 

So how do you make all those parts work together? 

What is a high-performing team? 

There are five key characteristics that define a high-performing team: 

• Psychological safety: Everyone feels safe in taking risks around their team members, and that they won’t be embarrassed or punished for doing so.
• Dependability: Everyone completes quality work on time.
• Structure and clarity: Everyone knows what their specific expectations are. These expectations must be challenging yet attainable.
• Meaning: Everyone has a sense of purpose in their work (i.e., financial security, supporting family, helping the team succeed, etc.).
• Impact: Everyone sees that the result of their work actually contributes to the organization’s overall goals

Helping your team cultivate these qualities is important, and clear communication is at the core of it all. Without communication, all of these pieces fall apart, down to the last email typo. 

The core of team communication in this hybrid world comes down to our conversations, emails, slacks, presentations, voice memos, you name it. And we’re getting them constantly. 

A high-performing team knows how to make its messages clear, actionable, and memorable for its audience to help everyone drive toward succes. To put it simply, they’re good at business writing.

But first, a high-performing team needs to know its audience. 

1. Know your audience.

A message means nothing if it’s not tailored to the person reading it. We often focus on our need to tell versus someone else’s need to know. 

There are 5 key questions to ask yourself: 

• Who is your audience/recipient? 
• What do they care about in their role (function, responsibilities, stakeholders they answer to, etc.)?
• What is the objective? 
• What do you want them to go do after hearing your message? (call-to-action)
• What are the key points to support your objective and call-to-action?

The prep might look like this. 

A lead engineer needs to give a Q1 update to her team and the Finance team. She might answer the questions as follows: 

Who is your audience/recipient? 

• Engineering team: VP of engineering, Directors, Fellow Senior Engineers, and a few entry-level folks
• Finance team: VP of finance, Directors, accounts payable teams

What do they care about in their role? (Pro tip – you’ll want to focus on the highest level in the room)

• VP of Engineering: Cares about innovative products that make the company competitive, Striking the balance between quality and cost efficiency, and ultimately, revenue. 
• VP of Finance: Cares about the ROI of projects and expenses, saving money, and generating revenue. 

What’s your objective? What do you want them to go do? 

• Increase available headcount either by reallocating existing team members or hiring new ones. (This could also be an ask for more financial support, for help aligning to a key message, even for help brainstorming key roadblocks).

What are your three key takeaways?

• Behind timeline
• Plan to get ahead
• Critical to competitive edge

Once you’ve thought about your audience, use what they care about to guide your main points.

2. Create an executive summary outline.

After you’ve clarified your objective and what your audience cares about. You can then dive into the content, starting with an outline. 

Here at SNP, we love threes. Studies have shown that people generally won’t remember more than 3 things (Forbes). But, we tend to share too much information when communicating and do it in a roundabout, non-linear way, making it hard to follow. 

So, the outline we like to use for presentations, emails, even wedding speeches is called the triangle. It keeps you anchored to three main points. 

The middle holds all of your audience information which guides your content. The outside is where you fill in all your content. A key takeaway is 2-3 words. It’s short, pithy, and what you hope your audience walks away with. The supporting points can be as long or as short as you need, the purpose is to put the details in the middle. 

After compiling your content, you can then tailor it to the format you’re sharing it in. 

3. Edit your content to your medium.

If you were presenting an executive summary you might take your key takeaways, turn them into a paragraph like this…

In Q1, XYZ Project is behind timeline. We have a plan to get ahead. It’s important to invest in this project because it’ll provide a critical competitive edge. 

We need your support in increasing the available headcount either by reallocating existing team members or hiring new ones. A number of roadblocks have put us behind timeline and a lack of team availability prevents us from testing the solutions to these problems. Our plan to get ahead depends on freeing up current team members, Peter and Jen, or bringing on two new contractors which would allow us to resolve these roadblocks in three weeks’ time. This would be a valuable investment because XYZ project provides a critical competitive edge to the company by enhancing our existing product, resolving current customer issues, and bringing in $500,000 quarterly in year one once launched. 

Again, XYZ Project is behind timeline but we have a plan to get ahead. To move forward and gain a critical competitive edge, we’d like your buy-in on reallocating team members’ time to focus on this project or providing financial support in expanding the team.

If you were turning it into a presentation you might add more to your supporting points and break each point into a slide with the necessary evidence. 

But most of us, we’re communicating important messages in email. 

Here are ten things to keep in mind when writing an email: 

11 email best practices for business writing

1. Put the most important information first
2. Use short sentences. Can it be <7 words?
3. Use short paragraphs (1 idea per paragraph)
4. Use the active voice (“We reached the goal” instead of “the goal was reached”)
5. Use action verbs and concrete nouns
6. Avoid jargon and clichés
7. Keep the tense consistent – have a reason for changing tenses
8. Show, don’t tell (follow a generalization with an example)
9. Use good grammar and proper punctuation
10. To check tone and a conversational style, say it out loud
11. Make sure you have an actionable and detailed subject line

Here’s what this looks like in practice…

Subject Line: APPROVAL NEEDED THUR, MAY 4th – Headcount Increase for XYZ Project

Hi all, 

For XYZ Project, we need your support in increasing the available headcount to solve current roadblocks and get ahead of timeline. 

• Roadblocks have put us behind timeline. 
• More headcount would resolve this in three weeks.
• This project provides us with a critical competitive advantage.

A number of roadblocks have put us behind timeline. A lack of team availability prevents us from resolving the roadblocks. 

By freeing up current team members, Peter and Jen, we can get ahead of timeline. We could also hire two new contractors for the duration of the project. With these added team members, we’ll resolve the roadblocks in 3 weeks.

XYZ project provides a critical competitive edge to the company. It enhances our existing product. It resolves current customer issues. It’s projected to bring in $500,000 quarterly in just year one once launched. 

Again, we need your support in increasing the available headcount to solve current roadblocks and get ahead of timeline as this project is critical for a competitive edge. 

Best,
Engineer

These skills seem basic, but when we encounter high-stress situations or quick turnaround times it’s easy to go with what’s simplest rather than what’s most effective. 

High-Performing Teams Put in the Effort 

High-Performing teams do the work. Period. Yes, they achieve great results, but it’s the effort they expend in between the start and achieving success to create psychological safety, to provide structure and clarity, to be dependable, and to illuminate meaning and impact that makes them high performing. 

Communication is the crux of achieving all of these qualities as well as success. 

Go back to basics. Understand your audience. Make your content clear with an executive summary outline. And then tailor it to your medium. 

Want to bring a Business Writing training to your team? Reach out to us at [email protected]

The post Business Writing For High-Performing Teams (Or Dummies) appeared first on SNP Communications.

Back in 2022, Suneel Gupta shared insight with the SNP team about how we can cultivate resilience through rest. Now that we’re all dealing with a lot of uncertainty, those moments of rest become even more important to perseverance. Here’s what we learned, so you can cultivate resilience through rest too. 

1. THE FORMULA FOR SUCCESS AND THE FORMULA FOR BURNOUT LOOK THE SAME. 

For most people, especially in the workplace, success is defined by grit and hustle. But in having grit and hustle, we can also end up always being on, doing whatever it takes to hit a milestone, and working around the clock to our own detriment. When too much hustle turns into burnout, it puts us and our clients or coworkers in a tricky spot. 

We have to take a balanced approach to achieve success. As a society right now, we’re realizing that we don’t want to choose between health and work. We can find a way to do both––the key is taking breaks.

2. VACATIONS ARE A BAND-AID SOLUTION TO BURNOUT.

Society relies on the idea of vacations as the cure for burnout. The vast majority of people who take sizable vacations will feel more stressed the week after a vacation than one week before. Vacations are a weak tool for preventing and solving burnout because they require a lot of work to make happen and they’re temporary. Healing burnout comes down to consistency and time.

3. PRIORITIZE RHYTHMIC RECOVERY. 

Faculty at Harvard Medical School found in their research that high performers didn’t wait for long breaks or vacations in order to take recoveries. They were taking breaks all the time and building recovery into their schedules––on average about eight breaks in a single day. 

They came up with this rule: For every 55 minutes of work, take five minutes of rest. 

You can do anything in those five minutes except look at your phone, work, or multitask. Some ideas include folding laundry, meditating, sipping a cup of tea, and doing nothing.

Reminder: What sounds simple is not always easy! Be rigorous around implementation. You may not see the short-term effects but you will definitely feel the long-term effects. People report feeling as much energy at the end of the day as they did at the beginning.  

4. BUILD AWARENESS AROUND YOUR STRESS LEVELS AND LEAN ON THOSE AROUND YOU.

When we’re all just trying to get to the next task, to get through this one moment, it can be really easy to ignore stress and let it impact how we behave. Suneel shared a story with us that was something along the lines of…

I was shooting a television show in LA about well-being. It was my first time doing this. I woke up that morning of the first shoot very nervous and took steps to reduce my anxiety––ate a good breakfast, had a good workout, etc. When I got in the car to get to the studio I noticed that the driver was incredibly stressed out. By the time we got to the studio, we were both fried. I paused, realized I needed a minute to get to a better state, and said to the driver, “Before I get out of the car and take 5 minutes to meditate, is there any chance you would want to meditate with me?” The driver agreed and we meditated together. At the end, the driver gave me a huge hug. Just those five minutes helped us both reset.

Self-awareness, taking intentional pauses, and engaging those around you when feeling or seeing stress, can better help you cultivate resilience. 

The Ability to Bounce Back

Stress management and resilience come down to our ability to bounce back in difficult situations. We can’t bounce back if we consistently neglect our physical, mental, and emotional well-being. So, create space and take consistent small breaks to set yourself up for success. (And remember––checking your phone is not a break. Put it away.)

Interested in helping your team cultivate resilience? Reach out to us via email at [email protected] to learn more about our Resilience workshop.

The post 4 Learnings From Suneel Gupta about the Importance of Rest for Resilience appeared first on SNP Communications.

DISCLAIMER: This book was read and reviewed from the perspective of Jaselin Drown – Strategic Account Manager and Content Marketing Manager at SNP.

Here are the highlights…

3.5/5 Stars 

• Pros: Practical, Useful concepts, Pushes the comfort zone
• Cons: Not for everyone, Activities were a bit dense, Not a lot of content around the workplace
• Would I recommend this? Maybe, if you’re in the mood for some childhood introspection.

Book review for How To Do the Work: It’s not for everyone

First things first, it’s important to note that ‘how to do the work’ in this case does not mean work-work (the one you spend many hours in meetings for), it means the work of taking care of yourself mentally, physically, and emotionally. Because of that, there may be activities or topics that don’t resonate for some: meditation, future self-journaling, inner child work, etc. 

I personally felt myself opening up to the concepts as I progressed further and further into the book and started to see some of my own experiences from a different lens. It was helpful, but what works for some won’t always work for others.

There are still excellent pieces of information we can take and apply to how we show up in the workplace and balance our lives––because work is a part of life. Plus, it’s January. If you have New Year’s resolutions you just put down on paper, this book might help you uncover personal roadblocks and then provide tools to help you navigate them. 

Here are my three key takeaways: 

1. Becoming self-aware starts with getting off autopilot and noticing your thoughts and physical sensations. 
2. To build resilience you have to break your negative cycles and manage your stress.
3. Progress can only happen when we understand our core beliefs and tell ourselves new stories.

1. Becoming self-aware starts with getting off autopilot and noticing your thoughts and physical sensations. 

In the first chapter, LePera makes the case that we’re all operating on autopilot. We’re reacting instead of acting intentionally; think commuting home and suddenly realizing you’re in your driveway without remembering how you got there.

She argues we aren’t making active choices and the reason we’re doing this is that we have a “homeostatic impulse that regulates our physiological functions from breathing to body temperature to heartbeat…The goal of the homeostatic impulse is to create balance. When there’s dysregulation the imbalances can be problematic and even self-betraying,” (pg. 29). 

We like routine and habit because it helps us conserve energy and soothe that homeostatic impulse.  But, if we fall into negative habits or routines that solve short-term problems like immediate stress (think procrastination), we harm ourselves more than we help ourselves. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again––eating lunch at your desk is not a break even though it may ease the anxiety of missing a message! 

Develop Your Attention Muscle in 3 Steps

To start to do this you need to develop your attention muscle. LePera has a few exercises at the end of chapter 2 that help with this (pg. 36). We’re going to adapt them here for work.

Step 1: Before you start your work day take 1 – 2 minutes to check in with yourself.

Maybe do this after you’ve gone through your tasks and schedule for the day. Start with your body. Scan from head to toe—what muscles are tight? Does your body feel heavy or light? Do you feel low energy? 

Step 2: Turn inward.

What feelings are coming up for you as you think about your work day? What’s causing them?

For example, your chest might tighten when you think about a certain meeting. After time, you recognize this as anxiety. As you think about it more you realize that you’re feeling uncertain of how your team will receive the data in your presentation because it’s not what they want to hear. You’re worried it’ll devolve into chaos.

Step 3: Set an intention you can go back to.

Think about how you’re going to handle that emotion that came up for you and turn it into a one-word sentence you can go back to when you feel that emotion come up again.

With our previous example, you might think, “This data is important and I’ll approach sharing it with a mindful, firm, and solution-oriented manner,” every time you feel your chest tighten thinking about the meeting.

You might recognize that you also didn’t do enough work to warn folks beforehand and set a behavior change goal for yourself: “Next time, I will go to the team with this kind of information beforehand so there’s more transparency and we can use our meeting time to come up with solutions instead of dealing with shock.” 

Start with cultivating that awareness and then you can go into managing stress and negativity. 

2. To build resilience you have to manage stress and break your negative cycles.

If you’ve been privileged to work in the past few years, then you’re no stranger to stress (pandemic, war, and now a looming recession). You may have tools to manage it and at times it may get overwhelming. It’s important to watch for chronic stress. Chronic stress is “stress that is constant and persistent which wears down and harms every system in our body” (pg. 69).

Stress changes our body physically (chronic inflammation, stomach problems, sleep troubles, etc.) and mentally (being primed to recognize certain things as a threat––think pet peeves that get you especially upset). When we adapt to stress mentally and begin seeing external threats where they aren’t, we create a negative feedback loop that leads to a heightened emotional state. We eventually get addicted to that heightened state and begin to create it for ourselves. 

LePera captures the start of this workday as an example of what a negative cycle might look like:

You wake up in the morning, and dread washes over you. The alarm is buzzing, and it’s time to get up and get ready for work. Immediately you have the same thoughts you have every morning. I need coffee. My commute is forty-five freaking minutes. I have to shower. I wish it was Friday. Your mind is doing what it always does, providing you with the endless narratives fo the many things you need to do (though you desperately wish you didn’t have to) before you have done them. Your body responds to your stressful thoughts: your heart rate increases, your breath shortens, your nervous system upregulates, your stress hormones are released––all before you’ve left your bed. On the way to work there is traffic. You expect the traffic because it happens almost every day, but your mind still races with critiques about how you should have left earlier and how much you hate your commute. You experience a buildup of frustration and anger, which you discharge onto your coworkers once you get into the office. You complain to them, and it feels good to be heard, but when you open your email, your heart starts racing again and your stomach tightens. You spend some more time venting, which again feels good, and the cycle of emotional activation continues…” (pg. 79)

How to shift your perspective to break negativity and build resilience

To break these cycles of negative thinking and chronic stress, LePera first says to identify your symptoms. Read more about stress symptoms here or on pg. 83 in the book. Then, LePera suggests you can implement meditation, grounding techniques, watching your information consumption, and getting out into nature to help bring back some balance. 

I would add to that and say, do something good and learn something new. SNP Co-Founder and CEO, Maureen Taylor says the best way to shift your perspective and get out of a negative cycle is to do something good (for you, like upping your exercise from 30 minutes to an hour; for others, like spending some time on the weekend volunteering) and learn something new (something you’ve been wanting to try forever like doing stand-up comedy at an open mic night or taking a language class). 

These suggestions are less work focused because a mindset isn’t momentary. You have to shift your perspective as a whole and that means doing something a bit more personal. And, the more you introduce things that push your comfort zone in an intentional way, the more you can expand your capacity to endure discomfort and build resilience in the face of stress. 

“When we activate, challenge, and tone our vagus nerve [refers to the polyvagal theory and the vagus nerve as a mind-body connecter] in a safe and controlled environment we build tolerance and learn how to live with discomfort, which is key to building resilience––the ability to recover quickly from hardship.” – Dr. Nicole LePera

Write down one action each for…

1. Doing something good
2. Learning something new

3. Progress can only happen when we understand our core beliefs and tell ourselves new stories

As we get closer to the end of How To Do the Work, LePera brings up the idea of core beliefs.

She defines a belief as “a practiced thought grounded in lived experience. Beliefs are built up over years of thought patterns and require both interior and exterior validation to thrive” (pg. 109). 

She then gave this example of what core beliefs at work look like: 

“If you believe you’re unworthy you’ll see a job promotion as something that happened by mistake knowing it’s only a matter of time before you’re discovered to be the impostor you really are. When you make a mistake at work, either by happenstance or self-sabotage, it will be filtered through the lens of inevitability: Of course, I slipped up. I’m not worthy. We universally lean into something.”

We get these core beliefs from our surrounding environments and then look for evidence that proves that belief. 

When it comes to work, I believe our first few job experiences are incredibly formative. We look to our higher-ups and peers for guidance on how we approach the workplace because we don’t have a frame of reference yet. These then become the stories we tell ourselves about how we work and what kind of worker we are. 

To make progress on your goals for the year, you have to take inventory of what your core beliefs are and adjust the ones that may hold you back.

Take inventory of your core beliefs.

Reflect on how you think about work. 

Step 1: While witnessing your thoughts, what themes do you notice? 

• About yourself 
• About others or your relationships

For example, you might notice…

• About yourself: I get upset when I feel like I have to be on camera all the time
• About others: I get angry if others don’t respond to me quickly.

Step 2: Turn your themes into sentences. 

Core belief: I feel like I always have to be on to be a good worker (on camera, responding quickly, etc.)

Step 3: Identify the impact. 

• Believing that I always have to be on leads me to feel burnt out.

Step 4: Change the belief and repeat. Repeat. Repeat. 

• New belief: I am a better worker when I take care of myself.

There are no quick fixes. 

LePera makes a great statement in the introduction to her book – “There are no quick fixes.” And it’s true. Whatever brought you to this blog, whether you’re looking to solve a problem or overall feel better at work, will take time and energy to improve. Progress isn’t linear. You’ll go two steps forward and one step back, but it’s the commitment to the process that gets you there––whatever that process may look like for you. 

Want to figure out how to realize your professional goals this year? Click here for 3 ways to achieve your professional goals in 2023.

The post Book Review for How To Do The Work by Dr. Nicole LePera appeared first on SNP Communications.

2022 had many of us reaching our breaking points after years of working hard and staying the course while disruption after disruption occurred––a pandemic, a war, worsening climate change, and a looming recession. Now, the feeling that we have to change and make it stick is more urgent than ever. But after all that has happened, how can professionals set goals in 2023 and have the resilience to achieve them?

Let’s be honest, most New Year’s Resolutions end up as another marked-up page at the back of a notepad in another corner of an overflowing desk drawer (maybe your resolution is to clean out your desk drawers). Then, as the year sprints forward, we wonder why we’re stuck in the same place we were at when we started. Then comes the question, “Why did I set resolutions in the first place?”

Don’t lose hope just yet! It can be both a new year AND a new you. It just takes commitment and a little clarity.

Why is setting new year’s resolutions important for professionals?

Setting goals and intentions can feel like a heavy lift, but it helps professionals adjust their focus and decide what their main priorities for the year are. Being goal-oriented provides clarity and a sense of purpose when done right. Not to mention, it can inspire your team too. 

Having something to work toward that connects you to your values and your mission is also critical to preventing burnout; however, most resolutions fail and that has the exact opposite effect on our confidence and well-being.

Why do most new years’ resolutions fail? 4 Resolution Traps

A resolution is defined as a decision to do something or to behave in a certain manner, and it’s just that––a decision. A decision is nothing without action, without commitment. That’s why New Year’s Resolutions are so hard to complete.

In fact, 80% of people fail to achieve their new year’s resolutions (Inc study), and here are a few reasons why:

• Self-doubt: The voice in your head constantly questions your ability to get things done. 

• Unclear and/or unrealistic goals: Pursuing goals that are not clear and relevant to your life and daily reality.

• Overthink: Too much thinking, not much doing, also often expressed as procrastination.

• Lack of self-accountability: Finding excuses to avoid doing the work and fulfilling responsibilities.
  

Driving change and achieving goals is all about being able to reflect on where you’ve been, where you are now, and where you want to go. It’s about setting a realistic plan of action and making progress one day at a time.

How to achieve your New Year’s Resolutions in 3 steps: 

1- REFLECT

Reflecting helps you stay focused and motivated. It helps you identify any obstacles that may stand in your way and allows you to adjust your plans accordingly.

And it starts with a clear vision. You need to be able to describe the you that you’ll be when you achieve your goal down to the shoes you’re wearing. We know that sounds silly but it works. For example, a product manager might say…

I want to become a product leader. My colleagues will respect me as a forward-thinking subject matter expert. Our customers will feel confident that myself and the team know exactly what they want and that our product will solve their pain points. I will lead with empathy and confidence by ensuring I have breaks for myself, respecting the time of others, and advocating for the customers and my colleagues to my higher-ups. I’ll listen more than I talk. I will show up to 1:1s in more casual attire to better build relationships and I’ll go to important meetings dressed in suits with some nice dress shoes to show I’m serious. 

After, you establish your clear, self vision, use these prompts to further reflect on your goals:

• What are your values? How do your goals tie to your values? 
• What does success look like to you?
• How do you want you and your work to be described? What can you do to channel some of these qualities? 

To make reflecting realistic, decide on a time frame for a check-in. How does your present live up to your future self-vision? For example…

• Monthly check-in: Focus on reflecting on what went well and what can be improved the next month
• 3 months, 6 months, 9 months: Create smaller milestones you’d like to hit to achieve your goals, use 3/6/9 months check-ins to keep yourself accountable to your big goal. Adjust tactics if necessary.

• End of year: The final push – reflect on what you need to do more and/or less to finish the year strong and achieve your goals.

Selecting your check-in time frame is part of the next step: planning.

2 – PLAN

Taking the time to develop a comprehensive plan with achievable goals and measurable outcomes is an important step to ensure that progress is made in the right direction. 

A S.M.A.R.T. action plan incorporates 5 characteristics of a goal: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. 

• Specific – What am I trying to accomplish?  
• Measurable – How will I measure progress?
• Attainable – How realistic is my goal based on my current skills and resources?
• Relevant – Is it worthwhile? Does it match the bigger picture?
• Time-Bound – When is it due? 

General goals don’t help us. If we say “I want to be more productive” this gives no direction or clear action that we can hold ourselves accountable to. 

A more actionable goal might be “I want to be more productive by improving my time management skills. To do this I’ll create a daily schedule each morning and try to stick to it for the next month, checking in each evening about what worked and what didn’t.” 

This goal is specific (improve time management skills), measurable (by creating and following a daily schedule), achievable (by setting aside time each day to work on this goal), relevant (this goal will help me be more productive in my personal and professional life), and time-bound (I will work on this goal for the next month).

Create your SMART goal plan and regularly review it, so you can ensure that you are always on track.

3 – PROGRESS

Breaking and forming habits isn’t a one-and-done. Making progress requires focus, consistency, accountability, and persistence. You aren’t going to tackle chunks of your S.M.A.R.T.  goals every day. It’s important to scale them down to milestones and then daily pieces.

For example, using our previous SMART goal of wanting to improve productivity through time management, a monthly task might be, “I will create a to-do list for each week and complete 75% of the list.” Breaking that down even further you could say, “Each day when I set up my schedule I will cross-check my meetings and time blocks with my weekly to-do list to see how my priorities align.” 

It’s important to keep sight of the vision here (productivity), the specific action (creating a schedule each day) and then figure out what you can do to make progress on your milestones (weekly to-do list) and day (cross-reference to-do list). 

How you live out your S.M.A.R.T. goals might not always be the action you described in your original goal draft because S.M.A.R.T. goals aren’t static. They grow and evolve as you progress and figure out what works, what doesn’t, and what aligns with your changing wants and needs. It’s ok to adapt. Expect change. 

When looking for ways to make progress on a day to day basis, consider these questions:

• What is one thing can you do each day to chip away at your S.M.A.R.T. goals? 
• How can your current routine support your goals? OR, what about your current routine gets in the way of your goals? 
• What tradeoffs might you have to make in order to create space for your goals? (We can’t have it all!)

To help, we’ve developed a tracker that you can use to document your yearly progress. Click here to download.

Make Your New Year’s Resolutions Stick

We know we’ve been saying resolutions throughout this whole blog. Trust us, we’ve been rolling our eyes too. Resolutions are unreliable and destroy our self-esteem because they lack commitment. They lack discipline. And eventually, they become just another holiday cliché. So, in 2023 let’s swap resolutions for commitments. 

With the tools above, you’ll make your 2023 commitments tangible. Lead each day as if your success was inevitable, and so it shall be. 

Happy new year! 

SNP

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