How to Keep Your Career’s New Year Resolutions

Career-related New Year’s resolutions are fairly common. Many professionals begin the year with great aspirations that ultimately collapse under the weight of work obligations, stress, and tiny choices that add up to stalled progress towards their goals. If you find yourself in that boat, make sure you’re working towards the correct career goal in the first place. All too often, our goals are defined by other people’s expectations or a drive to prove someone wrong. If you’re sure that the goal is a true reflection of your own desires, here are 6 tips on how to actually keep your New Year’s career resolutions:

1. Set yourself up for success

This may sound like a simple way to keep your New Year’s resolution, but building a strong foundation for your career development matters a great deal. Be sure that you always have an up-to-date resume and keep your LinkedIn profile alive and active. Even if you are not in job-search mode, being present to your accomplishments, skills, and professional image will do wonders for your confidence.

2. Invest in yourself

Whether or not your job requires continued professional education, your ability to grow in your role is driven by exposure to new ideas. If you have to get CE credits to maintain a professional license, take charge of the educational opportunities and shape them to deliver the most value. Many employers will cover the cost of seminars and online learning events if you can demonstrate the value.

3. Get clarity on your career goals

What will it be like to accomplish your goal, whether in terms of promotion, a new career opportunity, or an advanced degree? How will your daily life be different? What will you do, who will you interact with, and how will you grow?

Getting very specific on why the goal is important and how it will affect your life is key for tapping into the drive that wills you past inevitable obstacles and failures. In my experience, the main reason why professionals don’t achieve their career goals is that those goals are not all that clear or important in the first place. If you are to invest time, energy, and heart into an accomplishment, make it count.

4. Do deep work

Has a professional goal been on your radar for a long time, and you just don’t seem to be making any progress on it? It may be time for deep work. The concept, introduced in Cal Newport’s book, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, is to carve out a meaningful stretch of time to work on what’s most important. Fifteen minutes here and there do not equal a dedicated hour or three in its ability to move you in the right direction and inspire more effort.

If your mental dialogue pipes in to suggest that you don’t have an hour to dedicate to your goal, I challenge you to think again. Everyone has the exact same 24 hours in a day. The opportunity hides in how you use those hours.

5. Manage your mental health

Most career-related resolutions take a long time to accomplish. That means that you must treat yourself as a corporate athlete running a marathon. Pay attention to your stress levels. Don’t overlook the importance of nutrition, exercise, and rest in how they shape your body and brain chemistry. You may try a practice like meditation or journaling, where you take just a few minutes to focus on what would make a day great.

6. Strive for progress, not perfection

Tim Ferriss has taught me that striving for perfection might actually undermine your efforts in the long term. Instead, consider framing your goal in terms of the knowledge you’ll gain, the people you’ll meet, and the experiences you’ll have along the road. To put it another way, set yourself up for success regardless of whether or not you achieve your goal.

Conclusion

Whatever your track record with New Year’s resolutions, remember that by committing to the objective that counts and applying these concepts to create a framework for growth and success, you can get a different result. You can keep your New Year’s resolutions and make this year the best yet with the appropriate focus, resources, and support!