How to Kickstart your Career in the New Year
How has the New Year started out for you?
Whether you’re off to a roaring start, feeling underwhelmed, or something in between, this is a natural time to do some thinking and planning for the year ahead. And as my father says, “chance favors the prepared mind.”
Here are three things you can do right now to kickstart your career off to a great start in the new year.
Choose Your Theme for the Year
This can be an overarching theme that will guide you through the year. For example, it could be “the year of the promotion” or “the year of getting your degree.” Or you can choose a set of words or phrases that really embody the theme you want to live out for the year, such as “let’s make everything simple, easy and fun this year”.
In my case, I’m choosing “strategic” as my theme for the year, both as it applies to my business and my personal development.
Personally, being strategic this year means making sure I’m prioritizing what matters most to me, simplifying things that might cause me stress and working smarter and not necessarily harder all of the time.
For my business, that means establishing clear goals, setting priorities, leveraging our assets, and making good choices about what my team and I do and how we do it. And regularly monitoring our progress so we can make adjustments along the way.
How about you? What possible themes are you considering?
Identify the Three Big Wins You Want to Have This Year
The second thing is to think about your wins. I suggest you pre-determine and pre-select three big wins that you want to have this year.
For example, they could be landing two new clients, passing an exam (e.g., the CFA or CPA exams), and getting over your fear of speaking up in meetings.
So, think about what your three big wins are going to be. It’s a more energizing way of asking yourself, “what are my main goals for the year?”
Decide What Investment You’re Going to Make in Yourself
Think about how you’re going to invest in yourself this year. Think about which exact things you’re going to spend your time, energy, mind-space and money on this year to build your foundation and make you even better in new dimensions.
For me, I’m going to reinvest in the mastermind groups that I’m part of. Initially I wasn’t sure I was going to re-up my investment, but now I realize these are foundational to my current success and my future success. What are your investments going to be?
Bonus to Get Your Career off to a Great Start This Year
There’s a special fourth item that will be available soon to help you get your career off to a great start. It’s my annual online Career Mastery™ Kickstart Summit.
It will be 5 days of 25 incredible experts from around the world sharing their latest insights and advice on how to be more successful in your career.
This is all about you and your career, so I can’t wait to share it with you. I encourage you to sign up and also share the Summit with your friends, family and colleagues to bring them along with you. Registration for the Summit is free – sign up now and save your spot.
Set Yourself Up for Your Best Year Ever
In summary, to get your career off to a great start this year:
- Pick your theme for the year
- Identify your three big wins
- Decide what investment you’re going to make in yourself
- Sign up to the Career Mastery™ Kickstart 2021 online Summit.
This guest post was authored by May Busch
May is an executive and career coach, speaker, author and Senior Advisor to the President of Arizona State University. She’s a seasoned business executive with a passion for helping people thrive at work and reach their full potential.
Known for her work with senior management teams on organizational strategy, leadership development, and career success, she offers workshops, online programs, and coaching to high-potential and high-performance leaders.
Previously, May enjoyed a 24-year career in investment banking, most recently as COO for Morgan Stanley Europe, and is a graduate of Harvard Business School.
