Career Tune-up: Maintaining your Professional Path
Career Tune-up: Maintaining your Professional Path
The Past Year
When you review your career milestones of the past year, you’ll want to take a candid look at what worked and what didn’t work for you, your clients and your organization. Defining this will help you to make decisions about next year.
First, start with what went well this year. What accomplishments are you most proud of and which have had the most impact? In what situations were you successful? Where did you significantly contribute your expertise and your energy? For what situations did you receive great feedback?
Once you’ve defined these positives of the past year, celebrate or reward yourself. Accomplished, achievement-oriented professionals are very good at figuring out ways to improve or defining what did not work well, but often forget this valuable step of acknowledging what they did well. How and when will you celebrate your past year’s victories?
Next, review the year looking for challenges you’ve had, mistakes you’ve made and skill areas that you want to improve. As you create this list, be analytical not critical. Come from a perspective of ‘what would have made this year better?’ not ‘what was wrong with me?’ Remember, you can’t change what has happened in the past. You’ll want to use it to help you be more effective in the future.
Now you’ll use the challenges list that you just created. Use hindsight to evaluate and learn. With each item on the list, describe how you might have done things differently. What would have been the preferred action, response or result? Think creatively about changes you want to make for yourself and how you operate.
So far, this exercise has been focused on you. Now you’ll want to look beyond how you impacted your performance this year to examine external influences. Identify which people in your professional life encouraged, supported and enhanced you - as well as those who might have discouraged, hindered or harmed you professionally. What mechanisms within your organization were supportive and where did politics or policies get in the way of your progress?
The New Year
With a detailed review of the year completed and a clear picture of what happened in 2007, you can now move in to planning mode to define what you want for 2008.
Start by identifying your professional priorities for the year ahead. How do you want to grow and change in the year ahead? Where do you want to focus your expertise, talents and skills? If you imagine yourself looking back at the end of 2008, what will you be proud of having accomplished?
Select only three or four items as your professional priorities. You’ll be working on more areas during the year ahead, but you want to be clear and focused on what is most important. Be sure these priorities are written in a SMART way. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant and Time-based. This will increase the likelihood that you will accomplish these goals.
Now that you know what you’ll be working on the year ahead, you’ll need to quantify who and what can support you. First, identify the people you want on your team. Who can assist you with advice, mentorship, sharing experience and wisdom?
You’ll also want to define what new knowledge or skills you’ll want to obtain. Are there training classes or further education that you want to enroll in? What interpersonal or organizational skill development might enhance your overall professional presentation?
Most people begin a new year with a resolution to shed a few pounds. The next part of the Career Tune-up requires you to determine which people and habits you need to shed from your professional realm.
Look at the list above you created with people who have negatively impacted you professionally the past year. How do you need to alter your relationship with them? This might include giving them feedback on how their behavior has impacted you, requesting that they change their behavior or setting a boundary on how you will interact with them. All these activities have the common goal of eliminating drains on your productivity, performance and confidence.
Now you need to look inward. What behaviors or habits do you regularly engage in that limit your career progression? Do you regularly arrive late at work? Talk negatively about colleagues? Miss important deadlines? Forget to return phone calls? What do you need to stop doing in order to continue on your desired career trajectory?
Finally, and most importantly, you need to define how you want your new plan for professional success in 2008 to fit with the overall big picture of your life. Your career does not occur in a vacuum. Therefore, you can not make plans for professional change and development without considering what else is important in your life.
Think about how much you want to work, how you want work to impact your time away from work, what is missing in your life that would make you feel better about yourself, and thus better about work. You are now creating your vision for your career and life for 2008.
Dive in to this process, and have a planned and productive 2008.
To receive a Career Tune-up Worksheet, send a blank email to
2007-review@aweber.com
Career Tuneup Maintaining your Professional Path - To learn more about this author, visit Julie Cohen's Website.
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As 2008 begins, it’s the perfect opportunity for a Career Tune-up. The New Year provides a natural time to evaluate how your career progressed over the past year and to determine what you want for the year ahead. Investing time in assessment and planning will enable you to have a greater impact on your professional development.
The Past Year
When you review your career milestones of the past year, you’ll want to take a candid look at what worked and what didn’t work for you, your clients and your organization. Defining this will help you to make decisions about next year.
First, start with what went well this year. What accomplishments are you most proud of and which have had the most impact? In what situations were you successful? Where did you significantly contribute your expertise and your energy? For what situations did you receive great feedback?
Once you’ve defined these positives of the past year, celebrate or reward yourself. Accomplished, achievement-oriented professionals are very good at figuring out ways to improve or defining what did not work well, but often forget this valuable step of acknowledging what they did well. How and when will you celebrate your past year’s victories?
Next, review the year looking for challenges you’ve had, mistakes you’ve made and skill areas that you want to improve. As you create this list, be analytical not critical. Come from a perspective of ‘what would have made this year better?’ not ‘what was wrong with me?’ Remember, you can’t change what has happened in the past. You’ll want to use it to help you be more effective in the future.
Now you’ll use the challenges list that you just created. Use hindsight to evaluate and learn. With each item on the list, describe how you might have done things differently. What would have been the preferred action, response or result? Think creatively about changes you want to make for yourself and how you operate.
So far, this exercise has been focused on you. Now you’ll want to look beyond how you impacted your performance this year to examine external influences. Identify which people in your professional life encouraged, supported and enhanced you - as well as those who might have discouraged, hindered or harmed you professionally. What mechanisms within your organization were supportive and where did politics or policies get in the way of your progress?
The New Year
With a detailed review of the year completed and a clear picture of what happened in 2007, you can now move in to planning mode to define what you want for 2008.
Start by identifying your professional priorities for the year ahead. How do you want to grow and change in the year ahead? Where do you want to focus your expertise, talents and skills? If you imagine yourself looking back at the end of 2008, what will you be proud of having accomplished?
Select only three or four items as your professional priorities. You’ll be working on more areas during the year ahead, but you want to be clear and focused on what is most important. Be sure these priorities are written in a SMART way. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant and Time-based. This will increase the likelihood that you will accomplish these goals.
Now that you know what you’ll be working on the year ahead, you’ll need to quantify who and what can support you. First, identify the people you want on your team. Who can assist you with advice, mentorship, sharing experience and wisdom?
You’ll also want to define what new knowledge or skills you’ll want to obtain. Are there training classes or further education that you want to enroll in? What interpersonal or organizational skill development might enhance your overall professional presentation?
Most people begin a new year with a resolution to shed a few pounds. The next part of the Career Tune-up requires you to determine which people and habits you need to shed from your professional realm.
Look at the list above you created with people who have negatively impacted you professionally the past year. How do you need to alter your relationship with them? This might include giving them feedback on how their behavior has impacted you, requesting that they change their behavior or setting a boundary on how you will interact with them. All these activities have the common goal of eliminating drains on your productivity, performance and confidence.
Now you need to look inward. What behaviors or habits do you regularly engage in that limit your career progression? Do you regularly arrive late at work? Talk negatively about colleagues? Miss important deadlines? Forget to return phone calls? What do you need to stop doing in order to continue on your desired career trajectory?
Finally, and most importantly, you need to define how you want your new plan for professional success in 2008 to fit with the overall big picture of your life. Your career does not occur in a vacuum. Therefore, you can not make plans for professional change and development without considering what else is important in your life.
Think about how much you want to work, how you want work to impact your time away from work, what is missing in your life that would make you feel better about yourself, and thus better about work. You are now creating your vision for your career and life for 2008.
Dive in to this process, and have a planned and productive 2008.
To receive a Career Tune-up Worksheet, send a blank email to
2007-review@aweber.com
Career Tuneup Maintaining your Professional Path - To learn more about this author, visit Julie Cohen's Website.
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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Anne BarrAnne Barr has over 26 years experience in sales and marketing, six years as a franchisee. She has assisted over 367 business owners and purchasers to achieve their goals in career change, transition and exit strategy. She holds the designation of Certified Franchise Executive from the International Franchise Association, Certified Business Intermediary from the International Business Brokers Association and Board Certified Broker from the Texas Association of Business Brokers. Anne is active in professional organizations, networking groups and volunteers for non-profit entities. As owner/operator of four successful businesses, Anne has proven people skills and enjoys helping clients find the right "fit" in business ownership. Visit www.FranchiseOpportunitySpecialist.com for more information about me and my company. - Visit Anne Barr's Website |
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John BrennanJohn Brennan Ed.D. Dr. Brennan is President of Interpersonal Development, LLC, a training and development firm. Interpersonal Development has provided sales training and coaching to more than 3,000 sales reps from over 100 companies. A native of Australia, Dr. Brennan received his doctorate from the University of Rochester. His dissertation researched the effectiveness of Behavioral Modeling Technology in training people in interpersonal skills. While he has spent most of his career designing or delivering training, he was also a Vice-President of Sales of a training and development franchise with operations in 25 markets. Dr. Brennan has designed and delivered sales training in North America, Asia, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. He has been a guest speaker at numerous national and regional professional conferences. When Microsoft wanted Best Practices articles on sales for their web site, they called Dr. Brennan. The results are at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX011387391033.aspx His firm’s clients have included Volvo, The Prudential, Merrill Lynch, Eastman Kodak, Gannett, Equifax Europe, the Economist Group and countless small businesses. - Visit John Brennan's Website |
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Staging DivaDebra Gould, aka The Staging Diva®, is President of Six Elements Inc., an internationally recognized home staging company. Inspired by many requests from aspiring home stagers wanting to start similar businesses, Gould created the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. Gould has trained over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates worldwide to start staging businesses. Buying decorating and selling six of her own homes in four years lead to an interest in real estate staging which she turned into a career with the launch of sixelements.com in 2002. Since then she has staged hundreds of homes in addition to teaching home staging training. Gould is the author of several home staging resources including a series of popular ebooks made up of a Design Guide, Color Guide and Portfolio Guide. For more information about Debra Gould visit stagingdiva.com. - Visit Staging Diva's Website |
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David BarrDavid Barr is the President of Venture Opportunities, Inc. David has been a professional business broker/intermediary since 1980 focusing on General Business Brokerage and Mergers and Acquisitions representing client transaction value from $400,000 to $20,000,000. Mr. Barr has handled the sale of over four hundred and fifty companies. David earned a university degree from the State University of New York majoring in economics and business. David holds the Mergers and Acquisition Master Intermediary and the Certified Business Intermediary designations from the International Business Brokers Association. He is also a Senior Business Analyst and a Texas licensed Real Estate Agent. For more information about David and Venture Opportunities, visit www.bizdealmaker.com. - Visit David Barr's Website |
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Jay Kubassek(Jay's Full Bio: EvanCarmichael.com/jaykubassek) In five years, Canadian-born entrepreneur Jay Kubassek went from selling mufflers at a Midas franchise to revolutionizing Internet marketing with the 2004 launch of CarbonCopyPRO, a online marketing education company, now worth over $20 million with customers in over 160 countries.
As an independent film producer, his upstart film fund Aliquot Films is currently producing a films with Spike Lee and Abel Fererra (starring Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper.)
Jay's entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He’s the owner of five companies, a professional speaker and trainer, international real estate developer/investor, extreme sport enthusiast and emerging philanthropist. Jay resides in NYC with his wife Jamie, son Milo and dog Cooper. Visit Jay's official website: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website |
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