January

January 18, 2018

Career Health Check

careerhealthcheck

As we are still at the start of the year it’s a good time to take some time out to review career health alongside any lifestyle or well being audit you may have already done.

In my work as a career and performance coach my discussions with clients often centre around how they can either

  1. Change careers
  2. Get more enjoyment out of their work
  3. Get better at their work
  4. Minimise the amount of stress they are experiencing at work
  5. Hand some difficult characters at work
  6. Raise their profile at work
  7. Progress to the next level in their company, industry etc
  8. Be brave and make some drastic changes e.g. like number 1 above or setting up their own business

The people who I love to meet are those people who really love what they do in both life and work. As most people spend a large percentage of the week at work its important that if there is something not quite working right in this aspect of our life that you first identify it and then put in place some actions to make improvements

So, in this first month of the year ask yourself the following questions?

  • Looking back at 2017 how happy am I with my work out of 10 (1- not happy at all, hate it to 10 – happy and enjoy it a lot)
  • Which bits of your working life do you love? Make sure you keep doing this.
  • Which bits are you unhappy with – what action can you take?
  • Do you feel you are using your full potential at work? If not, which skills are you not using? How can you plan to utilise these more?
  • Did you undertake any training or development work for yourself in 2017? Have you got anything else planned for this year? Often leaders spend so much time developing their team they forget about themselves.
  • Do you have clear goals or areas of focus for 2018? If not identify at least one
  • How is your work/life balance and stress levels – any work needed here in 2018 – what small habits can you change.

Take an hour out this month and conduct a mini career health check on yourself, pick a couple of actions and then repeat the process half way through the year.

 

Sandra works as a coach for Businesses and Private Clients. More information can be found at http://www.sandrawebbercoaching.com. She is also author of the self development book Own It available from Amazon http://amzn.to/2m3l8Vl

 

 

 

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January 6, 2015

A Different Approach

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Over the Christmas and New Year Period the annual discussions always include the topic of New Years Resolutions and goals. This sparked a debate in our circle about the difference between setting a goal and making a resolution. Does it matter that if you set a goal there is an end point so what happens when you get there or if you don’t achieve it. There is an interesting argument that we should set resolutions to embed new habits at New Year (or indeed this can be done at any time in the year) instead of a more goal setting approach. This was inspired by having also recently read a book “The Happiness Project ” http://www.gretchenrubin.com/

Having reflected on this idea we are trying a new concept this year. Each month identify some new habits that you want to embed and an overall theme for the month. E.G January could be “Clean out “month with four new habits for the month 1) Eat healthy clean food 2) Drink 4 large glasses of hot or cold water or herbal tea each day 3) Clear out a bit of clutter each day either a drawer, a closet, a part of the office 4) Attempt 10 mins meditation. So looking across these 4 initial habits each day both the physical body, the environment and the mind is hopefully being de-cluttered. A daily checklist is in the diary to record progress each day by either a tick or cross.

The same approach will be used for each of the remaining 12 months with the hope that some of the new habits will prove more beneficial than others and as a result will be embedded into lifestyle permanentl

Watch this space for future themes and process evaluation comments.

Current status on day 5 of 2015 is estimated at 50%

December 2, 2013

December – Look forward or Look Back?

goalimageIts a strange month December. Should we be making a last minute attempt to achieve all those goals we set in January or should we forget those and start thinking towards 2014 and resetting some more challenges?

Also everyone is so busy the whole month of December could pass buy quickly, with the festive preparations and social gatherings that no progress is made on goal achievement.

Why not set some small challenges for December?

Look at that “ to do list”. What has been on there for a long time? Perhaps December is the time to tackle those tasks or goals that are fairly simple to tick off the list but just need some dedicated focus. Why wait until January?

Just think of that sense of achievement you get when something you have been meaning to do for ages gets accomplished and ticked off the list.

Need a christmas pressent idea how about http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CEgQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.co.uk%2FLife-Without-Limits-Wellington-Autobiography-ebook%2Fdp%2FB005EM8NQ2&ei=Y4-cUpLJI-SJ7AahrYH4Cw&usg=AFQjCNFW0hVQNtSKuNAL62iKpl7gULkqbg

After listening to Chrissie give a talk at Bristol University last Monday we were all reminded what can be accomplished in a very short space of time.