Thought you’d like that headline. We have turned the January corner and if you are like many people in the corporate world you are still working on your 2013 goals. Yeah mine are done! Oh that was a bit smug wasn’t it. Well no matter, soon enough you will finalize them, get them approved, revise and then and finally they will be official. Perhaps you are one of the fortunate ones to be able to enter them into some goal tracking software your IT team created in their spare time. Oh boy, that’s a treat. Design is what you get free from your IT department (joke).
So what to do next? Well most of us breathe a sigh of relief that we finished the task and go back to doing “things,” otherwise known as our job. Time passes (quickly) and then there are the quarterly discussions. All of a sudden there’s only thirty days left in the year and panic sets in. “What are my goals? Maybe I should have a look?”
That’s followed by the self-evaulation. Piece of cake right? Naturally you were smart enough to have kept a list of your achievements each week during the year so the self-evaluation is largely a cut and past exercise. Oh, you didn’t do the tracking work? Bummer.
Did I say track accomplishments each week? Yes, you went to work every week right? Certainly you did important things like attend meetings. read emails, participate in fire drills and read reports. Blah, blah, blah. Why show up to work everyday if you don’t accomplish something? My guess is you accomplish a lot, so track it. What could be more important than your year end evaluation? Priorities people.
Pro Tip: Take some time right now, yes today, and write your end of year self evaluation. Transport yourself nine months ahead and envision what you would have accomplished in that huge block of time. Use your goals as a guide and be creative. What did you transform, create, fix, invent? This exercise helps you visualize what you want / need to do. It sets a psychological theme for the entire year. Yes things will change along the way and you will adjust and then re-envision.
Try this exercise, you will thank me.
Knowing where you will end up in December is most important in February.
I wish you success and victory in 2013.
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