Why You Should Make These 5 Career Essentials Your New Year Resolutions

Most of us are notorious for forgetting our New Year’s Eve resolutions by the first week in January – but there are ways to follow those goals to fruition. And if you’ve decided that 2022 is the year you’re going to get serious about working on your career, here are the resolutions you might want to consider making.

It may sound woo-woo, but visualisation – also called ‘intention setting’ – can be a powerful tool in helping you create your desired work life. It’s used by athletes and entrepreneurs to see and ‘feel’ their future success before it happens. You do need to be really clear and detailed about what you want when you create that picture in your mind, and visualise it to the point you can see and feel the outcome. Dreaming of a corner office or being promoted to manager level? If you can dream it, you can create it, say experts.

Just like an entrepreneur might write a business plan, so should you create a detailed plan for your career. You want to ensure you’re setting SMART goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-Bound). Start with your ultimate goal and make it really detailed, ie: ‘I want to be a restaurant manager’ rather than ‘I want to work in hospitality’. Then, work backwards to set your micro goals – these are the steps you need to fulfil in order to reach your main goal. Set deadlines on your micro goals and your main goal to keep you motivated and accountable.

Many of us have a small (or large) case of imposter syndrome when it comes to our career, and getting beyond this is all about doing the work on your self-confidence and self-belief. You can start to do this by focusing on your strengths, taking stock of your achievements, cutting out the negative self-talk and get professional coaching or mentoring so you can work on what might be holding you back career-wise – and help you establish a more positive mindset going into the future.

Being open to learning and picking up new skills won’t just boost your confidence – it’ll increase your market value to recruiters and employers, too. So build up-skilling into your plan for the coming year and look into what you need to learn most which aligns with where you want to be, career-wise. It might be that you need to learn advanced customer service skills, operations or management skills, leadership strategies, or even digital marketing, SEO and ecommerce, which is huge for all kinds of industries wanting to stay one step ahead of their competitors and ensure their online presence is in tip-top shape.

The idea of formal networking might make you roll your eyes – but actually, your network is one of the most valuable career assets you have. And in today’s terms, networking doesn’t necessarily have to be about propping up the bar at an awkward meet-up; it might be more about building relationships online, connecting with new people in your field and developing trust and respect with your peers. Once you’ve done that effectively, it can lead to career opportunities and the hidden jobs market that you’d otherwise never tap into. And 2022 is a great time to get started!

Want more insights on finding work – or managing your team and running your business effectively? Check out the latest articles on our blog, and don’t forget to download the FRG Salary Survey Guide, too.