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Life at Work Column
New Year's Resolutions for 2001: Setting and Achieving Your Work-Life Goals
It's the New Year. You've joined a health club, started a new diet and generated a host of New Year's resolutions. But what about your Work-life? Have you thought about what you'd like it to look like by December 2001? Or, better yet, 2005? Where would you like to be in five years? What is your plan for getting there? What steps are you taking to achieve your goals?Over the years, in leading Work-life groups and helping individuals codify and implement their work-life plans, I have found that there are three critical ingredients to successfully achieving Work-life goals. These include: establishing goals, monitoring progress and finding ongoing, focused, support for achieving your goals. Each will be addressed in turn.
Establishing Goals: Figuring out what you want to do with your life
You have a lot of talents and skills but you are not quite sure what you want to do with your life. How can you figure it out? Pursuing your Work-life without a plan is like taking a trip to the grocery store without a shopping list. We all know what ends up in the cart! (And, it isn't pretty.)You might try an exercise developed by Dick Bolles, the author of "What Color is Your Parachute?" Pretend you are writing to a close friend who you haven't seen in five years. (I know in this era, it's hard to imagine.) You have achieved your ideal life. What is it like? What are you doing? Be specific with respect to the professional, personal, spiritual, physical, social, relationship and financial aspects of your life. Describe it to your friend in great detail. Exactly what is your life like? What do you do everyday?
If you find this exercise difficult, try any of a number of exercises, designed for the same purpose in Barbara Sher's book, Wishcraft. One of her best is: describe your ideal day, a day that you could repeat again and again. Where do you wake up? With whom do you wake up? When do you wake up? How do you go about beginning your day? What do you do? Again, don't give yourself a job title. Describe in detail exactly what you are doing. If this exercise doesn't work for you, there are a number of other helpful exercises in both of their books and you may want to check out June's column for helpful suggestions. (An electronic version of it can be found at: http://www.dcwebwomen.org/lifeatwork/)
Converting your Ideal Life into Concrete Goals
You have described your ideal life. Now it's time do some "backward planning". Make a plan, with a time-line, going back from the achievement of the goal to where you are now. Break your goals down to small, measurable, discrete steps. For example, if you have decided that you would like to be an information architect, what steps do you need to take in order to become one? What do you need to learn? How can you learn it? Can you be an apprentice? Do you need to take courses? Can you learn it from books? What experiences do you need? How can you acquire them. Once you are prepared to be an information architect, how can you get this type of job? What kinds of people and places hire information architects? How can you begin networking with them from the very outset?Similarly, if you are searching for that special person, describe in detail what that person is like. Then ask yourself, where might you find such a person? What steps can you take to meet such a person? The key again is to break your goals down into manageable steps. Complete this exercise for each of your goals.
Monitoring the Pursuit of Your Goals
For many people setting the goals is easy, persisting in following the steps that they have outlined is more difficult. Articulate a five year plan as to what you want to accomplish each year. Of course, these plans are subject to revision as you learn more about yourself and your goals. After setting yearly goals, establish monthly goals, weekly goals and daily goals. The key here is to make each building block small and achievable.Finding Ongoing Support for Achieving Your Goals
Many people are surprised to learn that the biggest factor that differentiates those who achieve their career goals and those who do not is not intelligence, personality or education. Rather, it is the extent to which they have ongoing, focused, support. Many people find that they are quite able to articulate their goals and codify a plan for pursuing them. But, they have difficulty staying on task. This is where having ongoing, regular, focused, support is crucial.Focused support can take many forms. It can entail "reporting in" or talking about your Work-life goals on a weekly basis with a spouse or friend. It can entail gathering a group of friends together who are willing to make a commitment to meet on a weekly basis to provide support, monitor each other's progress and brainstorm solutions to the challenges that one encounters. The most effective groups meet at a regular time and place and have a procedure for ensuring that every group member has an opportunity to seek input from a group. In my experience leading these types of groups, I have found that the most effective ones are diverse with respect to age, background and Work-life goals. There can be advantages to putting together a group of people who did not know each other previously.
For those who are less comfortable with the idea of setting up a group, another alternative is to join a professionally led Work-life group. Such a group allows you to work with a leader who has successfully led similar groups in the past and to benefit from that experience. Some people prefer working on these issues with a career coach or a psychologist who specializes in these areas. No matter what your method it's a good idea to make New Year's resolutions in the Work-life arena. If you relegate them to the back burner, that's where they'll remain.
If you have a question or want to suggest a topic, contact Dr. Friedman at drlynn@dcwebwomen.org.
Copyright © 2000 by Dr. Lynn Friedman, Ph.D. All rights reserved.
The advice and suggestions in this column are solely those of the author. DC Web Women assumes no responsibility for its content. The site does not provide psychological or work-life advice to any specific individual. Rather, the content is intended to be for informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional psychological advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you have any concerns regarding a psychological or work-life difficulty, seek professional evaluation. Do not disregard professional advice or delay in seeking it because of anything that you have read on this web site.
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