Here we are at the end of another rollercoaster year, ready for some well-earned rest and recreation.
Taking holidays, whether you head for the beach or just enjoy some downtime at home, is not just a fun way to unwind, it’s an important one. A break from work can give you the mental breathing space to get some perspective on your job, your career path and your work-life balance.
That doesn’t mean you need to spend your holiday doing homework. Commit to spending most of your break just living in the moment, enjoying time with family friends. As the date for your return to work gets closer, why not block out some time to do some thinking about your professional aspirations for the coming year?
One step at a time
Dedicate two sessions of just a couple of hours each, to your plans for 2022, and “timebox” them so it’s not dominating your holiday time.
In the first session ask yourself some key “big picture” questions that will help you frame what you’d like to happen in the coming year, that would mean it was successful for you.
What are the things you like about your role? What would you like to change? What are the skills you’d like to improve or learn? What has your time off taught you about how you interact with people, or how you’d like to balance your work with family and other life commitments? What would you like to be doing, professionally, in a year’s time?
Give yourself a few days then sit down for another time-boxed session. This time it’s all about planning to make things happen. Having goals at work is one thing. Writing down a plan for how you’ll achieve them gives you a roadmap to follow, making it that much easier to start, and stay on track.
Prioritise your goals, and break your plan down into small tasks that are easier to achieve and quite specific. For example, instead of planning to ‘do some leadership training’, try ‘I’ll talk to my manager by the end of January about enrolling in the Leadership Essentials programme with IMNZ’. Setting yourself a deadline, and a specific task makes it much easier to track and achieve your goals. Then you can move on to the next task in your road map to success.
Enjoy your holidays
This time-boxing technique is really helpful to make sure you can devote some energy to planning your career development, without it encroaching on your relaxation time.
If something occurs to you outside your timeboxed sessions, just make a note of it, then get back to your holiday.
In the end, one of the most powerful professional and personal development tools you have, is arriving back at work feeling refreshed, creative, inspired and ready to learn.
Thank you for your interest in IMNZ. We wish you and your families a happy, safe holiday season and we look forward to seeing you in 2022.
