New Year’s resolutions may not be the normal topic of a business attire blog. However, senior executive women juggle so many demands from others that they often put their own personal needs and interests on hold. That’s a real shame. We can’t always have it all, but we can become skilled in having more of what we want. The community on Executive Chic is a great forum for sharing those skills. And since it’s the resolution time of year, what better topic to kick things off?
I first started thinking of the issue of resolutions several years ago when the highly-regarded male successor to a CEO wryly commented to me, “I wish I was as effective in achieving my personal goals as I have been with my leadership goals.”
Well, we’ve all been there, right? Diet and exercise, time management, relationships, even our long-term career goals—all these and more often play second fiddle to our day-to-day work responsibilities. Who hasn’t felt the irony of being applauded for her accomplishments in her current job while knowing other less urgent but just as important personal goals aren’t being tackled?
Right then and there I decided that the best holiday present I could give my clients that year was not another food basket or coffee table book. Instead, I designed a tool they could use to achieve their personal goals. What makes this tool so effective is that it’s based on some of the exact same principles we use to successful accomplish business initiatives. Here are the principles:
1. Narrow your priorities. You simply can’t have too many goals at once and expect all will be achieved. In both personal and business settings, too many goals dissipate focus, energy, and alignment.
2. Get crystal clear on your goals. It’s not enough to have a vague statement of what you want to achieve. You have to have a detailed understanding of why you want to accomplish something, what success looks like, and what specific actions you need to take to get to that outcome.
3. Minimize obstacles. Skillful planners identify in advance what challenges a business initiative might face and develop strategies for overcoming those challenges.
4. Line up support. The logic of having the right resources behind an initiative is so apparent that we never question this in a business setting. So how come we often forget about this in our personal lives?
5. Align your incentive program. There’s a reason why we tie bonuses and other reward plans to our business targets. It keeps everyone motivated and on the same page. If we also want to keep energized in achieving our personal goals, we need the right incentives as well.
6. Track your progress. This is another no-brainer in a business setting. Tracking your progress allows you to evaluate where you are in accomplishing your goal and to decide whether you need to fine tune your plan. Tracking also creates accountability, an important principle that can get overlooked in our personal lives. Too often we are accountable to everyone else, but not to ourselves. No wonder then that our own goals end up on the back burner. We need to be as disciplined in working on our personal goals as we are in satisfying those of others. The payoff is that we strengthen our ability to focus and be effective in all aspects of our lives, both work and personal.
If you apply the above principles to your personal resolutions this year, you’ll be amazed at the progress you make. And if you want the tool that I gave to clients, just shoot me a note through the Suggestion Box of this blog or at info@sla-llc.com. I’ll send you a worksheet that walks you through the process of applying these principles to your personal goals and provides an example of an actual resolution.
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