Change – but not too much

Right – so there’s going to be a large portion of the population who have set new year’s resolutions and plan on sticking to them.  This remains to be seen as we all know.

Many see it as a prime opportunity to reinvent themselves and become an improved version of 2018’s model, this is especially true in the workplace.  However, I believe it is important that while you strive to be better that you don’t change yourself too much.  You will no doubt have characteristics that make you a unique, and hopefully valued employee.  Your company will have bought into you as an individual so you have a certain amount of validation right there.  There is a temptation to assess your performance and then aim for the stars, but your improvement should be steady and realistic.  Let’s face it, it’s highly unlikely that you are going to go from a support function role to managing director in 12 month’s time, but what you can do is put the building blocks in place to achieve long-term goals.  Experience, skills and relevant knowledge are gained over a sustained period of time and should be consistently applied in the correct manner, so be prepared for the long haul if you really want to reach the summit.

While some may feel the above is a pessimistic outlook and restricts people’s aspirations, surely it is preferable to earn smaller more frequent wins than to set yourself up for a big fail.  That way your self-confidence will steadily increase, giving you a better grounding in your organisation and more credibility from your peers.  Again this is in no way to say that you shouldn’t be prepared to take risks, but in my opinion they should be calculated ones where the probability of a positive result favours you.

So as we look forward to 2019 my advice would be to set objectives that you will realistically achieve, both in terms of magnitude and timeframe – and hey if that is to become the managing director, and you feel it’s in your grasp, then more power to you.