How to Set New Year Work Resolutions and Actually Achieve Them

Be nicer to coworkers. Find a more challenging job. Earn an advanced degree. Many employees establish work resolutions with each New Year but very few actually achieve them. At times, New Year resolutions fail because of unforeseen obstacles. However, more often, work resolutions aren’t achieved because employees don’t fully understand the process needed to accomplish them. The following are steps to consider taking to set New Year work resolutions and actually achieve them.

Create Attainable Goals

While it’s important to push yourself with New Year work resolutions, you must also be realistic regarding what you can and can’t accomplish. For example, hoping to earn a management position within in the next year when you only just landed an entry level position likely isn’t realistic and will only leave you disheartened when the goal isn’t achieved. Just as setting overly ambitious goals can lead to failure, so too can creating simplistic resolutions.

Make a list of the workplace changes you’d most like to make and begin developing plans for how they can be made. By setting attainable goals and by creating plans to achieve them, you’ll become one of the select few to actually follow through with New Year resolutions.

Set Periodic Milestones

Often, people fail to achieve their New Year resolutions because they aren’t seeing measurable results. If you haven’t set milestones, you too won’t experience the joy of achieving them. To keep up the momentum with next year’s resolutions, set periodic milestones that must be achieved to accomplish your overall goal.

For example, if you hope to earn a management position in 12 months, establish smaller quarterly milestones of improving work performance, sending out job applications and others that you feel may be beneficial. As you achieve each milestone, you’ll make actual progress towards meeting the overall goal and will feel that the resolution is truly attainable.

Keep Them Private

When setting certain life goals, you’ll be more likely to achieve them when discussing them with others. However, this isn’t always the case with New Year resolutions. Many people fail to take the resolutions of others seriously because of how rare it has actually become for anyone to follow through with their New Year plans.

Rather than telling coworkers about next year’s resolutions, keep them private. This can keep your goals from being beat down and ridiculed by others to help you continue pushing forward towards achieving them. If you absolutely feel that your resolutions should be shared with a coworker, only discuss them with someone you’re confident will support your efforts. One option is to set resolutions with a coworker and encourage each other to accomplish the goals during the coming year.

New Year work resolutions offer a chance to improve your employment situation and give you something to work towards in the coming year. By setting attainable resolutions and by taking the actions necessary to achieve them, you’ll become a better employee and will be happier with your future career path.