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Jan 13

How to Set and Achieve Your Goals in the New Year

By Angelica Rains Executive Assistant, Hiring Strategies, Leadership

With all of the challenges of the past year, it seems that most of us are looking forward to turning over a new leaf in 2021. Now is the time to start thinking about what you want to accomplish in 2021. January is full of promise and opportunities as we all look to having a fresh start. Below are some tips to set and achieve your goals in the new year.

Think Carefully about Your New Year’s Resolutions

The first step is deciding what your goals for the year will be. The key is to be optimistic but not overly ambitious. If you choose a goal that requires more effort than you can or are willing to exert, you are setting yourself for certain failure. Choose a goal that is important and meaningful, otherwise you will struggle to find the motivation needed to progress towards its completion. If you have a difficult time coming up with a reasonable plan that will allow you to accomplish your goal, it may not be the right intention. The goal should be specific, realistic, and measurable.

Prioritize Your Resolutions

While many people fail to achieve their New Year’s resolutions because they choose unrealistic goals, others fail because they pick too many resolutions to manage. It is easier to accomplish goals if you concentrate on one goal at a time. When goal setting, think about what goal you have for yourself that means the most to you. It also helps to separate your larger, long-term goals into smaller goals. This can help ensure your plan doesn’t feel overwhelming.

Plan Ahead for Obstacles

Many people experience setbacks early on as they work towards their New Year’s resolutions, which cause them to become discouraged and give up. No matter who you are or what your goals are, you’re likely to encounter obstacles as you work to accomplish them. This is part of the process. Maintain a positive attitude when you experience setbacks and remind yourself that you can still achieve your goals in spite of hurdles. It also helps to predict what obstacles might occur so you can avoid them or have more time to prepare yourself to overcome them.

While New Year’s resolutions are notoriously hard to achieve, that doesn’t mean you can’t make the most of 2021 and accomplish your career goals for the year. As long as you choose goals that mean something to you, approach resolutions realistically, focus on one goal at a time, and plan ahead for setbacks, you can achieve your goals for the year.

Jan 06

Being Your Own Worst Critic

By Angelica Rains Career Guidance, Leadership

Most would say the cliché that they are their own worst critic but should consider putting a formal structure to this process. Individuals tend to fall into one of two categories. The first has an incessant looming cloud of pressure creeping in from all angles, resulting in a never-ending feeling of not living up to their potential. The other lives in naive bliss, refusing to make eye contact with the person they see staring back in the mirror. Regardless of which category describes you, the best leaders have a supreme level of self-awareness and emotional intelligence. Introspective reflection is essential for leaders. It gives the brain time to take a break from the noise, unravel cause and effect, and create meaning. This meaning creates a catalyst for actions rooted in purpose and significance.

The Questions

In experiential learning, enlightenment comes from taking the opportunity to think about what you experience, both personally and professionally.

What are the things I’m most passionate about?
What are my greatest accomplishments in life so far?
What am I most grateful for?
What are the biggest things I’ve learned in life to date?
What are my goals in life? (health, career, family, financial, spiritual)
Who are the people in my life who have achieved similar goals? What can I learn from them?
Who are the five people I spend the most time with? Are they enabling or holding me back, or inspiring me to be a better person than I am today?
If I were to die tomorrow, what would be my biggest regret?
What limiting beliefs am I holding on to? Are they helping me achieve my goals, or holding me back?
What bad habits do I want to break? How?
What good habits do I want to cultivate? How?
Am I living my life to the fullest right now? If not, what would represent a fuller life for me?
Who do I want to be one year from today? What do I need to do to initiate that growth?
How hard am I willing to work to get what I want?

Rationalizing Failure

Most people would agree that the things worth having and achieving in life do not come easily. When things get tough, we have a tendency to rationalize why we are not succeeding in our pursuits:

“I don’t have enough time.”
“It just wasn’t in the cards.”
“I decided it wasn’t really what I wanted.”
“It is not the right time. I will pursue when I have more balance.”

Rationalization is the use of feeble but plausible arguments either to justify something that is difficult to accept or to make it seem ‘not so bad after all’. We do this because it’s hard to accept the reality that if you want to succeed in any endeavor worth pursing, you have to put in the time and often be comfortable with being uncomfortable. We all know that it is easier to blame external factors instead of blaming oneself, and this habit can be one of the toughest to break but is a true necessity for a high level of self-awareness.

The Problem

What holds us back from taking action on the change needed to improve ourselves? In other words, why do 98% of New Year’s Resolutions fail? It’s simple: the rewards of these changes are in the future when the discomfort and discipline are happening right now. When there’s an absence of a compelling reason or drive, you will be like a thermostat. You’ll work as hard as necessary to keep the temperature comfortable, and when it reaches that temperature, you’ll turn off until needed again. Discussing change and goals can be inspiring, energizing, and stimulating. Yet it can feel tough, awkward, annoying, frightening, and completely unpleasant to discuss the discipline needed to reach those goals. There is no shame in being average or competent if you are unwilling to pay the price of excellence. Simply ask yourself if you are willing to pay that price, and what the price looks like for you.

Allocating Attention

Most of us are used to focusing on externally oriented attention. It is simpler and more straightforward to focus on something outside of ourselves, such as work, television, a significant other, children, or almost anything that engages our senses. Our internal world is far more complicated, with a varied landscape of emotions, feelings, and perceptions. Yet it is often the internal world that determines whether we are having a good day or not, or whether we are happy or unhappy. That’s why we can feel angry despite beautiful surroundings or feel perfectly happy despite being stuck in traffic. Perhaps for that reason, this newly discovered pathway of attention may hold the key to greater well-being.

Dec 23

Why Having a Mentor Is Important

By Angelica Rains Executive Assistant, Hiring Strategies, Leadership

A mentor can be an invaluable source of knowledge and guidance, but finding the right mentor isn’t always easy, especially if your career is just starting out. Here are some of the top reasons having a good mentor is important, as well as some tips on how to find one.

Mentors Speed up the Learning Process

One of the biggest advantages of having a mentor is that it improves your ability to learn new skills and retain more knowledge. A good mentor will already have been in your position, so they are excellent source of knowledge. They may also have tips on how to learn necessary skills faster. A mentor can point out your blind spots and identify areas where you need to improve, which can also speed up the learning process.

Mentors Keep You More Engaged

A good mentor will be a source of support. Mentors can assist you in goal setting and provide you with the kind of encouragement you need to stay motivated. If you feel alone, you are more likely to give up or become disengaged. Mentors can keep you more focused and give you the inspiration and guidance you need to develop your skills and progress toward your career goals.

Identify Career Objectives

If you want to find the right mentor, first you have to understand what your long-term and short-term goals are. Once you know what you want your career to look like in the future, you can start to look for professionals who have experiences you can benefit from. The best goals are clear and specific. Set goals that are easily measurable and think about the goals you have for your mentorship. What knowledge do you seek to attain and what new skills do you wish to develop? These types of questions can allow you to effectively narrow down candidates for your mentor.

Look for Someone Who Thinks Differently Than You

The best mentors aren’t necessarily people who have similar personalities as you, or even do work that is similar to yours. In some cases, you might find a mentor who works in another department. Mentors who think differently than you can challenge you and help you expand your learning and communication styles. A mentor should push you outside of your comfort zone.

Finding the perfect mentor can fast-track your career in C-level support and allow you to grow professionally in ways you wouldn’t expect. They key is to understand what you want your mentor-mentee relationship to accomplish and connect with a mentor who will provide you with support and encouragement, while also challenging you.

Dec 16

4 Tips to Beat the Procrastination Habit

By Angelica Rains Executive Assistant, Hiring Strategies, Leadership

Procrastination is one of the worst habits you can have as an executive support professional, but it is also one of the most common. Though everyone does it to some degree, procrastination negatively affects focus, productivity, and performance. These four tips will help you overcome procrastination and become more efficient.

1. Understand Why You Procrastinate

If you want to beat your procrastination habit, first you have to understand why you tend to procrastinate in the first place. Start by thinking about what tasks you are most likely to avoid. Do you avoid tasks you find difficult or are you more likely to avoid tasks you find uninteresting? Do you avoid tasks when you’re feeling overwhelmed or anxious? Some people also procrastinate out of indecision. Once you understand why you procrastinate, you can start addressing the root of the problem.

2. Identify and Eliminate Distractions

Having a lot of distractions nearby can make procrastination much more tempting. What are your top distractions? Do you procrastinate by checking non-urgent emails? Do you play around on your phone or chat with colleagues? Once you identify major distractions, you can start to eliminate them. If you have trouble focusing when there are other people around you, for example, you can reduce the temptation to procrastinate by finding a quiet workspace away from others.

3. Be Realistic About Your Goals

One reason people procrastinate is because they feel overwhelmed by a task. This often occurs when a person has too much on their plate. Being realistic about goals and deadlines can make tasks more manageable and eliminate the feeling that you have to procrastinate to cope. You can make to-do lists and goals more attainable by prioritizing tasks by urgency and breaking large projects into smaller tasks.

4. Keep Yourself Accountable

To overcome procrastination, you also need to keep yourself accountable. One way to do this is to choose someone at work whom you trust to monitor your progress. Encourage your friends at work to call you out if they see you losing focus or putting off important tasks. Another way to keep yourself accountable to your goals related to procrastination is to give yourself rewards for accomplishing major tasks and projects on time.

Most people don’t procrastinate because they’re unorganized or lazy. Most procrastinators are hard workers who avoid tasks when they’re stressed or overwhelmed at work. Anyone can overcome this habit if they put their mind to it. The key is to figure out why you procrastinate in the first place, eliminate triggers, and reward better behavior.

Dec 09

Later Will Be Now Before You Know It

By Angelica Rains Career Guidance, Leadership

Knowing what you know now, having all of life’s experiences thus far behind you, what would you do differently?

The Present

Why is this important? Because if you are reading this, you have a gift sitting in front of you. Every single person reading this article has this gift in common.

The gift? Time.

Why is it that the question of “what would you do differently” is most commonly asked following a negative event? It could follow a missed opportunity to land a big client, a health scare, the sudden loss of a loved one. Why must it take being jarred out of the routine of life before reflection becomes a prioritization?

The weekend should not be a 48-hour countdown until Monday, and Friday should not feel like the victorious finish line of a marathon. What if instead of being vulnerable to the regrets of the future, we take a moment, take a breath, and decide what we want to do differently – starting today.

The Past

Fill in the blanks:

I wish I would have____________
I would have spent less time____________
I would have spent more time____________
I would have worked____________
I would have focused more on____________
I would have focused less on____________
I would have worried more about____________
I would have worried less about____________
I would have cherished____________

The intent behind this exercise is not to create a laundry list of missed opportunities. Holding on to regrets can be a form of self-sabotage. In fact, in many cases it is impossible to have made a better decision at the time. We were doing the best we could with what we had in the moment. But as life’s experiences evolve, so do we. Values change, financial circumstances change, confidence and maturity change. We are meant to grow and outgrow past versions of ourselves. But life moves quickly, and the routine of everyday norms can accidentally engage the autopilot setting of survival.

Fill in the blanks above for all aspects of a balanced life, including relationships, career, health and financial. Then take each of the “I would have” statements of the past and revise them to be your non-negotiables for the future.

The Focus: What Would You Do Differently?

It is not possible to manage time. It keeps marching forward regardless of what we do. However, our energy is one of the most valuable things we can control. What do you allow to take this most precious asset of yours? Who and what receives your focus and your attention? If you ever feel like your energy is depleted but are not sure where it went, you may need to focus on the proverbial “apps you have running in the background.” With so much high-tech in our daily lives it can leave little energy left for high-touch attention. Consider the following to give yourself more battery life:

Give yourself a full hour to start your day before allowing yourself to check email on phone/computer
Eat lunch anywhere besides staring at the phone/computer
Disable push notifications for social media, news, email, etc.
Leave devices in another room during meals and while sleeping
Delete certain apps entirely and relegate usage of those apps to a web browser only
Switch your phone display to grayscale, making the colorful icons less attention-grabbing

Recognize that there is something bigger at play here: there may be a deeply rooted connection as to why the phone ceased to be enjoyable, and instead something you are virtually compelled to use. Connect the feeling behind the activity:

Feeling lonely, so time to check social media plan something enjoyable with a friend/family
Need something positive to happen at work, so I’ll keep refreshing my email spend time making new possible opportunities happen at work
Nervous about all of the chaos going on in the world, so need to check the news again do something that makes life feel less chaotic today
Feeling bored, so need a distraction to work on being comfortable spending some time alone with your own thoughts

In a culture that is bombarded with information and stimuli, finding time void of noise can seem inconceivable. However, it is in that void that we are able to tap into the part of the brain that can process thoughts of deep significance. Give your mind the space to take all of the information it’s received and make use of it in important ways by doing things differently.

Instead of a fear of feeling bored, consider instead a failure to appreciate the repercussions of not being bored enough.

Later will be now before you know it. It’s time to value the gift of time.