My clients are busy.
One minute it’s Monday morning and in a blink of an eye, it’s Friday afternoon.
In the intervening period, they are busy, busy, busy.
They go from one meeting to the next, dipping into their inbox in between and putting out whichever fires seem the most urgent and important.
A question I often ask is “what have you achieved this week?” and it never fails to surprise me how often my clients struggle to answer this question.
Very few of them ever take the time to look back and identify exactly what they have achieved.
None of them celebrate those achievements. They just tick the ‘done’ box and move on to the next task on their list. That is until they start working with me!
I strongly encourage my clients to block out 15 minutes in their diary, either on a Friday afternoon or a Monday morning. This time is sacrosanct.
It’s their opportunity to reflect on the week that has just gone by.
We craft a set of questions for them to consider that are unique to them. It could be something like:
- What have I achieved in the last week?
- What value did I add to the projects/tasks I was working on?
- How happy have I been this week?
- Can I, hand on heart, say that where I spent my time last week was focused on achieving my career goals?
We’re not looking for War and Peace with the answers to these questions. Short, succinct and to the point is all that is required.
The important thing is to build the habit of reflection and to make sure it is happening on an ongoing basis.
As a result my clients:
- Build up an evidence bank of their achievements which they can refer back to when their confidence dips and they need to give themselves a boost.
- Can complete their performance review preparation quickly and effectively because they have something to refer back to.
- Are able to stay on track to achieve their career goals rather than getting lost doing the doing.
- Appreciate the value that they bring to their role, making it easier to engage in self-promotion activities.
- Regularly check in with whether they are happy at work and then make changes before they are completely miserable.
Try it for yourself. It will rapidly become the most valuable 15 minutes of your week!
If you would value support to achieve your career goals, then feel free to book in my diary to talk about Career Coaching – I’d love to help you – here is a link to my diary.
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