It’s the final week in my series of habits – which means we’re a full month into 2014! So far we’ve covered three of the four big categories: Mental & Spiritual , Physical, and Relationship. Today we’re moving on to the final area of habits – Career.
Career Habits
When I created these categories, I had a broad interpretation in mind for this one. What I group into “career” is meant to include what you spend your life working on. This would include a traditional career (job outside the home), small businesses that many of us run (like this blog and BWV Multisport), and Parenthood (either as a stay-at-home parent or otherwise). Since I don’t have children, I’m going to focus on the first two in this post, but I see Parenthood as a very important career and you’ll want to think about your habits in that area if it applies to you.
What career habits do you have or need to develop? This may be an area you haven’t thought of in this way before. You want to advance in your profession or grow your own business, so you set goals. But what habits would help support your goals? What habits might actually hinder your goals?
Two habits to create
One habit I’m working on is to reserve time in my day for reading. In my field, keeping up with new ideas and opportunities in the digital space is critical. I am going to be more intentional in reading the many digital marketing resources that I subscribe to and attending more conferences to learn from others’ experiences.
For my own small business, I’m working to set aside more blocks of time throughout the week to work on projects and coaching clients. Last year, I crammed a lot of this work in on Sundays, which isn’t the right use of that day and often left me feeling frantic. I am big on using my calendar for scheduling my life, so just blocking out an hour a few evenings a week should help me create a habit of spreading the work out (and giving me rest on Sundays). Time management is not always an easy task!
One habit You should break
One habit I see quite often in my work experience is constant connection to work. Do you check work emails from the moment you wake up until you go to sleep? That builds the expectation that you’re always working – which leads to others expecting a quick response at all others. The problem? You’re not getting a break! Productivity actually decreases when you work longer hours – so you’re probably not accomplishing that goal.
In my day job, I try to model this behavior for my team. It’s also something I encourage my team to live out. If you current job expects 24 hour availability, maybe it’s time to look for a more balanced opportunity. You don’t get bonus points for putting in long hours.
This is one habit I’m encouraging you to BREAK this year. Replace it with the habit of setting healthy boundaries with your job and see how that improves your work and your quality of life.
I hope this discussion of habits inspires you to think of the habits in your own life! If you enjoyed this post, use one of the buttons below to share it on your favorite social network!
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Questions for you:
- What is one career habit you want to nurture or develop?
- How was your first month of 2014?