I hope you had a very good vacation. I gave you some tips on how to take advantage of them in my last post Take advantage of the holidays. Now you are surely back to your professional activity. In this sense, it is increasingly clear to me that September is the new January. I mean that more and more companies and professionals take advantage of this time after the holidays to promote new projects or face new challenges. Like the start of school or university, of the soccer league… September is usually a very active month, a key moment in your professional activity. A time when many projects usually start and when the professional market is more active than ever.
And at this time of year, I wanted to share with you SOME IDEAS TO MAKE THE MOST OF THIS RETURN TO WORK.
- RETHINK YOUR GOALS: You probably set some goals (for yourself or your team) for this year. It’s been more than 8 months since the year began, so I think it’s a good time to review the results achieved and set new goals until the end of the year. You have 4 months ahead of you. Set goals for this period. Goals that are challenging but at the same time achievable. Forget what you set as a goal in January or whether you have been better or worse. Focus on the 4 months left and go for it. I think that professionals and companies work better and better with shorter objectives (quarterly or 4 months), as is the case from September to December.
- THINK CAREFULLY ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO QUIT DOING: surely you have been able to think during the holidays and have identified some things that it would be good for you to quit doing. If you haven’t thought about it, think about it now. If you want to improve your results, do new things, or achieve new challenges, you will certainly have to stop doing some things. Think which ones. Write them down. And stop doing them as soon as possible.
- THINK ABOUT WHAT NEW THINGS YOU ARE GOING TO DO: continuing with the previous point, to achieve different results, you will have to do different things. So, think carefully about what activities you should incorporate into your life that will help you achieve your goals. I hope you have taken advantage of the holidays to think about it. Otherwise, do it now. Write them down and go for them. The sooner you start, the better.
- HAS IT BEEN DIFFICULT FOR YOU TO RETURN TO WORK? I recommend that you think and be honest with this question. It is normal that after a few days or weeks of vacation it is a little difficult for you to return to work. But, if it has been very tough to you, if you had little desire to start working again, if your motivation was very low, it surely means that you are in the wrong job. If so, I’m sorry and I encourage you to work hard at work, but also spend time looking for a new professional project. Work as hard as you can, but don’t stop looking for a job that motivates you, that doesn’t cost you as much to get back from vacation, or that makes Mondays (almost) as enjoyable as Fridays. It is not an easy challenge, but I assure you that it is worth trying. I wrote about it in my post: Discover your dream job.
I hope these 4 ideas are useful to you. Have a good return to work and have a very good month of September, the new January. And remember, as it is commonly said “Make it a September to remember”.
