How to set your professional goals for 2023

What was on your to do list this time last year? What did you think 2022 would look like? How did it work out?

If you’re in review and planning mode at the moment, I’ve got some resources to help you set your professional goals for 2023.

What does the year ahead hold?

Perhaps you’re planning to find a new role in 2023, to change jobs, start your own consultancy business, deepen your experience in your current role or aim for a promotion?

Whatever you’re plotting, give yourself a head start with the information in this article.

This is a great opportunity to invest time in yourself and have space and time to think about you.

If you’re not feeling in the mood to do this, that’s ok. I know how much internal communicators have on their plate as this time of year. This article is here as and when you need it, there’s no pressure.

How to set your professional goals for 2023

I find the only way to have any chance of new year goals or aspirations lasting to Easter and beyond is to make them visible, tangible and realistic.

I encourage you to hold yourself to account, for example by making promises to yourself in 30-day increments. My team and I do this exercise with clients, particularly when teaching team days. When we are finishing the day together, we ask attendees to imagine it’s 30, 60, 90 days from now. Then six months, then a year.

Questions we ask internal communication (IC) professionals to answer, include:

• What can I complete in these timescales?
• What are the barriers or things that will stop me?
• What do I need to start, stop or continue?
• Who do I need to ask for help?
• What do I need to park/discard?
• What conversations do I need to have?
• What does good look like? (If that’s too hard to answer, we flip it to be what does bad look like?)

Imagine you’re reading this article at the end of 2023, what do you want the year to have been like for you?

What’s ahead for your business?

As with most of our work as internal communicators, if you are looking at your professional or IC goals, you need to know what your organisation’s goals are.

If you know a merger or acquisition is ahead, or you’ll have a new CEO in place in six months’ time, how does that impact you? Do you have gaps in your knowledge and need to seek training or information to help you be prepared? This is where support through training, consultancy or mentoring can help internal communicators confidently face challenges.

If you had to describe your career aspiration for 2023 in a word, what would it be?

I’ve been setting my intentions and aspirations at this time of year for over a decade. Why? I find outlining my goals, ideas and dreams helps me shape them into reality.

One of the key parts of that planning is choosing a word. The criteria I apply reflects the mindset for the upcoming 12 months. I use it to hold myself to account.

It’s a largely positive exercise and helps drive my business forward.

Sometimes it’s more realistic than aspirational – like in 2014/5 when I had three children under the age of two-and-a-half, following the birth of my twin sons. Survival was the name of the game!

I launched All Things IC in 2013 while on maternity leave with my daughter. But I had been preparing and planning since 2009, when I was working in-house in corporate communication and internal communication roles.

You can choose a word if you’re planning to stay in the same role, if you’re searching for a new job or if you’re looking for your next contract. You can also choose one for your personal life.

For 2022 I chose clarifying and maximising. I’m proud to have built my fantastic in-house team. My PA Louise has been with the business for five years next month, and we welcomed Caroline Cubbon-King and Dan Holden as Communication Consultants in April 2022.

We have clarified and maximised various business processes, products and services over the past 12 months, including adding to our suite of in-person and online masterclasses.

I’ve loved seeing Caroline and Dan teaching, and hearing feedback from clients who have enjoyed working with them.

Experimentation was my chosen word in 2015, it’s when I was scoping out the idea for masterclasses and setting firmer foundations.

I’ve chosen it again for 2023 as I will be experimenting with new ideas and ways to support and advise internal communicators around the globe.

What’s your word for 2023?

What will IC pros need to think about for 2023? My colleague Dan recently wrote about the Institute of Internal Communication’s Future of Work Trends 2022 report.

The 2022 edition of the report highlights eight key trends impacting colleagues at work in the 2020s:

• Technology’s impact on work.
• Globalisation and global connectivity.
• The age of hybrid working.
• Shifting socio-cultural attitudes and intergenerational working.
• Changing employment models.
• Changing operating and organisational models.
• Impact of climate change and resource depletion on organisations and humane organisations.

Rachel Miller is founder and principal consultant of All Things IC. A longer version of this post was first published on the All Things IC blog. Read the original post.

Image by Dilok Klaisataporn on iStock.