Executive Vitality: Think, Reflect, Evaluate and Envision

Executive Vitality: Think, Reflect, Evaluate and EnvisionAs an executive, you know the benefit of setting a vision and establishing clear goals with accountability. The last couple of months we have been talking about maintaining your vitality throughout the year-end challenges. Now, we are asking you to sit back and focus your attention on your 2014 personal and business aspirations. What is your vision for yourself and your business in 2014? What are your key goals and how will you know if you have been successful? How will you hold yourself accountable?

This is a time of reflection and evaluation. Actually, every day should be a time for reflection and evaluation, but certain milestones—like the end of one year and the beginning of another—prompt most of us to actually do some deep digging. If you were too drawn into preparing for and celebrating the holidays to do that, here are specific tips to start off the year with a clear idea of where you have been and where you want to go:

  1. Take the time to reflect. Specifically, that means to set aside dedicated time for reflection—schedule it in your calendar if you have to. It is important as an executive (and as a human!) to stop doing and start thinking. We often stay busy to avoid dealing with our feelings or thinking about issues. Reflection provides a meaningful way to get more in touch with your intuition.
  2. Record your reflections, whether that means notes in your iPad or your spiral bound notebook or however you do it.
  3. Reflect on your accomplishments, personally and professionally. Reflect on goals met, progress made, and areas where you wish you had done better. Evaluate your progress from last year. Perhaps you mark each activity with red, yellow, green, and see if there are “themes” that pop up. For example, I was great with exercise (green), but medium with social time (yellow), and fell short on giving up sugar (red).
  4. Be kind in your evaluation of yourself. Now that you have reflected and realized all the great things you accomplished personally and professionally, as well as the areas you see that you can do better going forward, make a plan for improvement. That is better than beating yourself up about any places you fell short. Taking control and having a plan with deadlines and specifics will set you on a positive journey toward reaching your goals.
  5. Prioritize your energies. Your reflection and evaluation might cover a lot of areas. You might have identified a need to improve a relationship or two. You might feel you should ramp up your volunteer work. Maybe you spent too much money. What is really important to you? What will most impact your executive vitality if you move the needle on it? You can’t do everything at once. Your personal evaluation will go better next year if you focus on the high impact areas and make the changes where you see the most pressing need.
  6. We suggest that you do a weekly review with another person—a coach or a peer.

We wish you a happy, prosperous, healthy new year filled with executive vitality.

Have you yet evaluated your accomplishments for 2013? Do you have specific plans for your 2014 goals, for your work, play, finances, relationships, spirituality, and health?
Executive Vitality: Think, Reflect, Evaluate and Envision

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