EngineerHer

If you’re lucky, my last post doesn’t apply to you. You’ve been relaxing over the Christmas break, or the holiday season and are coming back into work, maybe today, maybe later this week or even next week. And you’re just full of that “New Year, new you” energy.

Now, I have to admit, I’m not a great fan of the whole “new you” bit of that. I think very often, people can think of jumping into an entirely new routine for themselves and overhaul everything all at once. I don’t think big changes like that stick. And I have a feeling many of us, including myself, have been caught on the cycle of “everything has to change right now or else what’s the point?”

An alternative approach?

Now, what I’m going to suggest here isn’t the sexiest of approaches. But I can tell you it works. Seriously.

Give yourself a few hours and do a review of 2023. I’m not talking like your end of year performance review, where it’s entirely possible you scribbled out the whole thing with minutes to go before the deadline, hoping your manager could just remember all the stuff you did. (It’s possible you’re more organised than this, but I am speaking to my experience of engineers…)

I’m talking about sitting back and journaling around the good, the bad and the ugly. And there are reasons I suggest this.

• Looking at your year in review allows you to remember and appreciate the past year for all the things you experienced – good, bad and very ugly!
• Exploring deep self-reflection allows you to gain a better understanding of who you are at this point in time. This also helps to give you an appreciation for the ways you’ve grown and the things you’ve overcome in the past year.
• Setting New Year’s goals is a no-brainer! We all want to enter a fresh year with motivation, goals, and incentives to become the best versions of ourselves.

OK but specifically, what should I be doing?

Yeah, it gets a bit interesting. Honestly, what I’ve done over the weekend is sat down and just written. I started off with “What do I remember from 2023…” and let my hand keep writing. I describe this as getting my brain out of the way and just let the thoughts come up. It’s both easier and harder than it sounds.

It might sound a bit new age-y or something, but really, it’s the best way I’ve found to get out of my own way and just write. If you’re not used to writing anymore – and yes, my hand did get quite sore after the first page – typing can work as well. But you need to be able to type as you think… Which for me is a bit more difficult than writing. I’m a digital immigrant, remember!

If you start getting a bit stuck, here are some ideas to help restart the process:

• Pick three words to describe 2023
• What’s the most exciting project you worked on this year?
• What’s the best conversation you had in work this year?
• How do you feel about going back into the office?
• What’s the best and worst thing about your desk?
• Who is your closest work colleague?
• Who could you quite happily swing for in the office?
• Is there a department you found out more about this year?
• Was there a surprise in your end of year review?
• Is there a project coming up you really want to work on?
• What aspects of your work are the easiest to do?
• What aspects of your work are the hardest to do?
• Which aspects do you prefer?
• How often do you come home feeling dejected?
• Have you read any books or articles that really helped you in work this year?
• Have you completed a course that stood out as being good/ bad/ ugly?

What do you do with this?

Well, I often pick out themes. Like for me this year, there was a lot of people work. Development plans, change management, that sort of thing. Engaging with stakeholders. No wonder I was exhausted much of the year! (Born introvert me, I replenish my energy from being alone…)

So, I’ve noticed my reading and book buying choices over Christmas are heavily weighted towards persuasion, influencing and generally dealing with people. From all sorts of different places. For example, Donald Miller’s “Building a Story Brand” is not an obvious choice for an engineer, but it’s a great way of crafting a message to suit the recipients, rather than the deliverer… Equally “The Workshop Book” by Pamela Hamilton has given me some great ideas about how to run meetings and workshops of all sorts.

Sometimes we need to reach outside the obvious to develop the skills we need…

Let this feed into your personal goals for 2024

Look, most of us will be getting work goals for the year pretty soon. At least within the next 2 months… But there’s another side to life and that’s personal goals. Very often these can look like development rather than achievement goals in work., Maybe you have a development goal to meet with a senior manager in work to discuss some new ideas you have. Maybe it’s a course you want to take. It might be learning to delegate, by actually delegating work to a colleague or team member.

But, from reviewing the year, you can pick out themes and trends from your own thoughts. Maybe you’re looking around thinking, “it’s time to try something new”. You might think, “life is going to be tough this year, maybe this is the year to coast a bit at work”. Maybe this is the year to reach out to your boss and ask for something you can hardly imagine, like a 12month sabbatical to travel the world, or a placement in the organisation’s HQ.

And remember

The “New Year, new you” energy is all very well and good to get caught up on. I’ve been there, I know. But it’s quite difficult to change everything all at once. Not to mention stressful. So maybe you don’t need to suddenly transform into something entirely new from today. But maybe, by reviewing the last year, you’ll pick out areas you want to work on.

Maybe it’s dealing with senior managers.

It might be presenting to large groups.

Some of your colleagues may be easier to talk to than others and you want to make an effort with the others.

It can all start with small steps. It can start with a coffee. Or possibly a single slide in a larger presentation. Or a simple “how were the holidays” to someone. “Great oaks from little acorns grow” remember.

Simple, small steps might the approach to take. Think kata rather than kaizen!