What are your Q2 career goals?

Did your first quarter fly by like mine?

Between kicking off my 2024 cohort of Career Command Four-Month Shift, helping all of my news clients remind themselves of who they are and matching up the right roles to their gifts, and starting my new community – Career Connections – it’s been a bit of a whirlwind.

Full transparency – I’m behind on solidifying my Q2 goals. And writing this note is helping me to get back on track – so thanks for the space to share and also – I mention this because it’s part of a process I use for goal-setting and planning that fits with my style and my strengths.

I begin all of my goal-setting with free writing or sparky conversations with colleagues and friends.

I must start from a creative, exploratory place before I can buy in and attach my name to tasks and due dates.

My (almost) thirteen year old daughter and I have been discussing this recently. We share a personality quirk that we can easily follow rules, jump into projects and go above and beyond – when we buy into that thing – whatever it is. And when we don’t – there’s struggle, often an impasse.

If you’re aware of Gretchen Rubin’s framework of The Four Tendencies, we’re the Questioners and we’re learning how to navigate being who we are with some self-awareness, self-honoring gifts of doing the things that energize us and the tough love of – sometimes there’s just shit you have to do.

After I let my ideas percolate for a short period of time, I like to make sure they’re aligned with my values and my overarching goals for the year.

You may remember, I am prone to epiphanies and I can create new things quickly. So, I’ve built in ways to validate whether or not these new ideas fit with my overarching goals for the year that I set in December of 2023.

In addition to my revenue goals, I have Career Self Care Goals in categories like: Energy, Relationships, Growth and Positioning. These are the domains where I can get intentional about how I want my business and career to look and feel – beyond the numbers.

Sample goals in these areas:

• Energy: Don’t send emails on the weekends. (I may write them, but I won’t send them)

• Relationships: Continue to set two networking conversations a month with people from my career advocates list. Hint: if you don’t have a list like this, I recommend making one asap.

• Growth: Research Embodiment Coaching Certification (I love thinking about all the new tools I can bring to my work!)

• Positioning: Rework my LinkedIn to reflect my current offerings and messaging.

This all feels doable for me in addition to all I have on my plate already. I like to make my goals realistic and even inviting and fun. Because – we all know what happens when they’re not. Not only are you unlikely to achieve them – but you may not even set goals for the next quarter/year/ever again.

I’m curious to hear more about how you’re thinking of goal setting. What has worked for you in the past? How do you continue to tweak your process? How can you make it fit with your personality, your style and your strengths?

Career Clues from your early career

A few weeks ago, I reconnected with a former colleague from one of my first jobs. Actually, he hired me into an ad agency digital producer role in the height of the dot com days – and it changed the course of my career.

I hadn’t seen him in nearly two decades and we were transported back to that –anything was possible– time of our lives.

Not only was I energized by spending a couple of hours with my old friend, but I was also brimming with a visceral delight to revisit someone else…

24 year old me.

It’s not like I haven’t thought about her much – but it’s typically in the realm of my personal life woes and the 20’something struggle to learn adulting on the quick.

Yet – when I think about the fierce, driven, risk-taker I was at that age in my professional life – I’m not only confounded by her, I want to take her to dinner and pepper her with questions.

According to cultural box-checking...the reasons I was finding success and momentum in my career were not obvious.

I didn’t ace college. I had zero connections. I didn’t have a one year plan, let alone a 5 year. In fact, I had no clue what I wanted to do short or long term. Some of you may remember I changed my major 5 times!

And while I may have been scared shitless often in my personal life, somehow in my early professional life…

I advocated for myself like a boss – even with colleagues and managers twice my age.

I built deep and meaningful relationships with people who spoke my names in rooms I wasn’t in.

I ran towards change when others ran from it.

I jumped into new exciting challenges, even when I had no idea where they would take me.

I brought joy and jokes that landed at least 70% of the time.

And in revisiting early career me, I see so many clues that could have led me to where I am right now in my career.

Not just in the work I enjoyed, but in the person I showed up to be.

In the qualities that have always driven my momentum.

I invite you to do the same with your early career self.

Take 24 year old you to dinner and bring your curiosity.

What do you have to learn from this person who may not yet be fully immersed in the high stakes of adult responsibilities that are currently on your plate?

And what can you do to embody that version of you – even for an hour this week?

I can’t wait to hear what 24 year old you made you do that you thought you would regret!

Resume essentials for leaders

I review a lot of resumes.

As part of my 1:1 and Group Coaching Programs, I provide a resume audit after my clients have used the best practices shared in my online modules to tweak and optimize the most recent version of their resumes.

Often, I ask clients to show more quantifiable results in their bullets. Growth in the business. Operational cost savings. Engagement with the product. And yes – your awards!

Yet – lately I’ve been noticing that my director and VP level clients are over-indexing on business results content – and they’re missing something critical.

Bullets that demonstrate your leadership expertise.

If you’re targeting roles in which you’ll be leading a team, DO NOT FORGET to talk about your leadership skills and results.

Did you grow a team? If so, by what percentage or to how many employees?
Did you receive excellent results for your leadership in your employee satisfaction survey?
Did you recruit, mentor, develop, redistribute your team so that they improved efficiency and engagement in their work?
Did you inherit a team and transform the culture and effectiveness?
Did you implement training, coaching and a culture of feedback and growth on your team?

All of these results will build a bridge to what is possible for you in your next leadership role.

These are not in any way soft skills. Don’t even get me started on my soft skills soap box. Not a thing, people.

These are relationship building skills.

These are communication skills.

These are leadership skills.

So, make sure they are well-represented and clear. Shine them up and show them off.

Clear is the new pretty

I received a beautiful compliment a few days ago and I’ve been thinking about it non-stop.

A new-ish client of mine had a few questions and she asked if we could jump on a quick call (outside of our regular session time) to discuss them.

Extra calls in between sessions are not included in my coaching program. I offer email support and Monthly Office Hours as a way to answer questions that fall outside of session time.

In my nearly nine years in business, this has come up a lot. And like most boundary setting exercises – this simple request has been a complex journey for me.

In the past when I’ve taken the call, in the name of over-delivering, the meeting is not brief and it in essence becomes a session. A session that I’m not being compensated for.

Full transparency – in these moments, I’ve felt resentment bubbling up within me.

It’s the same resentment my clients feel when people ask them for time to “pick their brain” on topics that are directly related to their expertise and their means of making a living.

When you’re a generous, giving human, it’s hard to say no. It just is.

That’s why, I don’t say no. I give options that work for my time and what I know it’s worth.

I responded back to the request, “Feel free to send your questions within an email or come into Office Hours on Monday where you can get answers from the group. I don’t jump on additional calls in between sessions.”

This brings me back to the best compliment ever.

In our next session, my client said “Thank you for your note about the extra call. You modeled what kind, clear boundary-setting looks like. And I needed to know that was possible.”

She tapped into something so important to me. The thing that gets me over the hurdle every time I still writhe in setting the boundary.

How am I ever going to coach clients on identifying and honoring their own boundaries if I am ignoring mine?

I’m holding my lines AND I’m sharing what it looks like to do so.

Not everyone will be this open and receptive to your boundaries – and that’s ok.

You should expect mixed reviews of agency and self-advocacy in our Patriarchal hustle culture. That’s not your problem, nor is it your responsibility to convince them of anything.

But the feeling of my clarity inspiring someone I admire to stand in her power is a lasting gift reminding me of my gratitude for this work.