Hello July! It’s a new month, and time for new goals

“Life truly begins after you have put your house in order”

Marie Kondo

Can you believe that it is July already? It only seems like yesterday that we were seeing in the new year with fresh eyes and setting those all important goals for the year. As we are now over halfway through the year, we often have lost sight of those aims and resolutions, and whilst we’ve generally been busy bees, it feels like we’re getting nowhere fast, sound familiar?

In this short post, I’m sharing with you that I am feeling like I’ve lost my focus a little, I’ve made no secret that times have been a little tough lately, but I’m finally starting to see more clearly so I can focus on what is important, one step at a time.

So here are a few things that may help you stop procrastinating and start doing!

Find your why

For me, I am taking today as an opportunity to get my house in order and plan exactly what I need to achieve over the next month, with a final CIPD exam approaching in September, now is the perfect time to get focused and get organised, by planning ahead, this helps me to maintain that focus.

For years, I put off my CIPD level 7 studies, purely because I found it such an uphill challenge and I didn’t believe that I could possibly achieve it, I am an average student, and whilst my list of achievements is something to be proud of, my practical HR experience far more outweighs my academic mindset, so I found that the course was really quite intimidating!

I am fortunate to have the team at ICS Learn behind me, without their encouragement, I don’t think I would have been able to get this far, I’m on the final hurdle now, so fingers crossed for September. To get exam fit, I have been given a study planner from ICS and this has made the whole process not so scary! If like me, you’ve been putting off your CIPD studies and not sure where to start, then please do contact them and see where your study journey will take you.

Identify your starting point

Asking yourself “what is it that I want to achieve this month” before getting started is a really good starting point, if I’m sat at my desk, I am often not inspired as I’m quite a creative person, so I’ll take a walk and think about this thoroughly before sitting down and setting my goals.

Find what works for you

I have a number of supporting tools that I use, obviously I have my smart phone, but as I have reduced my usage on this lately, I prefer a manual and more visual approach, so I use my Getting Stuff Done planner from Career Girl Daily (CGD) to keep my daily tasks in check, it’s the small achievements that lead to progress. It also encourages me to eat healthier and keep up my water intake!

Breaking the bigger tasks down

When thinking about your goals, you can often think of more than one, this is ok, just don’t try to do everything at once! Prioritising those tasks for all areas of your life, not just work (remember your work life balance!) it’s easy to get distracted and focus solely on one particular area so when planning your month, you need to make sure that there is some scheduled self care time. In addition, it’s beneficial to see where you can add value across all areas your life.

Once you have established your big goal, break that big goal into smaller, bite-sized tasks as this will make them easier to achieve, if we just look at one big task, it is easy to become overwhelmed and think “I can’t do it” so take it easy on yourself and stay positive, you can do this!

Have a weekly review

Set some time aside on a Sunday to give yourself time to reflect on the past week, what tasks did you manage to achieve and which one’s you didn’t, but don’t beat yourself up, simply ask yourself why that particular task wasn’t achieved. This is also a learning process and things aren’t meant to run smoothly all the time, instead think of how you can improve on this area for next time.

I’d love to hear about your tips and tricks to get organised! Sharing is caring, so how do you get focused? Feel free to comment and share with your contacts.