6 Ways to Keep Your Career Motivation Strong Over the Holidays

Written by Laura Gayle and Narrated by Leigh Martinuzzi

Let’s face it: The holidays can be far from a relaxing break from work, school, or other aspects of daily life. Instead, it’s often a time when many things speed up. Between attending  (or hosting) parties, going to work gatherings, seeing family, keeping kids busy, and shopping for groceries and gifts, you’ll pretty much find disruption every time you turn around.

Yet, by the same token, during the holidays, other things slow down or get sidetracked altogether — like your motivation to take care of your professional life or your personal well-being. If you’re feeling overwhelmed during the chaos of the holidays and want to refocus and get back on track, here are six tips to help pull you out of the doldrums, keep you grounded, and move you in the right direction.

1. Make a list for past and present

Much like Santa’s list, this is one you’ll want to check twice. First, write down the past year’s main events — accomplishments, failures, and anything else relevant that happened. Remember to acknowledge and celebrate all the things you accomplished in 2019.

Once you’ve assessed the past year, make another section of the list, for things you can improve upon next year and goals you want to accomplish. Be sure not to criticize yourself too hard; you accomplished plenty in 2019, even if there’s room for improvement. Writing down goals can help you identify opportunities for growth while keeping your eyes on the prize.

2. Nourish your career viability

Even if your career is going well and you’re on the perfect track, you need to feed it. And let’s be realistic: When it comes to professional growth, there’s always room for improvement. Consider a few of these techniques to bolster your work life:

• Bump your skills. Take a class and learn some new knowledge or skills.
• Get certified. Pursue a certification to boost your resumé.
• Read up. Make a list of books to read — and then start reading them ASAP. (Fun fact: Did you know Bill Gates reads one book a week?)
• Schedule time to attend professional networking events.

Make an effort to pursue even a couple of these avenues, and you could make 2020 your best professional year yet.

3. Boost your tech skills

Technology has grown to become incredibly important — let’s just say indispensable — in the modern workplace. The more adept you are at using it and the more willing you are to learn your way around the latest products, the better positioned you’ll be to keep your tech skills relevant in a fast-paced world. For instance, an easy first step is to open a cloud storage account to manage and safeguard your personal files. Then try upgrading your hardware, if you can, and last but not least, clean up your online reputation. (Employers are definitely checking!)

4. Stretch past your comfort zone

When the New Year arrives, most people make resolutions for the things they hope and plan to accomplish. While that’s all well and good, there’s nothing wrong with throwing in a few to make you stretch a little. When the holiday chaos arrives, everything is thrown off, anyway — making it a perfect time to introduce change. Use this opportunity to stretch out of your comfort zone into new territory.

• Reach out. Get in touch with a new professional contact you’ve been wanting to talk to.
• Aim higher. Ask your boss about any promotions you can pursue.
• Follow your passion. Apply to a job in a new industry you’ve always wanted to work in.
• Don’t overthink it. Work to face and conquer your fears, and move past them to greater accomplishments.

Staying within your comfort zone is, well, comfortable. But it can lead to career stagnation. Why not just stretch yourself, even just a little, to see where it can lead you in 2020?

5. Plan to make a big change

It’s one thing to stretch yourself and try something new or different, but that might not be enough to get you going. Maybe it’s not just the holiday blahs getting you down — it might be something more. If you’re stuck in a rut and feel like you’re consistently digging down instead of up, it could help improve things if you were to take more drastic action. If you’re really looking to invigorate yourself and keep up your career motivation strong, why not go a little further?

Here’s an example: Say you’re looking for a better work-life balance or expanded career opportunities. One big step you could consider is using the holiday time off to explore a new city to move to. For instance, North Carolina is on the upswing for professionals, especially the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. It’s got jobs in various sectors, affordable living, and a great climate.

With these types of benefits, it’s easy to see how such a change might be good for your career motivation. Take a trip over the holidays and explore your potential destination (keeping in mind that Christmas can be an especially enchanting time to visit a new city). If you find a place you like, start making plans to line up some interviews there.

6. Brainstorm new ideas

Just because other people are scaling back in anticipation of or during the holidays doesn’t mean you have to! You could use this opportunity to jump ahead of the game instead. The holiday break can be a great time to brainstorm for new, innovative ideas to pursue in the next year.

Got an inkling for a new product? Do some research to see if anyone else holds a patent to a similar project. Have an idea for a sparkling new marketing campaign but haven’t quite fleshed it out yet? Spend some time making charts or diagrams and get prepared to present them to your boss in January or February.

Making changes in your life can feel overwhelming — especially during the holidays when there’s so much more on everyone’s plate — but to experience new growth, sometimes all it takes is that first step. Once you’ve done that, you take the next. Before you know it, you’ve surpassed your new goals, and each year begins to turn out better than the one before.

Guest Bloger Bio

Laura Willis is the co-founder of Shine Offline, a digital wellbeing consultancy that helps businesses support their staff to have healthy, effective relationships with their smartphones and other devices in today’s 24/7 connected world. The company was launched following Laura’s own break down and realisation that her dysfunctional relationship with her devices was causing most of her stress. The journey of recovery Laura embarked on was the inspiration for the business. Shine Offline clients include Lonely Planet, Disney, the UK Parliament, O2, PwC and 3M.

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