Draw lessons from 2022 to achieve your goals in 2023

The festive season is a time of celebrations, but it also offers an opportunity to reflect on the goals we set when the year begun.

While striving to achieve the goals we set annually, there will be wins and losses. However, you should not write a year off when you do not get all that you wanted, as both successes and failures offer valuable lessons that you can carry into the new year.

Over time, I have come to learn that when setting goals, it is important to start by drawing lessons from the previous year, then assess what is important for your personal and career growth. The goals should be achievable within 12 months. For me, personal growth touches on social life outside of work, including relationships with my family and friends. For career growth, I set my targets as a leader, which must align to those of the company and with those of my team members.

Both individual and career goals feed from each other. If you are meeting your personal growth targets and balancing your social life, you will be more rejuvenated, which will reflect in your work. Meeting your employer’s set goals and rising through the ranks, is a sure way of boosting your confidence.?

As the year comes to an end, the big question is did we or did we not achieve what we set out to. If we did not, what is the plan going forward? The answer should include self-reflection. This is because self-reflection gives you a chance to have an honest conversation with yourself on the targets you had set in January. Truth is, sometimes we become overambitious and stretch ourselves beyond what we can do within a given period. However, always remember that there is no harm in re-adjusting a plan if the desired outcome becomes impossible to achieve within the set timelines.

From a career perspective, a promotion and/or a financial boost are key drivers. However, career growth requires patience as success cannot be achieved overnight. This is why, short and long-term goals come in handy and make big targets easy to achieve. Goals like going back to school to gain more skills and knowledge likely fall under long-term plans, but a short-term solution could be short courses that are relevant to the skills you want to acquire/improve on.?

At Safaricom PLC , using the agile framework, employee and team evaluations are carried out every quarter, which provides a great opportunity to discuss and strategise on both short-term and long-term goals. One of our biggest initiatives for upskilling our employees is our One More Skill Programme,?which has enabled all our staff learn a new skill towards meeting their immediate and future goals. This also contributes to the company’s targets because having a skilled workforce ensures successful operations.

As a business owner, learning how to budget and invest better may be what you need to achieve your goals. Having spoken to a number of young people running their businesses, I learnt that lack of information is a key factor that holds a lot of businesses back. Availability of online courses, short courses, power talks and peer-to-peer conversations are necessary to gain more knowledge on how to handle company operations. Nobody has it all figured out and we constantly need to be guided.

As an employer, always ensure that your management team’s goals and targets are aligned to the company’s vision. This will ensure that the same vision is cascaded down and once the entire workforce is aligned, you will have a team that is working towards achieving the same goal. You also need to consider the training tools you have internally to support career growth, the type of work environment you have created and employee morale. Be deliberate on these key issues as they impact both personal and career growth.?

I could go on about what ought to be done, but it all comes down to you as an individual. It depends on your determination to achieve the goals you set, and how often you review the goals and re-strategise. You should also reach out for help or advice if something is not working out.

To achieve your goals, make deliberate effort as nobody will push you to better yourself.?