Staying Engaged with Your Work in the New Year

Whether it’s maintaining motivation and focus, finding the right work/life balance, adjusting to a fluctuating workload, or navigating new levels of stress, it’s perfectly understandable that many of us find it difficult to stay engaged; but if we want to function effectively at our highest potential, we need preserve a high level of engagement. Here are some ideas for staying engaged with your work to keep in mind in the new year:

Build Your Brand

Finding new places to direct your professional focus can be a good strategy. One of the best places to start is with your brand. Spend some time evaluating how you’re being represented online and off. Highlight the strengths and the weaknesses and set some new goals for yourself. Refining your brand from time to time is always a worthwhile investment in your future success. If technology has made a leap (or 3) since you last updated your website, blog, social media etc., familiarize yourself with the updated options and incorporate them wherever you see benefit.

Collaborate

Another thing that can happen over time is that some of us might isolate ourselves from other professionals. If business is great, it’s hard to see the point in doing things like networking and collaborating. But when we’re partnered with others that share similar goals and interests, it can have a big impact on our level of engagement. It can also offer some of the inspiration we’ve been missing, along with additional support when we’re facing a challenge or when we’re not feeling particularly motivated.

Learn Something New

Learning something new is a tremendous tool to renew our interest in work. And we’re never too old or too seasoned to pick up some new skills. Whether it’s enrolling in an online (or in-person) course or listening to a podcast or TED Talk over lunch, keeping your brain active and learning new information can make sure you stay inspired when it comes to your day-to-day work. You don’t need to completely master a new skill in the next month or two. Simply setting some realistic goals for yourself and actively seeking out that new information can give you a boost in motivation when it comes to your work.

Create a Schedule (and follow it)

Over time, our schedules can become looser as we get more and more comfortable with our abilities, but tightening up the daily schedule can be incredibly valuable. Establish a clear framework including some windows to explore the other things I’ve already covered, like updating your brand, connecting with professionals, learning something new, and exploring any other strategies that you’ve always meant to find time for.

It’s entirely possible to stay engaged in our work, whether we’ve been at the same thing for months, years, or even decades. With some strategies in place to support our continued engagement, we’ll have a much easier time maintaining our motivation over time.

If you’d like to talk more about staying engaged with your work, or if there’s something else I can be of assistance with, please get in touch. I’m always happy to set aside time to connect.