Your 8 Career Resolutions for 2019

It’s the start of the second quarter of the year and we can still reflect on kicking bad habits and start on positive ones that we’ve been postponing for ages. Making New Year’s resolutions for your office life should be worth your time since you spend at least eight hours of your day on it, 5 times a week. What will the rest of 2019 be for you? Is it going to be your year of ruthless execution? The year that you will move out to greener pastures? The year that you will finally get promoted? Whatever your goal is, here are new year office resolutions that are still worth considering that may just change your career for good.

Do you notice that many CEOs and leaders are the earliest to arrive in the office? Most people think this has to do with role modelling but there is a more functional reason behind it: they simply get more things done.

Studies show that you’re at your best cognitive capacity within your first two waking hours. These are also the best hours to be “in the zone” while everyone else is still hitting the road. And don’t we all get that delicious feeling of being accomplished at 9 am while we see an officemate just about to pop into her cube?

There was a time in the early 2000’s when bragging your unused VL’s to your officemates was sexy because you’ve worked harder than anyone else. These days we can only feel sorry for a colleague who can’t steal personal time for herself.

This is the year when you should appreciate that life really happens when you exit the office doors. Take the time off to travel so you can be more inspired at work. Take a strategic Friday leave to fix your expired driver’s license, passport and bank accounts.

Let go of your messianic complex and stop being paranoid that the world will stop because you’re not in the office. If the situation really calls for an emergency, someone will likely give you a ring. 

Successful people get more things done because they keep everything short, including e-mails. They don’t have time to read or write novel-length letters –and neither should you.

E-mails are documented impressions of how a person thinks and organizes his thoughts so write concise ones that are clear, straight to the point, and confident.

When formality is not an issue, skip unnecessary long background stories, adjectives, and the fake politeness. You're not writing to the Queen. If possible, use bullet points not sentences, tables not paragraphs, and acronyms not phrases. Not only do you save time from writing less, your colleagues will also thank you because they also get to read less.

Finally, don’t discuss ideas over e-mails like ping pong. Ambush the person at her cube, or make a quick phone call to get things settled immediately.

It’s normal for Manila folks to travel on average for 4 hours a day to work and it’s arguably the saddest reminder of how our taxes are spent.

Remember that a) the amount of energy you put into your work and b) the good mood you bring home to your wife and kids are inversely proportional to the amount of stress you absorb along EDSA. Long commutes destroy happiness.

It's been proven in many scientitic studies: people who have better jobs or bigger houses but live far away from work are less happy than those who have nothing but enjoy shorter commutes.

Aspiring to get promoted in 2019? If it is true that every factor to success matters, you might want to consider moving closer to work. You get bonus points for more sleeping time too.

This is the year when people should start realizing that exercise has been too much associated with weight loss. More than wiping out your love handles, exercise also does wonders for the brain.

Take note that your body feels “stressed” whenever you exercise and as a defense mechanism, it releases hormones that have reparative and resetting functions.

Do you notice that you feel happy and able to think better after exercising? Hormones such as endorphin cause that, which is probably the reason why your energetic colleague beats you at work even if he spends more time at the thread mill. You have no excuse this 2019: 10 minutes of exercise a day is just about okay, says experts.

There are plenty of senior managers out there who are genuinely passionate to groom their own protégés because it feels rewarding to have one, and because great leaders are never insecure to share what they know.

This 2019, find a mentor outside your department (i.e. not your boss) who can share career advice from time to time. He can be another department head you worked with for a project. She can be a manager of the same level but has been in the company for 12 years and knows the politics of the company too well. Look for someone who can improve your negotiation skills. Request her to introduce you to more people (including the big wigs) in the company. Ask about her failures and mistakes as she climbed up the corporate ladder. Think of your mentor as your sponsor in the Hunger Games: they come and go as they please, but they’re necessary for your survival in the competition.

The saying that ‘form follows content’ is dead in the age of Taylor Swift. You need to believe that you can have both. As a marketer, I’ve always believed that the world is all about packaging whether we like it or not. Never underestimate the power of charm. Looks significantly matter: we choose products based on their wrappers and more beautiful people are promoted than their aesthetically challenged counterparts.

What you write in your e-mails can be judged in parallel with how you dress so invest in clothes (and don’t regret what you’ll be spending!) that can nail down that critical presentation for the VIPs. Sell yourself like a brand. Be consistent with an ensemble that can project a confident and sharp you.

Your clothes don’t need to stand out (this is not about dressing up for a catwalk), but it should be able shout: “I’m ready for a bigger desk."

The numbers don’t lie: we are tempted to check our Facebook about 14 times a day and yet it takes us around 20 minutes to get back to work and finish a task after being disrupted.

Seriously, how much are you really missing out if you don’t check Instagram for 3 hours? This 2019, be more self-aware that social media are the ultimate productivity killers that can make or break your much-awaited promotion.

Try getcoldturkey.com or anti-social.cc which can help you temporarily block social media sites and achieve laser-sharp focus with your work. Take Mohammed Ali’s advice when it comes to social media starvation: “Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion”.

ADD ON: This resolution OBVIOUSLY refers to excessive entertainment use of social media, not social media for work or professional networking. If you ask, "well, what if I'm working through social media?", are you seriously expecting yourself to use less of it? :)

JONATHAN YABUT is the winner of the hit Asian reality TV show, The Apprentice Asia, and directly reported to Tony Fernandes as Chief of Staff of AirAsia. He is based today in Kuala Lumpur as the Managing Director of his management consultancy firm, The JY Consultancy & Ventures, which offers digital marketing and talent optimization services to Asia's startups and corporations. Jonathan is Asia’s leading motivational speaker on topics involving leadership, talent development of Gen Y workers, and career management for Fortune 500 companies. In 2018, he launched his third book, "Single, Taken, or Building My Empire" after the success of his pan-Asian best-selling books, "From Grit To Great" (2014) and "Fast Forward" (2016). For speakership and media inquiries, contact [email protected] or visit his website www.jonathanyabut.com.