New Habits for the New Year (Part 1 – Maintaining Social Connections)
Over the last few weeks I intended to give a list of New Year resolutions that we should all consider for our careers but fortunately this post was delayed. The delays have given me a lot of time to think. Forced me to have a lot of time to think might be a better description, but it’s made me rethink my original post quite a lot. The original post was filled with wonderful truisms which might yet see the light of day, yet didn’t provide any more value than a glossy “ten things to remember” list.
Instead, I’m starting off the new year with a series of posts on habits we should be forming to improve our careers and keep them on a steady path. In tough economic times when layoffs are looming and the future seems uncertain, we have an opportune time to make ourselves better employees, better bosses and better people.
So today I’ll explore the first of the habits I believe we should all form for ourselves: Maintaining social connections.
Social connections happen all the time and in any one of a number of venues. You’re having lunch with a co-worker, drinks with college friends or barbequing with family and neighbors. (Well, maybe we’ll be able to do that in a few months!) The point is that no matter what the occasion, these chances to socialize and relax with people we know offer all kinds of opportunities.
Try keeping a list of everyone you make contact with and any information you can gather at all about them. It doesn’t really matter if it’s family or friends or random people you never expect to meet again, the point is to get an idea of people you could keep touch with. Maybe it’s not the kind of thing you do on the spot at a dinner party, but afterwards consider who you met up with and what you talked about. This doesn’t come naturally to everyone, and if, like me, you can never remember anyone’s name it can be especially difficult in social circles.
Let’s say you’ve managed to gather a list, incomplete as it might be, your next step should be to try to categorize the list. Don’t feel like you have to formally categorize everyone, you’re not trying to rate people or give special preference to anyone or anything. You’re just creating some rough buckets that give you an idea of how well you know the people in the grouping what common interests or topics you share. You might find that an address book, physical or electronic, works well for you or you might just keep a written list. However you do it, your goal is to remember who you’ve talked to and a little bit about each person.
Now, just using that one list, keep track of when you talk, email or touch base somehow with anyone on the list. What you’re likely to find is that some people you talk to frequently, while others you run into occasionally or not at all.
You might be asking why am I suggesting you do all this? What you’re doing is getting an idea of a group of people that you like (or can’t avoid) having contact with regularly and that you want to keep contact with. So your next job is to turn the list around from a group of people that you want to keep in touch with and a group of people you actually do keep in contact with.
Consider making a schedule of people to talk to, or set up regular lunch, drinks or dinner appointments and invite people to them. The most frequent contacts are all going to be people you want to be able to help where you can and enjoy where you can’t.
Whatever you do, recognize that these are people who are important to you, that you like, need or want to spend time with and see all of them as important. These are all people who can share ideas, news, stories and advice with you and can help you enrich your life and with it your career.
Peter Fitzgerald is the founder of CareerSherpas.com and is currently working on his first book, conducting high-level business analysis, connecting individuals with ideas and opportunities, and attempting to learn the bagpipes.