Anna S. E. Lundberg

Coach, Speaker, Writer

How to find your annual theme 2017: finally, a process!

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In last week’s post, I outlined the process for making my own annual review, covering three different elements: (1) my annual theme, (2) my Wheel of Life and (3) my specific goals. Now it’s onwards to planning for 2017, and I’m starting to think about my new theme. In past years this has been a spontaneous choice on New Year’s Day but people have been asking me for tips so I thought I’d try to break down the process into something a bit more systematic!

First, though, why even bother with a theme in the first place?

1st JanuaryWell, traditionally of course people set New Year’s resolutions. As few as 8% of the people who write resolutions actually achieve them – and that’s in spite of the fact that writing down your goals can greatly increase your changes of achieving them! So it doesn’t seem like a particularly useful exercise…

But having no goals at all doesn’t seem especially useful either, as you’re liable to just float along and miss out on your long-term ambitions in particular, your big dreams, that won’t happen unless you really bring some intentionality to the process.

A few years ago, I came across the idea of defining a theme instead of setting those more traditional resolutions, and it instantly appealed to me. For me, the benefit of having a theme is that it gives you an overall framework and focus for the year – without the rigidity (or, somewhat contradictorily, the vagueness) of long lists of New Year’s resolutions.

The theme guides your choices when you have to make a decision between different priorities, and the added focus on an otherwise neglected area is going to ensure that you see progress by the end of the year – much more so than if you set a resolution to “lose weight” or “get fit”.

So what kind of themes are we talking about?

It’s really completely up to you and that’s what makes it so flexible. It’s also why I’ve favoured a more spontaneous and instinctual approach to coming up with a theme these past few years. Somehow you get a general feel for what’s been missing in the past year, and what you could do with having more of in the coming year – and that’s probably going to be the perfect theme for you.

As an example, in the past I had FOLLOW-THROUGH as a theme: I had made big decisions about quitting my job, leaving behind my friends in Geneva, and starting my own business, and now was the time to follow through on my big ideas and to begin to consolidate those ideas and properly implement them.

Another year, I had BEING ACTIVE as a theme. This was a more personal theme, and reflected my realisation that my health and wellbeing was really fundamental to everything else in my life working well. It gave me a focus that drove choices I wouldn’t normally have made, working with a personal trainer and later a running coach, and joining more physical adventures like dog sledding, kayaking and paddle boarding.

Okay, so what’s the process?

As I said, I’ve tended to favour a very organic, last-minute approach these past few years! But this year I did my annual review well in advance and so I have given myself more time to reflect and really think about what might be a good focus for next year.

In fact, a tool I’d suggest that you use to brainstorm your own focus is MIND MAPPING. I’m not a hugely visual person and I tend to be more of a writer than an artist but I do think this particular tool is a great way to capture your ideas in a structured yet flexible way, and to help you to identify possible priority areas.

You can do this freehand and I’d probably recommend that, at least for the actual brainstorming part – my mind definitely works much better when I’m writing by hand than if I’m typing! You can also find free tools online if you want to make it look a bit more presentable and keep it for future reference, for example, https://bubbl.us/ or https://www.mindmeister.com/. *Edit: Canva now has a new set of free bubble-map templates available as well.*

‘mindmapI’d start by simply letting your mind, and hand, flow freely; but if you’re really stuck then how about mapping out a few different areas of your life: business and career, family and friends, health and wellbeing… and that might help you to structure your thinking and spark some ideas for themes that will help to shift your focus in the coming year.

With each theme, and each keyword, try to dig deeper and take it to the next level: what is it exactly that you’re missing here? What is it that you think would be most powerful in making a shift this coming year? What will most clearly guide your choices and your actions in 2017?

Having just done the exercise myself, I have a few ideas at the moment for my 2017 theme. This past year or so has been about establishing my businesses and so I feel a need now for more consolidation, growth and scale, reaching more people and making more of an impact. Looking at the most powerful words in the map, my ideas for a new theme now include PROACTIVITY, INTENTIONALITY and CONSISTENCY – all stemming from gaps I’ve identified in the past year in these areas.

We’ll just have to see what I eventually settle on in a few weeks’ time when the clock strikes twelve!

In next week’s post: setting specific GOALS.

Annual Review 2016: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

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Every year goes by more and more quickly (yes, it’s scientific fact – at least in my universe!) and this one has just zoomed by. With so much happening, I thought I’d get a head start on reviewing 2016, to make sure that I also allow sufficient time for looking ahead to 2017!

I’m making myself quite vulnerable here in sharing both personal and professional progress (and especially lack of progress!) but I think it’s important to share both the good and the bad (there’s not too much ugly going on, thank goodness). However well things are going, there is always room for improvement and I for one am a huge believer in lifelong learning. I should also say that I’m sharing my own personal review not because I think you’ll find it particularly interesting but to demonstrate how the process can work and hopefully to inspire and help you as you go about doing your own review!

I’ll be moving onto planning for the new year 2017 in the coming weeks but first I want to begin by considering this past year in terms of three elements: (1) my annual theme, (2) the Wheel of Life and (3) any specific goals.

Reviewing our annual theme

Now if you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ll know that I’m a fan of setting an annual ‘theme’, rather than following the not-so-productive tradition of writing long lists of New Year’s resolutions that we’re never going to keep. Past themes for me have been BOLD DECISIONS; FOLLOW-THROUGH; BEING ACTIVE; and, this past year, EXTERNALLY FOCUSED.

So how have we done?

Well, in my case, the year started well with a number of articles published in media outlets like Business Insider, Inc. Magazine and Quartz. I reached out to other bloggers and wrote several guest posts, also joining various podcasts and interviews.

Travel Storytelling Festival
Speaking at the first Travel Storytelling Festival in Brussels, Belgium

I overcame my fear of video and quest for perfection with some very imperfect recordings for my different businesses and I even found that I enjoyed live videos, doing a week of daily Facebook Live broadcasts. I took this even further when I ran my first live webinar, also overcoming all the technical and logistical issues that come with this kind of event (or, at least, pushing on in spite of those issues!). And finally I’ve done a number of speaking engagements, from a little personal talk at the Travel Storytelling Festival in Brussels back in April to a couple of virtual summits, and, coming up soon, a business conference later this month in Thessaloniki, Greece.

However, I also want to consider the other side of the coin, which is what hasn’t worked so well when it comes to my theme of being ‘externally focused’; I think there are two pieces here that could have been better.

First, I’ve been quite lazy or at least passive in this area, sometimes reaching out but in general simply waiting behind my laptop for people to come to me and ask me to participate. I haven’t contacted any media outlets myself with article pitches, and I haven’t proposed my topics to any event organisers.

Second, the results of these various activities haven’t really been forthcoming or at least they haven’t been sustained. The biggest result came from the Business Insider article, which has had half a million views, and which still has people contacting me and telling me how much the article resonated with them. In terms of traffic to my website, however, after a peak back in January this fell back to the same levels as before, while my other efforts haven’t led to any kind of jump at all.

So, all in all, a mixed bag.

Having this theme of being ‘externally focused’ has definitely led to things that wouldn’t otherwise have materialised. I will absolutely continue to push myself and of course try to address those weaker points or ‘opportunities’ that I’ve just identified when it comes to being more proactive and making sure that I select targeted and relevant events that will help to support my personal and business goals.

Reviewing our Wheel of Life

The other piece of the annual review will also be familiar if you’re an avid reader of the blog: it’s looking at your values and, specifically, using the Wheel of Life tool to assess where you are in living true to those values. This tool allows you to identify the different priority areas in your life – more long term than your annual theme, these are likely to stay constant for years if not decades – and address any imbalance that arises when you focus too much on one area to the detriment of others.

So how have we done here?

This is where things get really personal, but I’m going to share with you the eight priority areas that I identified a year and a half ago when I first did this exercise; and how I’ve been doing in each of these areas this past year…

I’ve actually divided these areas more or less into ‘ME’ – the individual, inwardly focused priorities – and ‘OTHERS’ – the areas that relate to the external world.

Me

  1. Personal growth and development – As I’ve said, I’m a big believer in lifelong learning and I’m always reading a lot of blogs and books on various business and self-development topics. I’ve been learning more about html and CSS as my websites evolve to become more sophisticated and I continue to manage them myself, and I’m also now familiar with Facebook Live and webinar software. I’ve also just completed an online course in Social Entrepreneurship, my first really academic studies since finishing my masters back in 2006.
  2. Health & well-being – I’ve been overall very consistent with my yoga, HIIT and running this year, and even though I haven’t lost weight or even noticed much of a change at all in how my body looks, I’m definitely stronger and at least a little bit more flexible as a result! I did a three-day boot camp in Wales back in March; and my sister and I also ran our first muddy obstacle course, which made the running a whole lot more interesting, wading through rivers and throwing ourselves over fences and logs. And I have been doing quite a bit of healthy cooking, whenever possible buying yummy natural ingredients and making my own food for myself and whomever else happens to be around.
  3. Time & space for myself – This one is still a tricky one, given that I don’t have my own home. Sometimes I’ll have days and days of being by myself with nothing but personal space while at other times I’ll be in situations where I’m completely dependent on other people and have nowhere really to retreat to. So it’s a bit of a rollercoaster but if you take a helicopter view the end result has been quite well balanced!
  4. Travel – Ah, another tricky one. Last summer I felt that I ended up with too much travel and my plan was to move towards longer stays in each place, at least one month and ideally three months of staying put. I tend to be very reactive, though, saying yes to all sorts of short trips including a couple of weddings and other more holiday-like trips this year, and as a result it’s been quite ‘bitty’ again. This is an area to watch out for in the future and I’m still interested in experimenting with the three-month system!

Others

  1. Fun – I’ve definitely had fun this year, thanks to my travels and weddings, spending lots of time with my niece and nephew, having nights out in London and elsewhere…
  2. Social life – I wonder if I shouldn’t combine this one with #5 but in any case this area’s not been too bad this year! In particular having the last few months with London as a base has allowed me to both accept and organise various nights out, cinema, theatre, etc., which I’ve really enjoyed. Of course you meet amazing people when you travel by yourself but it is nice to have the opportunity to see the same people on more of a recurring basis!
  3. Romance – Hmm well I wouldn’t call it romance really but there has been some activity in this area this year, let’s leave it at that. As you can imagine, it’s not very easy when you’re constantly on the move. It’s a bit of a strange one as it’s not the kind of thing you can just address with an action plan!
  4. Making a difference – Well this final one sounds quite vague but I know what I mean by it. It’s one of the main reasons I quit my job a few years go, leaving behind a corporate role where I didn’t connect with the fundamental purpose of my work. I’ve found some of that purpose in supporting other people in identifying and working towards their own purpose via my coaching, as well as my pro bono work as a mentor and coach. My social entrepreneurship course was also meaningful in this context as it really helped me to think about how I can apply my business and marketing knowledge to make a bigger social impact.

Reviewing our specific goals

Now I’m a huge fan of goal setting and it’s something I often write about and encourage others to do in my coaching. I have to admit something, though, which is that I haven’t been very good at setting specific goals in my own life. To some extent this is because I’m still averse to having too much structure in place and I want to allow myself the flexibility to go where my energy is and move things around as and when needed. I’m also very happy with how things are going and I’m pretty self-motivated even without setting explicit goals with hard and fast deadlines.

How to Succeed in Your First Job
It was amazing to get this book published and especially to hold the paperback edition in my hand! Selling on Amazon: How to Succeed in Your First Job.

I did set a few three-month goals, however, which I achieved – albeit often much later than I had planned:

  • My friend and I published the book How to Succeed in Your First Job – my first ever – on Kindle and then in a print edition.
  • I launched a five-day email course for my coaching business.
  • I created automated email sequences for all my website resources.
  • I recorded videos for the first time and did several Facebook live broadcasts.
  • I ran my first live webinar.
  • I gained my ACC (Associate Certified Coach) credential.
  • I’ve created a group coaching programme.

So that’s my annual review!

As I move onto planning for 2017, you’ll see that these three pieces will be key: an annual theme (this annual framework will guide the next 12 months); your fundamental values and the Wheel of Life (these are your “big picture” long-term priorities); and your specific goals.

The Bucket List

Princess Anna
Do you wanna build a snowman? Touring the Golden Circle in Iceland back in January 2016

And, just to finish off, I thought I’d have a look at the items I’ve ticked off my bucket list! Five ticked off this year, not bad at all:

#7 Visit Mount Rushmore (July)

#14 Eat sushi and sing karaoke in Japan (April)

#45 Visit Iceland (January)

#93 Have an article published in a known publication (January)

#94 Have a book published (July)

I’ve also made progress on this one:

#47 Visit 100 countries (3 new countries this year: Iceland, Japan and Turkey)

And, as an added bonus, I was sleepless in Seattle – not actually on my bucket list, but it should have been!

So how have you done this year on your theme? How is your wheel looking? And what about your goals? I’d love to hear how you’ve been doing in the comments below!

Career choices, glass ceilings, and finding work with a purpose

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shattered glass ceilingLast weekend I went to a local Tedx event and my favourite talk was about women in politics. The message was that although women are just as capable and qualified to go into politics as men are, we simply don’t put ourselves forward. When women do run, they are just as likely to win as men (though I question this statement following this week’s presidential election results – and my own sad attempts at getting elected in both primary and secondary school!). This is partly due to the lack of role models and gatekeepers to encourage women to run for those positions of power, and partly due to our own reluctance to ever put ourselves forward for a position where we’re not sure that we’re completely qualified.

Now, I studied PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) at Magdalen College, Oxford, a degree that spawned everyone from David Cameron to Theresa May, Ed Miliband to Ed Balls, Nick Robinson to Evan Davis. Never once did I consider running for office or even really getting involved in politics at all, other than working in development and applying to jobs at the United Nations and various NGOs. My economics professor introduced me to Iain Duncan-Smith in the college bar one evening and while the young men in the group (who were not in fact studying politics) were vocal with their opinions and questions, I spent the evening sitting off to one side chatting to his wife.

In no way am I suggesting that my active involvement in UK politics would have had any kind of significant effect on important issues or on recent outcomes such as Brexit or Trump – I’m not that egotistical or arrogant, I promise; but I am one of many and it’s possible or even likely that if some of those many had chosen to go into politics and argued for the issues that matter to us then the landscape could begin to look a little different.

I find this particularly interesting in the broader context of my career coaching, and my strong belief (supported by research) that finding meaningful work is critical to our personal job and life satisfaction. In our corporate jobs especially we’re so far removed from the end users of our products that we are disconnected from any real purpose for our work. We spend our time on PowerPoint presentations and Excel sheets, staying late into the night rather than going home to our young families or going out with our friends. We surround ourselves with colleagues and people with similarly narrow priorities and perspectives on the world and think that this is the only path available.

When we’re young and naïve, we believe we can change the world – that soon gets knocked out of us as we settle down into sensible jobs that will allow us to earn a living. Something happens, though, as we get older and realise that our office work is quite meaningless, we’re not enjoying it, and we begin to think again that we’d like to change the world and leave some kind of legacy; to show that we’ve been alive on this planet, that we matter, and that we’ve had an impact in some way or other.

So when we see things going on around us that begin to disturb us, when we start to realise that we’re more opinionated than we perhaps thought and when we recognise that there are some principles that are worth believing in and standing up for, then maybe this is an opportunity to find that meaning – inside or outside of our work – and to get involved, in whatever form that involvement might take.

I have no idea, in fact, what that involvement looks like and it will probably be different for different people. Maybe you can join a particular political party, maybe you can go back to your old school and share your insights and encouragement with a new generation of future change makers, maybe you can write an article sharing your thoughts and concerns. What is clear to me is that moving to New Zealand or Canada, hiding away and putting our heads in the sand, or maybe worst of all lamenting developments at the dinner table or on Facebook while doing absolutely nothing about it, is definitely not the answer.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

– Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

And so perhaps we might at least consider, on a personal level as well as in the broader context of society: how have we arrived where we are today – and what can we now do about it?

I know I’ll be giving this a lot of thought in the coming weeks and months, and I hope you will do the same.

The regrets of the dying and going for our dreams (plus news about the Women’s Empowerment Summit)

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success seagullIn my recent webinar on the reasons why most people fail to achieve their dream career, one of the things I referred to was the list of the top five regrets of the dying, as pulled together by Australian nurse Bronnie Ware. The regrets are:

#1 “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

#2 “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”

#3 “I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.”

#4 “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”

#5 “I wish I had let myself be happier.”

What I love about this is that we have an opportunity here to listen and learn from individuals who are at the very end of their lives, and an opportunity to do something about it. This is huge! It’s as if we could travel into the future and get advice from our older selves and then make the changes we need to make in order to avoid those regrets.

For me, all five regrets come into play when we’re talking about staying in a job that isn’t meaningful to us, playing small, not going for our dreams. Sticking to the expected career path is often a result of both the pressure from other people and the fear that comes with breaking away from those expectations; we work hard as if our jobs were the most important thing in our lives, staying late into the night and checking our emails during our vacations (often in the hope of getting that next promotion, which will have us working even harder); we stay quiet about our true aspirations; we deprioritise friends and family along the way; and, ultimately, we’re not as happy as we could be.

These regrets don’t just apply to those big decisions, though. We worry about what other people will think when we reveal our idiosyncrasies; we hold ourselves back from asking someone out or telling our partners how we really feel; we avoid taking risks that will take us too far out of our warm and snuggly comfort zones.

As we approach the end of the year, it’s a great time to reflect on where we are today, whether we’re really living up to our full potential and, fundamentally, whether or not we’re really happy with the way things are going. If not, then now is as good a time as any to understand the reasons why, and to make some changes!

I’ll be writing much more about this in upcoming posts and resources on the subject of the annual review – looking back on 2016 and looking ahead to 2017 – but in the meantime, I wanted to let you know about an event that I’ve been involved in, which aims to challenge and inspire you to “Master Your Inner Critic, Discover Your Potential and Take Charge of Your Life”.

Sign up here >>

The event is a free ‘virtual summit’, which means that during the live period 7th-18th November you will get access to 27 interviews with experts in different fields. Each interview is an audio recording of about 30 minutes long and you can put it on in the background while you’re tidying your room or cooking or something that doesn’t require too much concentration, so that you can focus on the stories and tips that you’re getting in the interviews! The topics will include:

  • Overcoming limiting beliefs
  • Moving from self-doubt to self-worth
  • How to take action to create what you want in your life
  • Dreaming big
  • Letting go of fear
  • Choosing happiness
  • For business owners: staying organised and productive, self-care and how to say no

As one of the speakers, in my interview I share some anecdotes from my childhood and school where I felt that I was holding myself back; I’m also talking about career transitions, identifying what’s important in your life, and overcoming those confidence issues that keep us from doing what we’re really capable of.

Each interview also includes a complimentary gift, and in my case this is a free copy of my new ebook: How You Can Learn To Say “No” (value: £10). Learning to say “No” is an important skill and one that will really allow you to focus on your own priorities rather than constantly getting distracted and bogged down in other people’s requests.

Now the event is the Women’s Empowerment Summit, hosted by professional therapist Heather DeVore, who wants to help people to create the life they desire by bringing all areas of their life into alignment. Man or woman, do please sign up to the summit. It’s free and the short interviews will all be available for the full summit period 7th-18th November so you’ll have plenty of time to dip into these for some inspiration as well as concrete tools and techniques.

You can sign up here >> and you’ll get all the details in an email ahead of the summit start on Monday 7th November.

New Year’s Theme 2016 Quarterly Review: 3 months to go

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Anna at Central PerkIt’s October, people! That means that not only have nine months of the year already passed, but there are less than 100 days left until 2017; and on top I’ve had another birthday, which of course is another opportunity to reflect and ponder the meaning of life. Actually, maybe the meaning of life is too big a topic for one blog post so I’ll instead bring it back to the specific exercise of reviewing where I am on my 2016 theme of being externally focused.

If you’re new to the blog and this is the first time you’ve heard about my theme, or any theme, then you can read all about the approach in my original post from 1st January 2014, and this year’s theme in my 2016 post.

So with being ‘externally focused’ in mind, this past month, I did a podcast interview with recruiter Lauren Stiebing (listen here >>), discussing everything from my own career choices to digital trends and talent management; as well as a live webinar interview with Kevin McNamara of GetOutOfYourComfortZone.com (watch it on YouTube >>). I also did my first-ever Facebook live broadcast (to announce the paperback launch of my management book for new graduates, available on Amazon) and I’m currently working on my very first webinars, coming soon!

Now video is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time – I think it’s a great way for people to get to know me better and to get a feel for what it would be like to work with me as a coach – but it’s also something I’ve been afraid of. Part of that is a question of mindset in terms of the classic fears of making mistakes or looking stupid; but part of it is also logistical, as I’ve tried in the past and it’s a faff to make sure I have a good background behind me and lighting in front of me, a microphone for the sound… Last time I tried to record a short video when I was in Seattle back in June, I spent a good couple of hours getting increasingly frustrated with myself as I was failing to record anything that I would be able to use.

But, of course, I’m a coach, so I need to work through these things (and as someone who works in digital marketing, I’m also convinced that video is an effective piece of content!), and in doing so I’ve realised something. Let me use a scene from Friends (The One with the Metaphorical Tunnel) to illustrate this…

CHANDLER: Look what do I do? I wanna get past this, I don’t wanna be afraid of the commitment thing. I wanna go through the tunnel, to the other side!

ROSS: Where there is no fear of commitment. 

CHANDLER: Do we have any… Do we have any thoughts here?

JOEY: Well, I’ve never been through the tunnel myself, ’cause as I understand it, you’re not allowed to go through with more than one girl in the car, right. But, it seems to me it’s pretty much like anything else, you know, face your fear. If you have a fear of heights, you go to the top of the building! If you’re afraid of bugs… get a bug. Right. In this case, you have a fear of commitment, so I say you go in there and be the most committed guy there ever was. 

RACHEL: Amazingly, that makes sense.

CHANDLER: You think?

JOEY: Oh, yeah. Go for it man, jump off the high dive, stare down the barrel of the gun, pee into the wind!

CHANDLER: Yeah, Joe, I assure you if I’m staring down the barrel of a gun, I’m pretty much peeing every which way.

Who knew you could get such wisdom from a 90s TV show?! (Well, I did, to be fair – Friends is genius. And, yes, that’s a picture of me playing Smelly Cat at Central Perk.)

To break it down:

First, decide if you really want it.

If you don’t, then it’s not worth pushing through that fear (or through the tunnel) as you really don’t care about reaching the other side and you might as well take a different path.

Then, lean into that which you’re afraid of.

Instead of running away or avoiding it, go to the top of the building, get a bug, be committed! It’s amazing how things seem so much less scary once you actually do them.

So if there’s something you’ve been meaning to do, then I encourage you to launch yourself into it, just take that first step and I’m confident you’ll find it’s worth it. If Chandler can do it, so can you!

Do share your own “leaning in” stories in the comments, or let me know how you’re doing on your own 2016 theme.

In my case, I’m going to go off and do more videos than anyone would ever want to watch. Live stream, webinars, interviews, presentations… you name it! I’m on it. I’m peeing into the wind, baby!