Autumn: Preparing for Your Year Ahead

The autumnal season, with its calming descent and quiet beauty, is a signal for reflection and contemplation in our universe. This reflective window is crucial because, as the year draws to a close, December quickly fills up with celebratory activities, family commitments, and festive chaos. If we wait until then, we'll struggle to find the space for introspection, let alone the clarity needed for the essential prep work for the year ahead.

At Elevate360, we first introduced this concept to our coaching clients in the Personal Branding class. While some initially found the advice odd, their feedback after adopting the practice has been overwhelmingly positive. Many clients noted that autumn is also when the workplace often takes a slow turn, naturally freeing up mental space for this crucial contemplation. They found immense value in thinking through and reevaluating their ideas and goals three months ahead of January 1st—researching feasibility, tweaking expectations, and adjusting the timeline.

This autumnal 'pre-emptive' planning is simply a re-interpretation of a habit I cultivated when I was a strategy consultant. During my time as a consultant, I realized that my focus, as well as that of coworkers and associates at my client's workplace, would often dip as the workweek neared its end. To counter that, I made it a regular habit to run a weekly roundup of our project deliverables every Wednesday evening or Thursday morning. Adhering to the simple routine enabled everyone to proactively identify stumbling blocks and arrange any necessary follow-up actions for the next week, resulting in significantly more successful stakeholder engagement than if we had waited for the traditional Friday update.

The autumnal prep work operates on the same principle—getting ahead of the end-of-year rush and allowing us ample time to draw out our goals and visions. It is an idea that I frequently encourage my clients to put into practice: using autumn as a moment to pause, stepping into its stillness, and committing to an intentionally focused plan for the new year ahead. Below, you'll find our essential first steps for initiating your most effective autumnal prep-work.

Build A Practical Roadmap

While social media is abuzz with talk of "manifesting" goals, we always advise our coaching clients to ground their desires in practical action. Preparation isn't just about wishing hard and prettying up a vision board; it's also about creating a detailed roadmap that accurately reflects reality. Constructing your personal roadmap entails two important considerations:

• Adjusting Timelines: A goal that looks clean on paper rarely survives contact with the real world. Plot your tasks and deliveries against the annual calendar, taking into account realistic constraints such as vacations, major holidays, and known periods of high workload.
• Reviewing and Acquiring Skills: Assess the skills and knowledge required to accomplish your new goals. Be honest about your current aptitude. Then, consider the time required to develop or acquire the missing skills in parallel with other tasks you will undertake to reach your goals.

When you consider the above for your prep work, it will bring clarity to your plan and the necessary tasks to achieve your goals, turning your aspirations into reality. 

The Power of Collaboration

It's crucial to be aware that achieving complex, meaningful goals is rarely a solo endeavor; it is almost always a collective effort. Success depends on effective collaboration and a mutual exchange between us and our stakeholders—it is therefore pertinent that we embrace the mindset of "assisting others to assist us." To strengthen this foundational pillar of growth, we must first confront a hidden challenge: winning trust and building allyship. Many people struggle to initiate collaboration because they mistakenly believe collaboration is just delivering a favor. To truly have allies and be a sought-after collaborator, people need to feel that they can rely and depend on us. My book, Staying H.I.R.E.d: The Cultural Kingmaker's Guide to Building a Work Oasis, is an ideal starter for anyone who feels they need an extra pair of hands to help them reach their goals. It is a book that argues that to win allies, one must first be perceived as a reliable collaborator. Thus, I have written the book as a guide on how to cultivate a work ethic that actively earns people's trust, fosters collective success, and fuels the growth of a positive, collaborative work culture. Cultural leadership is fundamental to becoming a sought-after ally. 

Much of winning allies is also about establishing an open and transparent relationship premised on collective growth. Trusting collaborations thrive when partners are adept at providing spontaneous and constructive feedback. While many millennials and Gen Z are known to desire feedback on their performance, few actually ask for it, often because many office spaces still don't conduct feedback correctly. The Feedback Management course, offered through Elevate360, is designed to address this issue. Naturally, it is often a sought-after course among our middle-manager clients because it guides them (and anyone) in fostering a truly collaborative environment by transforming feedback sessions from points of tension into moments of shared, constructive nourishment.

Confronting Your Ghosts: The Growth Mindset

Planning for goals also means confronting one of our biggest obstacles of all: our inner ghosts, fears, and, most critically, our limited mindsets. It is also no wonder that so many of our Elevate360 clients enroll in our class on Fostering Growth Mindset during the fall season. In that course, I guide my clients on the practical skills and mindsets for tackling challenges with flexibility, fostering a mental readiness to shift perspective from fixed limitations to a mindset of possibilities. When we master this, we also set the stage for every goal we manifest. Fostering a growth mindset ensures our resilience matches our ambition.

Most of All, Get It Done

Whether your preparatory method aligns perfectly with this advice or involves a completely different approach, the key is to initiate the prep work! Most important of all, take advantage of this calm season to take action, learn, and relearn which approach to prep work is best suited for you and your unique rhythm for the next year. Any effort you put in will transform into the harvest you will eventually reap!