Reboot Yourself In 2022: How To Get There In The Next 12 Months

As the New Year begins in the CEO chair, you would normally be feeling the need to attack this year with a fresh impetus – a renewed energy for achievement from your team and excellence in how you serve your customers. Great if you are, but it is also totally okay if you are not. This has been a tough time for everyone, but if people’s jobs depend on your decision making it’s totally understandable if you aren’t quite feeling the same about the 12 months ahead. If you do, however, feel up for a bit of a reboot for 2022, then here are some things to consider for helping you focus on the year ahead and achieve your personal and professional objectives. 

What one thing would make the most difference to your company by the end of 2022?

A useful exercise is to think hard on ‘who’ you want to be in a year’s time. This is a great way for CEOs to think about their own 2022 focus. Imagine sitting down one year from today – what is the one thing that’s changed for your company?  It may be achieved something huge like your millionth customer or it might be paying off the lingering debt. 

What would make the most difference to you professionally by the end of 2022?

Now think about yourself as the CEO of the company. What is different for you as a professional in a year’s time also? What is the one thing you’ve managed to change or achieve in your role that you are proud of as you start 2023? Maybe it is finally dealing with a problem you’ve been tolerating for too long and coming up with an action plan to solve it. Maybe it is time to move on to a new opportunity or maybe it is doing more of the things you see other CEOs doing. 

What could you do in Q1 to get some momentum?  

Even with resources available, actually getting going on something can always be the hardest thing to do can’t it. To get some fresh momentum, spend some time working through what you can do quickly in the first 12 weeks of 2022 to really move you forward on both the company and the personal objectives you’ve identified above. This does not mean reinventing the wheel – sometimes just scheduling a workshop session on the single focus area with your leadership team can be enough to frame the challenge and get some actions agreed upon. In doing this try to make sure any early work is as informed as possible – get your team to pull together the status on where you are currently on your main focus area so it’s clear what you need to do to get there. 

On a personal level, the same applies – what actions can you undertake to get some movement on the changes you’d like to make? 

Re-evaluate your other priorities

I’m all about being ambitious, but I also believe in being realistic. As covered above, it has been an incredibly tough couple of years and the future is still uncertain, so in order to reboot yourself and your company for 2022, I’d also suggest more generally considering everything else you’ve got going on in your business, as well as these new core focuses, and reevaluating if they are all still needed in this ‘new normal’. 

I do a lot of consulting on strategy and the future of work with businesses of all sizes and sectors; while some have made some incredible changes and adapted their business model to the new normal, it’s surprising how many have not, and are still doing things just like they always did. 

There are many frameworks out there to support this, you don’t need to start with a blank piece of paper (unless you want to!). Simple exercises like ‘Stop, Start, Continue’ or even a good old fashioned SWOT analysis can help you prioritise key opportunities and spot things you just don’t need to do anymore – both are equally important.

What more can you do on the self-care front? 

Finally, in an effort to do a spot of rebooting for 2022, reflect on how you are looking after yourself personally. As a CEO it can be incredibly tough to constrain your working hours with so much going on, but I’d urge you to consider if working a 100-hour + work week and being available 24/7 is really key to success in your role? 

As well as needing to lead by example to your senior management team (you would not want them working to the point of exhaustion would you?), evaluate if it is really helping you get where you want to be and what you are sacrificing personally? 

It is totally understandable that as the CEO you need to work hard, but how could you pace yourself a little more? It is okay for you to have interests outside of work – what hobbies can you start doing more of? Are you prioritising spending time with family and friends or is it just work, work, work? Please don’t think these things aren’t as important as leading your business. You need a work-life balance as well otherwise you won’t be able to give your all in your new role. 

I hope some of the above ideas have been useful and resonated with you. If you’ve been struggling a little with personal motivation, great news – you are not alone. Refocus on some core objectives and look for some activities that can keep you feeling motivated and healthy. Best of luck and I’m sure it will be a great 2022 for you and your business.  

About the author: Dr Geraint Evans is a personal development coach and the author of Do One Thing (Pearson, £12.99) on sale now.