5 Career Reality Checks to Make in the New Year

5 Career Reality Checks to Make in the New Year Fewer than half of us make New Years resolutions, according to data from Statistic Brain, and just 8 percent of those who make resolutions manage to achieve them. This iselend completely surprising, as New Years resolutions are generally not a serious exercise in intellectual rigor rather, they are often quite lighthearted and superficial. More importantly, if you dont achieve these resolutions, life can pretty much go on as it was. Thats whyI think it may be worth focusing not on resolutions, but more on career reality checks. Theres much more urgency to the idea of a reality check, and I think these checksmay be more likely to spur you into action. (You always can follow up with resolutions after your reality check, if you really want to). Ihave outlined five important career reality checks to make in the new year1. Dont Go into the New Year with C areer BlindnessDo a Personal SWOT AnalysisWe are in a period of intense change, driven by technological revolution, globalization, economic and geopolitical instability, and a consumer culture hungry for mass customization and instant gratification.You need clear visibility in this stormy sea of change, and you can do this with a personal SWOT analysis, to help you understand your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. There is breathing space in the new year to do your own personal SWOT analysis, because most of the industry will be doing their own navel-gazing as they develop their strategic plan for the year. Dont go into the new year blind.2. Check if Your Career Path Is the Road to ExtinctionStudies show that 47 percent of jobs that exist today are at risk of extinction or partial extinction over the next 10-20 years as a result of technological changes. Positionssuch as cashier, data entry, and customer service representative have an 80 percent or higherchance of b eing replaced by robots in 10-20 years and that isalready departureing. Check outstudies like this one from the University of Oxford,which lists 700 jobs and their probability of being replaced by robots. Know where you stand and find out if your career path is a road toextinction. You may need to think about a new career path thats on an upward trajectory.3. Check to See if Your Way of Working Is Coming to an EndThis Intuit 2020 report suggests that self-employment numbers are soaring and contingent workers (freelancers, part-timers, seasonal workers, etc.) could make up 40 percent of the U.S. workforce in the next five years. Are you still fixated on permanent work when the pool of permanent work is indecline? You may need to change your employment expectations and outlook to make yourself more adaptable to a more contingent work environment.4. Are You Using the Latest, Most Relevant Technologies? Now, you dont need to be a cutting edge disciple of Neo and Trinity, but you should ask yourself whether you are holding on to any legacy ways of working and/or failing to adapt to accepted technologies that will make you more efficient and more able to collaborate effectively. If you are, you riskbeing perceived as a laggard, which could be detrimental to your promotional and career prospects. Make this the year that you get on the technology curve to keep yourself relevant.5. Check Your Work-Life BalanceThink about the work-life balance that you reclaimed over the festive period while its fresh in your mind and do a reality check to see how far your work-life balance has moved away from your ideal state. Is your work making you a stranger to your family, health, and/orpersonal well-being?While the rosy glow of positive work-life balance is fresh in your mind, use it as a motivational tool to reclaim your work-life balance. Book your annual holiday leave now, (remember, 40 percent of American dont use all their vacation time). Schedule a family/fun activity one day a week after work, to help draw a physical line between the end of the working day and the start of the family evening.These are five career reality checks that I think are worth making at the start of the year, and Id like to hear about any more new year reality checks that you think may be beneficial