From silent night to career bright: find quiet time to reflect and plan

Posted on 28 November 2024 • Career planning

As winter sets in and the festive season begins, there’s a certain calm that settles over our busy lives. As the night skies darken and days shorten, use quiet, peaceful moments to pause, reflect, reset and turn your silent nights into a bright path forward. Understand where you are in your career journey using our automated, structured Navigate Your Future activity and work out where you’ll go next year.

Embrace calm: winter is perfect for reflection

We spend more time indoors in winter, away from the usual distractions. This natural season of looking back and thinking ahead is a space to consider what you’re aiming for and plan steps and new ideas towards achieving it in the coming months.

Try small steps: Plan in just 10 minutes a week to review your goals, assess where you are now in your career and decide what to do next. Even small moments of reflection can help you gain clarity.

Reflect on your progress

In setting new goals, take time to look back at what you’ve achieved in the past year. Did you reach any milestones, big or small? Learn more about yourself and you’ll become more career confident.

Try a moment of reflection: Using Recognise your skills and what you have to offer, identify one achievement and one challenge you encountered this year and what these taught you. This will help you to set goals that build on what you’ve already achieved.

Set intentions for the year ahead

Now it’s time to look forwards. Set clear, realistic, actionable goals. It can help you make meaningful progress and avoid getting overwhelmed. Try our recommended tools and techniques to help you identify goals and move forwards with your career plans.

Try SMART goals: Move forwards with your career plans. Use the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) framework to define your goals. For example, rather than saying “I want to improve my creative writing skills,” set a specific goal like “By April I will join a local writers’ group and enter one of their competitions.”

Have a fulfilling New Year

Once you’ve made use of the quiet calm of winter to find clarity and plan, it’s often useful to talk them through.

Try talking it through: Discuss your plans with a trusted friend or family member. It’s also great to share and compare plans with other OU students, directly, remotely or on forums or within the student community and online groups.

Penny Beecroft is an OU Careers and Employability Consultant specialising in supporting students in Wales. Penny helps students navigate their futures, figure out their goals and build their confidence through one-to-one careers consultations and by designing career learning events and resources for the OU. Explore the rest of the Careers Stories page for more articles from the Careers and Employability Services team.