2017 Reflections & Accomplishments

Jamie Schneider Domm

Digital Strategist for the North American Division.

Why It’s Important to Look Back in Order to Move Forward

It’s 2018–can you believe it? The new year means setting new goals, but before we look forward, we must first look back. For many of us, working for the church drives us to give everything we have—time, energy, creativity, heart, and soul—for the mission. Our work is more than a job, it’s a calling. While powerful, this mindset leaves little time for reflection or rest between campaigns. A year passes in a whirlwind and we find ourselves unable to recall what we accomplished during the year. We may even feel as though we’ve fallen short of our expectations, yet perception is not always reality. You probably have accomplished a lot more than you realize.

I’ve said many times in my presentations, “If you’re going to take the time to put together a campaign strategy, take the time to track your performance. Otherwise you can’t build on what you’ve learned or improve for the next campaign, because you didn’t learn from this one.”

The same is true for our own individual career development and even professional confidence. Now, this isn’t about patting yourself on the back for the sake of feeling good about your personal impact on the world, but it is worth taking inventory of growth, in digital campaigns as well as professionally.

Tracking your own performance allows you to:

• appreciate your work in context,
• understand what succeeded and what didn’t,
• develop realistic goals and expectations for the following year, and
• focus on areas of improvement.

Documenting your efforts gives you something to show for all your hard work, even if it’s for your eyes only.

A former mentor of mine taught me something very valuable:

Always create a list of your yearly accomplishments with corresponding data to support it.

As marketing professionals, we spend a lot of time learning how to effectively promote our organization’s brand and mission. Young people, you must also learn to market yourselves as professionals. It’s vitally important for your career path that you track both quantitative and qualitative performance results. This allows you to objectively evaluate your accomplishments and areas for growth. It also empowers you with the information you need to better advocate for your own career advancement. This is especially important for digital marketers for whom quantitative results are expected. In many cases, digital strategists are one of the biggest drivers behind financial profits and donations. In my experience, those who get promotions and raises are the same people who ask AND have quantitative data to show that they deserve advancement.

Before you fill out your performance review, reflect upon 2017 and draft of your list of accomplishments and quantify them when possible. It’s also a good exercise for teams and departments. This reflection allows both individuals and teams to start a new year better equipped to tackle the tasks ahead.

Just some #foodforthought as we begin 2018. As always, I'd love for you to share your thoughts below.