The Podgress Report

06 | Achieve Your Purpose: The Power of Monthly Progress Reports for Career Transformation

• Jen Phillips • Season 1 • Episode 6

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In this #HowTo edition of The Podgress Report, host Jen Phillips is sharing her June Progress Report to show how monthly reviews can help accelerate personal change, career reinvention, recovery from burnout, and “on purpose” professional growth. 

Jen’s a former Marketing Operations executive who’s been using the proven power of monthly business reviews throughout her career. This practice is inspired by the methods used by Amazon, Google, Salesforce and many, many other companies to streamline vision and get everyone working on the “rightest” work.

Jen adapted the process to support her burnout recovery and career reset. It’s been a powerful part of her recovery process, and she’s sharing it to help your recovery. Download the Monthly Progress Review Guide HERE. 

Managers, founders, & aspiring managers…this is a process you can adopt to support your teams. When employees understand team (company) goals, and their role in meeting those goals, employee engagement (and satisfaction) increases. Gallup estimates low employee engagement costs the global economy $8.9 trillion U.S. dollars, or 9% of global GDP. 

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The Podgress Report does not provide medical or mental health advice. The information including but not limited to: recorded and live episodes, text, graphics, images, and any other material contained on the the podcast are for your informational purposes only.

Nothing on The Podgress Report is intended to substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified provider. Never disregard professional medical or mental wellness advice or delay in seeking it because of something you've heard or content you've read or reviewed on this podcast.

And please, if you're under duress or considering suicide, reach out right this very minute to the Suicide and Crisis lifeline by dialing 988 in the United States.

Outside of the U.S., please reach out to helplines available to you in your country note: this link isn't owned by The Podgress Report and should not be considered exhaustive or wholly accurate.

E6 | Achieve Your "What's Next" Purpose: The Power of Monthly Progress Tracking

Welcome, Let's Build a (Measurably) Better Future

[00:00:00] 

Jen Phillips: Now, if you or someone you care for is feeling stuck in your career or you're feeling unclear on your path forward towards something better at work, or maybe, maybe, you know, the destination you're headed for, but you're not quite sure the route you need to take to get to that destination at work.

This PODCAST report is for you. 

 Hi, I'm Jen Phillips and welcome to The Podgress Report.

This is a podcast to help people who are not quite sure of their healthy, what's next career move, whether you're burned out or you're just ready for your next adventure. And in today's edition, I'm sharing with you how I structure my monthly review process, why I believe it's an important step for all of us who are looking to grow or evolve our careers.

I'm going to bring it to life by sharing my June progress report and [00:01:00] my July big focus areas. And if it sparks some inspiration for you, I've made you a progress report guide that you can use if you're interested in bringing this process to life in your own career evolution.

Today We're Talking Personal/Professional Development Progress (Podgress?) Reports

Jen Phillips: What is a monthly review anyway? And why is it so important? my career and my background is in sales centric marketing. And I strongly believe in clear goal setting and a cadence of scrutiny of the metrics that matter.

In fact, it's that cadence. of inspection that I believe really accelerates progress and helps us stay on top of where we have opportunities for better or different to get us closer to where we want to grow from here.

Ideas Are Easy. Execution is Everything. 

Jen Phillips: I am fully on board with venture capitalist John Doar's philosophy, his mantra in fact, which is ideas are easy, execution is everything. His book "Measure What Matters" is, kind of [00:02:00] a, an old standard, but it is an inspiration to the process that I'm going to be reviewing with you today. And it's linked in the episode notes.

So why wouldn't I bring this level of scrutiny then to refining my own career? Side note though, for those of you in management roles currently, or founder roles or aspiring managers, this framework is already proven for business. So feel free to use it to gain the benefits of an aligned team, improved employee engagement, and employee satisfaction, which makes every company more profitable as it improves. 

For years, I have been doing my own bi weekly reviews, actually, of finances. This was for me to get my financial house in order and improving my financial literacy and increasing my net worth. Every year I set goals on how much I want to increase my net worth, 

so [00:03:00] what it ended up being was for me first, just a look every two weeks at my finances , how I was progressing against those goals that I had set for myself at the beginning of the year. In the months leading up to me deciding whether or not I would leave my executive level job of 10 years at a company I loved due to burnout, I spent time during those meetings with myself to create a plan, , a plan for change, 

and in that plan, there were objectives. And key results for this, eventually what I decided to do, leave and reset my career. 

Objectives: Where I Am Going 

Jen Phillips: Objectives are the goals that inspire you and the direction that I need to take it's the where I need to go. Objectives are concrete, action oriented, so it's less about thinking of a thing and more about the [00:04:00] doing of the thing, and they are inspirational, they are inspiring, they are big ideas. 

In my plan, I have three major objectives. 

Jen's Objective One | Healthy Mind & Body

Jen Phillips: My first objective is my absolute most important non negotiable objective, which is healthy body and mind.

I'm recovering from burnout. I have a ton of deferred health maintenance because I put everything ahead of myself when I was in the year or so, or maybe longer actually, leading up to making this decision whether or not to leave my role. That's objective one healthy mind and body non negotiable. If I don't have my health, I have nothing.

Jen's Objective Two | Defining My NextJen Career

Jen Phillips: "NextJen" and that Jen is with a J E N. My "NextJen" career definition is my second objective. It's what will I do for work with my one precious life? It is really all about [00:05:00] defining and refining what I do to make a living, what I do with my time and my talent and really understanding my motivation and my own professional goals at a deeper level without the frame of a company first setting those goals. Like I don't have a job description to rely on, to tell me what's important. I am defining that for myself in this time.

Jen's Objective Three | Connections & Community

Jen Phillips: The third objective is Improving my connections with the people I love and I like, and I respect.

 In the last couple of years, I had pulled away from family almost completely. I had pulled away and removed myself from friends and friend groups. I had not been spending time in my local community building connections with the people who were close in my locale.

I recognize that having real connections is one of the things that brings joy to [00:06:00] life. And it is proven to improve people's lives. It gives you an opportunity to surround yourself with people who give you energy, who give you ideas, who spark creativity, and who spark growth.

So that is my third objective.

Key Results: How To Know You're Making Progress (in the Right Direction)

Jen Phillips: The key results that I create are the steps that are going to measure my progress toward each of those objectives. . How will I know I'm getting there? How will I measure my progress? Key results should be specific. Measurable. They should be kind of aggressive, meaning it shouldn't be easy.

It shouldn't be a given that you'll hit those key results. It's something that you'll work on and that you'll work for to achieve. And I, like I said, have key results that are defined for each of my objectives. 

The Benefits of A Plan When Considering Change

Jen Phillips: Why having objectives and key results defined, why it matters, is [00:07:00] once I had this plan and the OKRs, Objective and Key Results, defined, it made making the decision of whether or not to leave, it made that decision possible.

It gave me a framework for consideration. I started the process, frankly, while I still was employed and while I was making the decision. And it made my progress and my growth measurable. Even today, months on, it continues to help me with calm, with reducing my anxiety, even when things feel, fairly uncharted.

I'm continuously evolving my framework. How I do the monthly reviews every month is helping to inform how I'll do them better the next month and the month after that.

I'm learning how to translate essentially a business practice into this hybrid professional Personal practice and I'm learning by [00:08:00] doing. I've gotten a pretty good handle on the hybrid process and I have meetings on my calendar already set for the rest of the year to allow me to prioritize this time and to make sure I don't forget about it, book over it, or have something that comes up that stops me from really doing that scrutiny and adjustment to the plan.

This Process ... is Working For Me (& MIGHT Work For You Too) 

 So why am I sharing this with you now? Well, to be honest, My June review process was pretty exciting. I realized during the June process, this was not an episode I had actually planned to do, but I realized because the mission of this podcast is to engage, educate, inspire, and support the community of people who are not sure of your healthy what's next career move, whether you're burned out or whether you just know you need to make a change and you're ready to take on your next adventure. This monthly progress review process is something [00:09:00] I strongly believe. will help those of you in that boat to get clarity and to accelerate your own growth in finding the "rightest" career path for you.

Starting Over is Hard. Change is Scary. This Helps. 

Jen Phillips: And I know from my own experience that it's hard to start over and it's scary to change course. And if I can support you by sharing my process and to bring it to life by sharing my progress. That means the world to me and if it inspires you to take action, it's inspiring for me that that has happened.

So I recognize I may just be one or two steps ahead of some of you on this process, on this journey, and I want to be open so you can see a realistic picture of what this looks like when life is in session and change is in action. 

I'm on a journey right now along with you from what was to what will be. And I want to share what that's like with you. So [00:10:00] let's talk about my June in review, my own Podgress report. 

The timing for these is generally the last Friday of the month. I use my. Morning to update my results in preparation for doing the deeper dive The format that I use is review. assess and refine. And I'm going to go through those three facets of it with you now. , but I've also created a guide for you that you can download that will help take you through all of this and gives you more of the detail behind my why I do it this way.

The Monthly Review | It Starts With Energy

Jen Phillips: In the review process, I start with my energy. I look at my current month, my June calendar for how I actually spent my time. I'm considering during this review, did I leave the month energized? 

Are there things that I can remove from my calendar going forward to reduce drag on my energy and leave more time [00:11:00] for energizing activities? This is a tricky one for me in the moment I'm in right now because almost everything I'm doing is absolutely 100 percent brand new for me.

And that can feel incredibly draining, I'm here to report. 

But, let's start first with what I found when I did this exercise in June. And what created. Energy for me in June. First of all, it was some incredible conversations, , about the future of work with some of the guests that you saw on the show with some of the guests that you will see on upcoming episodes.

 I did a ton on healthy body in June and , that meant a lot more exercise and that gave me a lot more energy, I also spent a lot of time in June learning new skills. That to me is always energizing. For me personally, when I do the same thing over and over, it's a drag on my energy.

When I'm learning new things, it's absolutely exhilarating. And I had a lot of plans with [00:12:00] people that took place in June. And that was incredibly energizing for me as well. 

On the depletion of my energy, there was a fair bit in that category as well.

I found myself incredibly frustrated because of how slow I was in June. I'm slow because I have no systems built for everything that I'm doing because it's all brand new. I also have a continued uncertainty about how will I actually make money in the future, even though it's accounted for in my startup plan that I don't need to make money right now while I'm figuring that out.

It's still a very strange way to live, and for those of you who have been displaced From a job or looking for a job, even though you may know what your skills are and know your network and are working toward getting a job. I'm sure you're also in that boat where that uncertainty is highly, highly uncomfortable and depletes your energy. 

I can report though that I did leave June [00:13:00] energized, and spent more time on energetic activity than Low value energy depletion activity, but I still think I had room for improvement.

And here's what I'm doing to improve in July. I'm focusing on building systems, even if they're rudimentary MVP systems for some of the things that I started in June, we'll talk about that in a moment, but I'm also going to expand my focus on sussing out how I will generate revenue, how I will in the future begin to make money.

So I can actively work on reducing that energy drag in July. I'm not saying I have to have all of my questions answered in July, but what I am saying is to address some of the anxiety, I'm going to bring it in as an active component of how I spend my time. So that's what I do. First. I start with my energy. 

...And Continues With Key Results

 As I turn my attention to review my key results,I start first with my healthy body and mind.

Jen's Podgress: Healthy Body & Mind Results

 [00:14:00] My big focus in June was to build on my morning routine, to have a healthy early morning routine that includes exercise and early morning sunshine. I increased my exercise in June 39 percent month over month. Thank you to my fitness tracker for telling me this. And I increased my step count 128%. I also prioritized early morning outdoor time within the first hour of waking and the benefits.

Jen Phillips: I can report to you that the benefits are so real and so immediate. what am I feeling? that I can sleep, I have a better mood, I have, , improved cognition. And something that I brought into the process very, very late in the month was I turned off the, my podcasts while I was walking.

 My music while I was walking. I [00:15:00] just turned off all noise while I was walking. I don't have headphones in, now it's just me and nature,. Now I don't, I live in the opposite of a city. I live in the exact opposite of a city. And so when I'm out walking, what I'm hearing is birds,, wind in the trees, water in the streams. And what I find is my mind is absolutely on fire and creative during my walks since turning off my, electronics and just opening my world up through listening. I know that if you're not living in the country and if you're living in the city potentially it's less restful for you, what I might recommend to you is Find something that you can do to filter that noise out using headphones with maybe transparency mode to just filter the noise, lessen the noise, but don't maybe pump all that information into your head on every walk.

Really take some time with just you and your brain to get into the idea of [00:16:00] an open conversation with what's happening in your thoughts. I didn't ask for my mind to react that way.

I was taking silent walks and that was the benefit that I got was I just find I am incredibly, incredibly engaged and creative during my walks since turning off my music and my podcasts. Definitely though in my healthy mind and body objective.

I have room for improvement and that room for improvement is my daily meditation practice. In the early days of my recovery from burnout, I took on a practice of transcendental meditation. It has been life changing for me to kind of wash through my mind every single day. And although I did see an improvement month over month in the frequency, how often, I meditated, I'm not where I need to be to keep my anxiety and my focus as [00:17:00] healthy as I'd like it to be.

So how am I dealing with it this month? Earlier in the month, actually at the first of the month, I, started waking earlier and I am now in day nine of a Mindfulness Sprint where I'm doing concerted, time on improving my mindfulness every single day this month with Transcendental Meditation, but also with other modalities as well to just give my mind some needed kind of clearing.

And letting out all of the stress that builds up throughout anybody's day, whether you're working or not working, , going through incredibly stressful times or just normal everyday life. It's a great way to cleanse your mind and get into a more restful state. So that is me on the health and wellness objective, my podgress for the month.

Jen's Podgress: "NextGen" Career Results

Jen Phillips: And when I turn my attention then to the "NextJen" career objectives, my big focus in June was [00:18:00] To launch this podcast and not just launch it, but to deliver five episodes in the month of June. And I did it. I did it. It, uh, it took a ton of work. , but I'm really happy with the progress that I made and that I hit my targets.

And that I, , am feeling pretty positive about the content that I put out. I have a lot to learn, and I thank you to all of you that have given me the grace to learn in public. , but I am thrilled that I hit that goal of delivering five PODCAST reports in the month of June. To do it, I had to learn a ton of new stuff.

I had to learn how to structure a podcast, how to record how to edit , what software I would use for remote recording when I'm recording guests, how to work with guests to make them set up for success. [00:19:00] I had created a a template for research.

I created a show flow template and then I threw all of that away because it wasn't working for me and I created something that worked a little bit better for me.

My results on my June progress report against my key results targets was highly positive and encouraging. There are over 4 million podcasts in the world, as of the week I'm recording, which is the week of July 8th.

There are only 455, 000 that have published a podcast in the last 90 days. And that's just shy of 11 percent of the overall podcasts that are in existence today. And thanks to you, this podcast is already in the top 50 percent of overall podcasts by downloads. That is, , [00:20:00] overwhelmingly positive sign for me.

And it is so much more than I had targeted, than I had targeted in my results. So I, I, I'm a thousand percent energized by that. Not only do I love doing the research that gets me here in front of you, but also it's, it's something that, some people are finding valuable and that is so energizing for me.

So thank you so much for your support and your grace as I'm learning in public.

Jen's Podgress: Connections & Communit Results

Jen Phillips: In the robust connections objective, My big focus for the month of June was simply "Do It Now". I have a habit. Of holding back when I'm thinking of someone, I, I think of them only and I think, how are they doing?

And wow, I, they're so, they're so great. And I'm thinking all of these positive thoughts about them, but I don't reach out to them in the moment. And in the month of June, I [00:21:00] prioritized direct. Outreach to that person in the moment , it took very little effort or time. It made me feel so much more connected to those people that I care for.

And I also continued to meet with a ton of new people that I can learn from both in real life and, new online connections. I joined a local entrepreneur group to make new local connections and feel more tied to the area of the world in which I live. And I don't really have any misses to call out in the robust connections objectives, because I, I achieved what I was looking for and what that tells me is I probably have some work to do on setting slightly more audacious goals.

Winning.

Jen Phillips: So during this time when I'm reviewing and. assessing my progress for the current month. It is also a [00:22:00] fantastic time, to celebrate any and all successes, any wins, any wins. 

If I've met my, targeted key results, I'm celebrating. If I have exceeded my targeted results, I am celebrating. And in June, I will be very candid with you and say , because of how much stress I was carrying with me about, "but I'm still not making money" and "but I don't have any systems" and I had switched into this feeling of lack and I forgot to celebrate how much work I did.

And that it was work on purpose against these objectives and goals that I had set out at the beginning of the month to achieve, , having achieved so many things that were in the plan and some things that were not even in the plan, but I had time free to do. I can [00:23:00] report that having the monthly review reminded me that I am making things happen, I am growing.

 I am spending my time in a way that gives me energy. I'm making great connections, that I am learning so much. And I took a little bit of time to just celebrate that during my monthly review. Because I do it on a Friday, it actually carried into the weekend and I had an amazing weekend as well,

Did I uncover opportunity areas? Yes, I did. I'm using what I uncovered on those fronts, to inform how to refine my July focus. But I didn't want to leave it uncelebrated.

The incredible results that I was lucky enough to have experienced through my own focus in the month of June. 

But let's keep going. Let's keep going here. 

The next step in a monthly progress report is to focus on refining the plan for the next month. In this case, [00:24:00] for July, using what I learned in June and my June results against key result targets as a guide.

Looking Ahead: Your "Big Focus" 

Jen Phillips: In any review at this point I am confirming or refining my big focus for each objective What is my most important thing right now in July for each objective my big focus? areas have Shifted a bit in my healthy mind and body. I'm doubling down on my healthy morning.

My goals there that I'm adding on include, an additional 35 percent month over month gain on exercise and 30 days of expanded mindfulness focus in this sprint that I'm in, which is measurable. On the "NextJen" career front, I'm really doubling down on improving my workflow.

I'm going to, continue making editing enhancements. Work on increased engagement on social, I'm going to deliver two video editions of the podcast to YouTube, which [00:25:00] means I'm going to need to bring into my workflow editing the video as well. And. I have a number of other adjustments I'm makingbut it all really centers on supercharging my workflow so I am working a little bit faster, better, stronger.

On the connections front, I have, family that's coming into town and we are planning a celebration around that. I'm also going to my very first. local group for entrepreneurs meeting in this month having worked for companies as a remote employee for about 15 years It's huge for me to now be meeting people who live literally in my backyard

 

The Elegance of Doing Less

Jen Phillips: the very last step that I take is to look at the monthly plan in its entirety. Giving it a last look to confirm are my energetic time priorities in line?

And if not, what am I gonna do about it? On my July plan, I have trued all [00:26:00] that up. , and I did make one change.

I have adjusted my bookable time for better focus blocks. I changed the rules on how my time can be booked. Because I want to have larger blocks for actually focusing on the work that is in plan. What I urge you to think about if you take something like this on is embrace the elegance of doing less.

 Doing less does not mean less value is being delivered. It may mean you're focusing more of your time on the right work the right task the right focus. If the work or the time is not valuable and it's on my calendar, I'm not doing it.

Jen Phillips: I really just put a line down and I say, this is a red line I won't cross. If the time is not valuable, I do not spend it on that low value work. And that feels great so I [00:27:00] urge you to look at your calendar and see if there's ways that you can stop doing work that is actually low value. 

Two Major Benefits

Jen Phillips: Wow. Okay. So we just talked about a lot. I shared with you what it looks like to do a monthly review, why it matters, and that it is born in business, but absolutely works for a personal or professional development pursuit.

You are probably in this room, in this virtual room with me here because you are someone you know. Someone you care for is unhappy in their work or unhealthy in their work today. They may not, you may not know exactly what you need to do to get happy or at the very minimum to not be unhappy. I assure you that creating objectives and targeted results across your own pillars, even if the first pillar is define what is important to me, [00:28:00] define my pillars, again, my objectives are, healthy mind and body, define my "NextJen" career, and create deeper connections.

Creating your own is a start. Once you achieve defining those objectives, you will then begin to achieve the objectives as you break down those longer term objectives into monthly focus areas. Daily actions, and the right time to take the right actions to either define or refine your future vision.

Getting into a monthly rhythm of progress reviews gives you two incredibly powerful benefits all at once. 

 It helps you recognize and celebrate your successes. This is a big one. You get to celebrate your own progress, like I was able to celebrate my June progress, and it feels [00:29:00] really, really good to do just that.

And it helps you identify risks that may exist in your plan. Any adjustments that you need to make to the way you spend your time, to your processes, or to the plan itself.

, so you're sure that you're, , Big focus areas for each objectives have the time needed to make progress that you're planning and that you know what good looks like, what your key results are that you're targeting because ideas are easy. Execution is everything.

Here's To Your Progress

Jen Phillips: If you want to get your hands on a guide that steps you through this hybrid process I've just covered, download the monthly progress report guide that I made just for you. If you're interested in a lo fi template that I'm using for my own monthly reviews, let me know by leaving me feedback and I will put some time into making it available to you.

 Subscribe to the Podcast Report [00:30:00] wherever you listen to your podcast so you don't miss any of our upcoming reports. Consider sharing this podcast with anyone you think the content would help 

your reviews really help too. And if you haven't figured it out yet, I'm pretty data driven individual. So your reviews and your feedback help shape the podcast, help get us found by other people looking for the content that we cover. 

And if you want to know more about OKRs, whether for your current role at work or for your personal CEO of you. com. Monthly reviews, check out the book, Measure What Matters by John Doerr linked in the show notes below.

Thank you so much for being here, for investing your time, for talking about how we can help make the workplace a better place as we uncover our healthy work. What's next until next time, here's to your progress.

 [00:31:00] Hi, it's Jen with some very important, fine print. This podcast and its associated properties does not provide medical or mental health advice, Nothing on The Podgress Report is intended to substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. , and please, if you're under duress or considering suicide, please reach out right this very minute to the suicide and cRisis lifeline by dialing 9, 8, 8 in the U S. Or searching for the helplines available to you in your country.