When I joined workforce in my 20’s, I started with setting my career goals as an independent exercise from my company’s yearly goal setting routine. The career goals I set for myself, helped me make critical decisions to develop my career as well as balance my career with my personal life!
I often hear from my colleagues and friends complain about the yearly goal setting exercise in their jobs as mundane. They tell me that they do it to please their bosses or to keep out of trouble. How has your experience been?
I do agree that in the corporate world, the goal-setting has become just another box to tick. However, I do believe we could marry our personal intentions and objectives to this exercise to make it more meaningful for us to pursue. Are you willing to explore more?
Starting with framing goals with Needs and Wants:
If you want to go to basics on the concept of needs and wants, please refer to the article “What do I really want in life?”
I start with setting my own professional goals for myself, which is something that I personally need and want to develop or attain. For example, my professional goals could look like this:
- I need to build communication skills
- I need to develop negotiation skills
- I need to learn technology xyz
- I need to learn methodology abc
- I need to earn $xxx every year
- I want to make $yyy in x years
- I want promotion in 2 years to the position of aaa
- I want promotion in 5 years to the position of bbb
- I want to change my job/role in x years
This list is just a starting point, and you could improvise to cater to your specific needs and wants. I prefer to start with the skill set I would like to build both hard and soft skills.
Building in your unique preference:
I preferred to learn soft skills such as communications, negotiations, report writing more than specific technical skills. Although both are equally important, I experience softer skills to be more useful in general. Also, they are easily transferable skills that I could apply to many of my long-term goals.
When I had my priorities sorted out and clear, I could set better career goals that truly helped me rather than blindly running the race.
Don't count the days. Make the days count.
It was easier for me to decide on the projects and opportunities that I could commit. I was more flexible with the changing demands of my life.
When my kids were younger, it was my need to stay home and not travel much. It was noticeably clear when I had to turn down opportunities that needed more traveling. Although some of these opportunities promised me the career growth that I wanted, I rejected them to fulfill my needs first.
This critical decision comes after giving some serious thought to possible alternative arrangements, support available, and my own emotional state etc. The exercise of being clear on my needs and wants helped me in drawing more meaningful career goals during my yearly goal setting exercise at work.
For example, during a different phase in life, I agreed to lead in a specific function for a critical global roll-out project. Before I accepted this project, I recognised the opportunity to learn critical skills (that I needed) and the visibility the project would provide to support my promotion (that I wanted).
I also considered how this would require frequent travel and whether I am in a position to do that on short notice without affecting my needs and responsibilities in my personal life.
Your reflections:
- What are your personal needs and wants in your professional life? List them down.
- Do you notice any changes in them compared to a few years ago? Why did they change?
- Did the change in your professional goals make a difference in other areas of life? How?
Here is a template and a few examples to help you set your career goals:
|
Area of life |
Need with timeline |
Want with timeline |
|
Financial Rewards |
Salary of $xxx now/in x years |
Salary of $yyy now/in y years |
|
Other Perks |
Opportunity to travel across the country and having a car allowance by mm/yyyy |
Opportunity to travel internationally by mm/yyyy |
|
Exposure/ Domain Experience |
Learning xyz technology by mm/yyyy |
Mastering xyz technology by mm/yyyy |
|
Skillset/ Leadership |
Develop negotiation skills to be eligible for —- position by mm/yyyy Develop team building skills to be eligible for —- position by mm/yyyy |
Be promoted to —- position to use negotiation skill independently by mm/yyyy Be promoted to —- position to build and manage a team by mm/yyyy |
|
Agility |
Be presented with opportunity to change role/ department every x years |
Change role/ department ever x years |
|
Others |
—- |
—- |
If you would like to set your personal goals, check out this article “Am I setting myself up for success”
