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GOAL SETTING

Many people feel as if they're adrift in the world. They work hard, but they don't seem to get anywhere worthwhile.

A key reason that they feel this way is that they haven't spent enough time thinking about what they want from life, and haven't set themselves formal goals. After all, would you set out on a major journey with no real idea of your destination? Probably not!

Goal setting is a powerful process for thinking about your ideal future, and for motivating yourself to turn your vision of this future into reality.

The process of setting goals helps you choose where you want to go in life. By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you know where you have to concentrate your efforts. You'll also quickly spot the distractions that can, so easily, lead you astray.

Why Set Goals?

Goal setting is used by top-level athletes, successful business-people and achievers in all fields. Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation. It focuses your acquisition of knowledge, and helps you to organize your time and your resources so that you can make the very most of your life.

By setting sharp, clearly defined goals, you can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals, and you'll see forward progress in what might previously have seemed a long pointless grind. You will also raise your self-confidence, as you recognize your own ability and competence in achieving the goals that you've set.

SMART Goals

A useful way of making goals more powerful is to use the SMART mnemonic. SMART stands for:

· S - Specific (or Significant).

· M - Measurable (or Meaningful).

· A - Attainable (or Action-Oriented).

· R - Relevant (or Rewarding).

· T - Time-bound (or Trackable).

For example, instead of having "To sail around the world" as a goal, it's more powerful to say "To have completed my trip around the world by December 31, 2015." Obviously, this will only be attainable if a lot of preparation has been completed beforehand!

Further Goal Setting Tips

The following broad guidelines will help you to set effective, achievable goals:

· State each goal as a positive statement - Express your goals positively – "Execute this technique well" is a much better goal than "Don't make this stupid mistake."

· Be precise: Set precise goals, putting in dates, times and amounts so that you can measure achievement. If you do this, you'll know exactly when you have achieved the goal, and can take complete satisfaction from having achieved it.

· Set priorities - When you have several goals, give each a priority. This helps you to avoid feeling overwhelmed by having too many goals, and helps to direct your attention to the most important ones.

· Write goals down - This crystallizes them and gives them more force.

· Set realistic goals - It's important to set goals that you can achieve. All sorts of people (for example, employers, parents, media, or society) can set unrealistic goals for you. They will often do this in ignorance of your own desires and ambitions.

· It's also possible to set goals that are too difficult because you might not appreciate either the obstacles in the way, or understand quite how much skill you need to develop to achieve a particular level of performance.

Achieving Goals

When you've achieved a goal, take the time to enjoy the satisfaction of having done so. Absorb the implications of the goal achievement, and observe the progress that you've made towards other goals.

If the goal was a significant one, reward yourself appropriately. All of this helps you build the self-confidence you deserve.

With the experience of having achieved this goal, review the rest of your goal plans:

· If you achieved the goal too easily, make your next goal harder.

· If the goal took a dispiriting length of time to achieve, make the next goal a little easier.

· If you learned something that would lead you to change other goals, do so.

· If you noticed a deficit in your skills despite achieving the goal, decide whether to set goals to fix this.

Feed lessons learned back into your goal setting. Remember too that your goals will change as time goes on. Adjust them regularly to reflect growth in your knowledge and experience, and if goals do not hold any attraction any longer, consider letting them go.

CAREER GOALS

For a few very fortunate people, finding the right career is a matter of luck. But for the rest of us who don't wake up one day to our dream jobs, getting into the right career takes a little bit of planning. A major part of that planning involves establishing -- and working to achieve -- your career goals.

Did you know that average employed Americans spend more than half of their waking hours each day working [source: Bureau of Labor Statistics]? This means that your career is likely to be a huge part of your life, let alone your time. Also, studies show that having obtainable objectives can lead to increased job satisfaction, better self-esteem and improved overall well-being. With these facts in mind, devoting some time to planning your career path makes sense.

So what are career goals and why are they important? Career goals are simply the things you want to achieve in your career -- where you want to end up and how you want to get there. Objectives can be broad, such as, "I want to have a job I look forward to every day," or they can be specific, such as, "I want to teach eleventh-grade world history." But whether ambitions are specific or broad, certain or uncertain, identifying them is an important step in career planning.

In many ways, setting career goals is like consulting a map before a trip. Without a map, there's a good chance you'll get lost or spend a lot of time wandering about aimlessly. If your career is a destination, your goals are the map.

Remember how we just talked about broad and specific goals? The broad goals -- the ones that deal with your ambitions, interests, preferences, values and aptitudes -- are called conceptual goals. On the other hand, operational goals are the specific jobs and tasks you set for yourself -- the steps you'll take to achieve your conceptual goals. Think of conceptual goals as the destination and operational aims as the journey, and it's important to have both.

So where do you start? In most cases, setting career goals is an exercise in backward planning. Begin with where you want to go, and then work backward to where you are. In this article, we'll walk through the backward planning process of identifying your career aspirations and look at some ways to make sure you're constructing realistic targets for yourself.

Long-term Career Goals

As we just mentioned, creating objectives for your career involves working in reverse -- deciding where you want to go and then working backward to figure out the steps that will get you there. Why? To put it simply, it's hard to map a route without first knowing the destination.

To do this, start with your long-term goals, or things you hope to accomplish in the distant future -- say, in five years or more. Then, break these down into two parts: conceptual and operational. Remember, conceptual goals are broad and focus on your wants and needs, and operational ones are the steps you take to meet those wants and needs.

First, think about your long-term conceptual ambitions.

Ask yourself the following questions:

· What do I enjoy doing?

· What am I good at?

· What characteristics of a job are important to me?

Use the answers to these questions to help develop your conceptual targets, which may look something like this:

· I want to work from home to be closer to my kids.

· I want a job in a creative profession.

· I want to own my own business.

Once you have an idea of what type of things you like, want and are good at, use those as a starting point for thinking about long-term operational plans. Consider specifics about what types of jobs or roles would help you to achieve your conceptual targets. For example, if one of your conceptual goals is to work in a creative profession, an operational aim might be to become a graphic designer for an advertising company.

If you're already in a profession and are looking to advance your career, think about what specific position you would like to have. If you're a recent graduate looking for your first job, you might want to research jobs that support your long-term conceptual aspirations.

Let's say you're a recent college graduate and your long-term operational objective is to become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. A career accomplishment like that takes many years and many intermediate steps along the way. That's why, in addition to having a long-term vision, it's important to think about the short term, as well. In the next section, we'll look at how short-term steps act as a ladder to reach your long-term aims.

Satisfaction vs. Salary

When it comes to your long-term conceptual aspirations, which is more important to you: job satisfaction or salary? This debate has existed for ages and is a question most of us have asked ourselves at one time or another. While there's no concrete way to answer the salary vs. satisfaction question, studies show that a better work environment and improved job satisfaction can improve your overall life satisfaction more than a salary increase.

Short-term Career Goals

Now that you've thought about where you want to be a few years down the line, it's time to shorten the scope and think about the things you should be doing now in order to achieve those long-term plans. These intermediate steps are your short-term goals, or things that can be achieved in a short period of time.

Just as you did with your long-term ambitions, you'll want to consider both conceptual and operational short-term aims. When deciding on conceptual short-term objectives, think about things you need and want that can be achieved in five years or fewer.

Ask yourself questions like these:

· What skills do I need to have in order to achieve my long-term aspirations?

· What knowledge do I need?

· What industry should I focus my attention on?

Some examples of short-term conceptual goals include gaining more responsibility in a current position, furthering your education to make you more qualified for a position you want or even finding a source of money to pay for school. Remember, your short-term targets should support your long-term objectives, so you should constantly compare them to make sure they line up.

The last piece of this planning process is developing your short-term operational targets, which are the specific things that you can do in a short period of time that help you achieve not only your short term conceptual ambitions, but all of your long-term objectives as well. These types of goals might include applying to five different publishing companies for an entry-level position, taking a computer class to learn how to design a Web site or asking for an opportunity to lead a project at work. Your short-term operational plan includes the small steps you'll focus on day to day. It'll act as a benchmark for measuring your progress, help you to stay motivated as you accomplish it and go a long way toward helping you achieve your long-term career vision.

We've talked about the planning process -- what to think about first and what to focus on now -- but when it comes to actually naming your goals, how do you make sure they're realistic and that they work for you? On the next page we'll look at a few of the ways you can make sure your career objectives are realistic and, most importantly, achievable.

Setting Realistic Career Goals

When it comes to planning your future, "realistic" can mean many things. Essentially, setting realistic goals means selecting ones that you can actually achieve. We only have so much time, energy, interest and aptitude for developing our career paths, and if you haven't set realistic targets for yourself, you may feel discouraged. In order to keep your career vision realistic, consider the following questions:

· Do you have the time to commit to the goals you've set for yourself?

· Do you have the needed education or skill sets? If not, will you be able to learn these skills?

· Do you have the resources available to meet your objectives?

· Do the items on your list suit you as a person -- your personality and interests?

· Do they fit the lifestyle you have or hope to have?

· Do your goals complement one another? In other words, does achieving one goal conflict with your attempts to achieve another?

· Is the market for your chosen career limited?

· Are your ambitions achievable in the time frame you've set?

Another way to make sure your plans stay realistic is to share your ideas with trusted friends and family members. Ask for an honest assessment of your aspirations from the people who know you well. While it's true that you know yourself better than anyone, it's also helpful to have an outside perspective on such an important decision.

Don't ignore your strengths and weaknesses -- realistic self-assessment is important. Mapping a career path is both an exercise in self praise ("I am fantastic at math!"), and an exercise in humility ("I'm not a very good singer"). You can always learn and develop the skills needed for almost any job, but you shouldn't ignore your natural talents since those are, after all, what you do best.

Copyright: Mindtools