Do you set New Year’s resolutions? Life feels like a clean slate on January 1st, and it’s so exhilarating to pursue something you’ve always wanted. Maybe it’s to lose weight, develop a new skill or finally get out of a dead end job.

But then, it’s so often the case that once the Superbowl party rolls around, all the goals go kaput. It’s so discouraging to watch dust collecting on the new treadmill, to have new books sitting unopened on the coffee table, and to face the same long commute to a boring job, with no end in sight.

Chronically setting goals and never achieving them makes it feel pointless to set them at all. Why try if you’ll only feel like a failure in the end?

What if goal setting was tantamount to being granted a wish that’s certain to come true! What would you ask for? A house? Better health? A brand new car?

The truth is, you really can achieve “impossible” visions. Goal setting isn’t about falling short and always missing the mark. It’s about putting a plan in place to realize wonderful things in your life.

In order for goals to be effective, you need to pan in and pan out at the same time. In this post we’re going to look at how achieving goals requires the right mix of long term and short term goals…and a few strategies for keeping yourself on track!

The Myth of Overnight Success

Do you ever read those “40 under 40” articles about really young people who seem to have it all? They’re successful, bright, wealthy and it all apparently happened overnight.

If you dig a little deeper, however, you’ll realize that it isn’t like that at all. In her reality show “My Life on the D-List” comedian Kathy Griffin points out that achieving success is about slogging through the muck of hard work for years and years. And she’s not alone. Most anyone with a success story has had to grind away for years, to no acclaim.

To make an analogy, achieving a huge milestone is like a dam breaking. Over a long period of time, water gradually builds up, and then finally one day the dam gives way to one epic splash. That is to say, success doesn’t just happen. It’s the result of continually pounding away at a vision.

If you don’t set goals, you’ll still make decisions about how you spend your time. But the decisions are made without a lot of reflection. It’s really easy, for example, to develop a habit of eating out most nights of the week…and then at the end of six months wonder where the money is for a summer vacation.

Not setting goals is a bit like driving a car with no destination in sight. You’ll end up somewhere eventually, but it may not be anywhere you wanted to go!

Goal setting is about taking the macro view of your life, or one area of it, and getting deliberate about the choices you make. It’s about determining the direction you want to head in, and looking at the steps needed to get you there.

Tips on Goal Setting

We set goals for all areas of our life. Maybe you’re looking to budget for retirement and a vacation at the same time. Or maybe an organization has the objective to create a culture with more transparency.

When shaping goals, a good starting place is to unpack everything related to the topic.

If it’s a financial goal, outline all your financial obligations, both short and long term. This may include a college fund, a summer vacation, a new car, groceries, monthly bills, house payments, and retirement.

Or with a goal related to company culture, consider all of the factors that shape the culture: communication tools, recruitment methods, rituals around meetings, project planning procedures, and policies around work life balance. There’s really a lot that goes into company culture, so this takes some real brainstorming.

The next step is to look at all of these pieces and develop the goal. Crafting the right goal per your situation is central to achieving it. Let’s look at characteristics of a good attainable goal.

Set Goals, Not Desires

A goal is measurable, and focuses exclusively on work you can control.

Maybe you’d like to have a transparent company culture. At first blush, this seems like a perfectly appropriate goal. However, changing a culture has a lot to do with things completely out of your control. It’s dependent on the cooperation and behavior of other people within the organization.

Having a transparent culture, then, is really a desire and not a goal.

Developing a goal around this entails doing specific things that might bring about more transparency. These could include things like sharing the long-term strategy with the entire team, soliciting feedback from everyone at the end of a project, or regularly scheduling skip level meetings with the team.

Incorporating these practices would hopefully bring about transparent company culture. If not, it’d be necessary to shore up a new set of goals.

Set Motivating (not Demotivating) Goals

The way we frame a goal affects the level of enthusiasm we bring to it.

Consider these goals around weight loss: “I want to get out of my oversized clothing” and “I should start eating better” and “I want to look great this summer.”

Although each of these goals achieves the same end, the last one looks at the desired result and is far more aspirational. The first two focus on the problem, and feel discouraging.

Or within a company, setting a goal of “figure out what went wrong with the failed products from last year” may well bring about dissension within the team. Rather, a goal to “design innovative products that serve customer needs” keeps the team forward looking and thinking creatively.

When framing goals, it’s best to get away from “should” language and an emphasis on failure. In order to make the goal aspirational, focus the goal around the desired objective.

Make Trade-offs

We live in a world with finite resources, including time, labor, and money. This means we can’t achieve everything. If a company, for example, sets a quarterly goal to start a new podcast, then the time and money dedicated to this takes away from another desirable objective of, say, starting a newsletter.

A realistic approach to goal setting means accepting trade-offs. In order to determine the supreme objectives, it’s good first to lay out all possibilities onto the table to evaluate them.

The MosSCoW Method of Prioritization effectively helps with this process of sorting through various goals. It’s about identifying the musts, shoulds, coulds and won’ts of a project or objective.

By identifying things that “must” happen, it’s easier to then decide areas that can slide down on the priority list.

In sum, setting good goals makes it easier to achieve them, so take some time to craft good goals. You may find that in achieving one goal, others fall into place as well!

The Macro View: Setting Long Term Goals

We all have a fantasy of where we’d like our lives to be, and each of ours is a little different. If you could have a completely different life in ten years, what would it look like? Maybe you’d have an entirely different career, or even be working for yourself. Maybe you’d live in another place, and own your own home. Or maybe you’d achieve a huge physical milestone, such as climbing a mountain or deadlifting 200 pounds.

Tony Robbins has been known to say that “We overestimate what we can accomplish in a year, and we underestimate what we can accomplish in ten years.”

Goal setting oftentimes is focused on the short term: the ten pounds we want to lose, the savings for a vacation this summer. And we get discouraged when we don’t achieve these, as we may have set our sights too high.

However, the fact is, when we set our minds to something, we can shift our lives 180 degrees within six to ten years.

Long term goals aren’t achieved linearly. We only cross the finish line after a lot of hiccups, setbacks, detours and roadblocks. And so be sure to anticipate them!

And sometimes, your final objective isn’t crystal clear at first. But that’s ok.
Maybe you’ve quit your job in search of “something else” that you can’t define precisely. Just by outlining some of your musts (I want more freedom, I want more independence, I want more work life balance) provides direction. Clarity comes from taking steps in the direction of these musts.

Here are three pointers to keep in mind when setting long term goals.

1. Ask Questions to Clarify

When you have a lot of uncertainty around a long term goal, it’s good to ask questions to arrive at a better understanding of where you want to be.

A good set of questions clears away some of the brain fog. If you’re setting goals around a career, ask things like “What kind of environment do I want to be working in?” “Where do I want to live?” “What do I value most in a company culture?” “What skills do I want to utilize?” and “In what situations do I feel the most energized?”

Taking the time to answer a good list of questions allows imperatives to surface. It creates priority and some “musts” start to emerge. From there, it’s easy to chart a path toward making a long term goal a reality.

2. Pick One (or Two) North Stars

Generally speaking, long term goals are huge milestones. When you have a list of five or ten, it’d take a superhuman to achieve them all. Simply attempting them leads to burnout.

And, by making everything important it means that nothing really is important.

Limiting long term goals to only one or two makes them much more achievable.

Narrowing goals down also gives your ship a clear direction to sail in. In letting the North Star be your guide, you may find that many other things fall into place as well.

3. Seek Out Resources and Experience

Oftentimes, embarking on a vision is a step into the unknown. Maybe you’re considering diving into a career you know nothing about. Although this is exciting, it also begs the question, “Am I suited to this type of work?”

Determining whether or not you really want to achieve your goal entails seeking out educational resources, as well as having some hands-on experience.

For example, when embarking on a new career, materials such as the career-change workbook “What Color is Your Parachute,” personality tests and internships all serve to let you understand if you’re headed in the right direction.

In sum, it really is possible to change your life. Long-term goal setting entails embarking on a path, and learning as you go along. Oftentimes, along the way you achieve greater clarity as to where you ultimately want to be headed.

The Micro View: Setting Short Term Goals

“Every action that brings a company closer to its goal is productive. Every action that does not bring a company closer to its goal is not productive,” says the character Jonah in Eliyahu Goldratt’s bestselling book, The Goal.

When you’re in a situation you don’t like, it’s easy to have a myopic focus on a short term goal. Maybe you’re stuck in a job where every day is the same and there are no opportunities for growth, and so you decide that you will take any other job opportunity you can find.

Or maybe you really want to lose some weight, and so go on a crash diet to lose it all in just six or eight weeks.

But this narrow focus doesn’t always pan out. Often, the next job is just as bad as the first, or you gain all the weight back right away.

Effective short term goals are about alignment. It’s a two step process of first identifying where you want to be in five or ten years, and then working backwards to see how to get there.

As Brian Tracy, author of Eat That Frog, 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time, says: “In your work, having a clear idea of what is really important to you in the long term makes it much easier for you to make better decisions about your priorities in the short term.”

Oftentimes, the long term goal is the big, glamorous achievement, such as a new career or a new home. The short term goals, however, are like the back end work which no one but you notices. These, however, are critical to achieving the big vision.

In order to keep on track, here are three pointers for succeeding in short term goals.

1. Break Work Down

When setting short term goals, it’s hard to gauge how long some things take. Maybe we take on a quarterly goal to run a half marathon, and find that it’s way out of our reach.

In order to achieve the short term goals we set, it’s good to break a larger task down into smaller tasks that can be completed in just a week or two.

So something like “go out for three five-mile runs” might make a better short term goal, as this can be accomplished in just one week.

And of course, it’s always good to celebrate your wins, no matter how small.

2. Be Willing to Pivot

Progressing with short term goals is like taking a journey toward a final destination. As you progress, it’s good to pause and reflect on how things are going.

Are the action steps you’re taking moving you closer to your long-term goal? And does that long term goal still look like a worthy endeavor?

It’s ok to pivot based on the feedback. Maybe you headed back to school to study law, and discover that it’s just not at all what you had in mind.

Our long-term goals aren’t set in stone. They’re malleable, and depending on what we learn along the way, we can move the goal post and change the North Star.

3. Take One Step at a Time

When working toward a long term vision, it may feel like you’re moving at a snail’s pace. But a glacier doesn’t melt overnight.

It takes patience to press on, trusting you’ll reach the finish line eventually. By focusing on small wins and celebrating them, it’s easier to stay on track.

In sum, short term goals are often the somewhat tedious, back end work that you need to do in order to achieve a larger goal. But short term goals give you a boost of momentum. These small successes motivate you to achieve the big victory. And don’t be afraid to adjust course as you continue along.

Strategies for Staying on Track

Achieving goals is a journey. At some turns, you experience exhilarating, expansive views. However, at other times you feel like you’re stuck in the badlands, making very little discernible progress with no end in sight.

It takes some stamina and finesse to press on and navigate these inevitable ups and downs. Here are a few strategies for staying on track.

1. Remember the Why

Glamorous goals all entail boring work such as writing code, doing the books and cleaning up messes. These things take time, and they all need to get done.

It’s a real slog getting through “meaningless” tasks, and so make an effort to maintain focus on your “why.” What’s the overall goal you hope to achieve? What’s the dream?

A vision board with the goal clearly displayed keeps you mentally aligned to your long term objectives, even amidst the daily grind. Placing a vision board in sight of your work area keeps you thinking big during all the mundane tasks of your day.

2. Use Metrics

Some goals have a clear and definite finish line. Say something like completing a book: once you’ve finished the last page and closed the cover, it’s definitely completed.

Other goals, however, are far more nebulous. Consider a goal such as “increase marketing efforts.” Although this is certainly a worthy goal, it’s such a huge, broad topic that it’s hard to define when you’ve “completed” the goal and can cross it off your list.

In these sorts of instances, it’s helpful to set clear metrics around the goal, so that you can know when you’ve given it a good faith effort and can move on.

With a goal to increase marketing, for example, both time or quantity metrics provide appropriate limits. Maybe the goal is to spend five hours each week marketing. Or, another might be to send out one newsletter a month and ten social media posts each week.

When a goal feels seemingly endless, metrics allow you to shut down the laptop at the end of the day and move onto something else.

3. Use Mental Agility

Achieving goals is a psychological challenge. You’re stretching yourself and possibly doing things you’ve never done before.

Long term goals present surprise detours as well. Maybe late in the game, you find that you want to change course.

Rather than becoming disheartened, however and getting derailed, mental agility allows you to keep your head in the game, and acknowledge that roadblocks and detours are part of the process.

In sum, achieving short term and long term goals is no piece of cake. From time to time, it feels like a real grind, and it requires strategy to keep you pressing through to the end.

One Brick at a Time

To an onlooker, achieving huge milestones may look effortless, but the fact of the matter is that they’re really a lot of hard work.

Effective goal setting entails taking a micro and macro view to one area of your life, and aligning short term goals to the long term vision. Many short term goals aren’t glamorous at all, and it requires strategy to achieve them.

No one’s goals look exactly the same. Everyone has their own special set of factors and desires that determine the direction they choose to take.

If you’re in a difficult or seemingly inescapable situation, it lifts your spirits to set goals and take steps toward a way out. The more steps you take, the clearer your vision for the end goal. And when all of your efforts culminate, and you cross the finish line, you receive a badge of honor that no one can take from you!

Building a successful project team isn’t something that just happens; it sits on a foundation of high-quality management skills and includes some essential rules for each project it takes on. It’s intentional choices and procedures that create consistent, long-term success for your project team.

Designing a high-caliber project team – and leading it to success – can be a complex undertaking. However, with the right knowledge and planning, you can make the process easier to navigate.

5 Steps To Build A Highly Proficient Project Team (and their benefits)

A strong project team can be the deciding force behind the productivity of your company and the quality of their work. While there are many ways you can create a project team that performs well, there are five essential elements to its success.

1. Set Clear Goals

Goal setting is something that is included in most project planning, however, the detail included in these goals is what’s most important. When you begin planning for a new project with your team, ensure you follow a strict system to help you define your goals and help your team meet them consistently.

Clearly defined goals increase the rates of project success because they provide your team with a way to plan how they will achieve them. They also provide you with a way to assess the tasks needed to successfully complete the project and assign them in the most efficient way.

One of the most common ways to create clearly defined goals is through the SMART method:

S: Specific
M: Measurable
A: Achievable
R: Relevant
T: Time-Bound

Goals that are created following this method have high rates of success. Not only do they define the goal in distinct and precise terms, but they also ensure you’re planning within your capabilities. The SMART method also provides a predetermined way to measure the progress and success of a project, and how to measure the success of the team as a whole.

2. Have Effective Communication

How a team communicates is directly related to their success. It affects every area of your team ranging from understanding their individual roles to maintaining positive relationships with their colleagues.

Effective communication can:

• Increase employee engagement
• Boost employee morale
• Reduce conflict
• Build a healthier workplace
• Increase productivity

Communication extends past how your team interacts with one another. It also includes how they understand their job roles, expectations, and their knowledge of the project as a whole. It also is directly connected to their awareness of communication standards and mediums across the workplace. If effective communication is lacking, both your team and the project will be negatively affected by it.

3. Assign Tasks Based On Skill Set

A high-performing team includes a balanced skillset, which should be planned for in advance while you build out your team (we’ll get to that in a minute). A team that is well-rounded and provides a wide array of abilities will find higher rates of success while also providing a better quality project altogether.

As you break down the project into individual tasks, it is essential to pair those tasks with those members that are best suited to tackle them. If your employees are expected to complete a task outside of their skill set, it can cause additional workplace stress and be detrimental to the project. This can include:

• the project falling behind schedule
• individual tasks not aligning, leading to a clumsy final product
• tasks simply being left incomplete.

When you work to match your employees with tasks that reflect their abilities, you create a healthier workplace where everyone can thrive. Your employees will feel both understood and valued, leading to increased productivity and quality of work.

4. Encourage Collaboration

Collaboration in the workplace can provide your team with a wide range of benefits. It provides a way for your employees to naturally learn from one another, offering growth opportunities through the combination of skills needed to complete a task. It also gives them a better understanding of the team as a whole and helps them understand the value of their role in a deeper way.

Some of the most notable benefits of collaboration in the workplace include:

• Higher productivity
• Increased quality of work
• Develops employee creativity
• Creates high rates of group responsibility
• Promotes better problem solving

5. Have High-Quality Standard Processes

The standard processes of your company set the foundation for every project your team takes on. These standards reflect both the company’s values and long-term goals – and they can change as the company grows.

A company that has a strong set of standard operating procedures and processes they’ve developed, will have a higher rate of success due to the consistency it provides their employees and their projects. This consistency builds repeatable success across all project teams and outcomes. Standard processes ensure everyone has the same understanding of the company’s expectations and provide them a starting point for any undertaking.

Additional benefits of implementing quality standard processes include:

• More efficiency
• Increased accountability
• Improves clarity
• Higher levels of workplace organization
• Creates reliability both for the company and employee

Essential Management Skills To Increase Project Team Success

While the steps you take to build a strong project team are important, how you manage that team is imperative. The management style of a company is a large determining factor to its success and has a strong influence on the workplace environment as well.

How you manage a team will play a vital role in the outcomes of your projects. Your team’s quality of work, creativity, success rates, and overall morale are a direct reflection of you. This makes your management abilities measurable and can highlight areas that could use improvement, allowing you to become a better manager and build a highly successful project team in the future.

There are five major elements to include in your management style that will help you create a strong workplace environment for your team, and foster positive results from it.

Grow Your Team Skill Set

When you design your team, it’s important to consider the project you’re responsible for, and the tasks required to make it successful. This will give you a starting point for considering who should be involved in your team. Include a wide range of skills in your project team to help support any unexpected tasks the project may present.

Once you’ve designed your team, it’s important to continue to work towards improving their skillset. This not only helps them become stronger employees but also creates a positive workplace where people feel valued and commit to the company for longer periods of time. Provide your team with growth opportunities that reflect their skills and passions, and encourage healthy risk-taking. This will ensure your employees feel confident in taking on new challenges.

Support Your Employees

Supporting your team is a key part of being a strong manager. While this may seem obvious, it’s not uncommon for managers to misunderstand what support their employees need on a deeper level.

A strong manager will provide a stable foundation for their team while being a reliable source of support. These managers step in to help complete tasks that have fallen behind and problem-solve alongside their employees. They take time to create an action plan with each team member individually, both towards the project goal and their career goals. They provide their staff with all the resources they may need to complete their work and delegate effectively without overwhelming one or all of their team members. Supportive managers treat their team like equals and will work just as hard as their team does.

Supporting your team can have great rewards for you, your employees, and your company. Some of the most influential are:

• Increased employee morale
• Higher productivity
• Healthier workplace relationships
• A united team
• Lower employee turnover
• Better project quality and success

Include Your Team In Project Decisions & Planning

Projects can take extensive planning, and the decisions will have a ripple effect throughout the entire team and length of the project. When you begin developing your project plan, include your team in the process. This will allow you to better determine and delegate tasks, navigate any project hiccups, and align everyone with the project as a whole.

It’s important to let your team play an active part in developing the strategic approach for the project. This will provide opportunities for multiple perspectives to shape the plan, and encourage employees to break the project down based on individual skill sets. This can lead to a more robust project plan and help your team become more invested in the success of the project.

Involving your team in project decisions and planning also plays a vital role in employee morale. Your employees will feel respected, heard, and valued in the workplace, which is reflected in their productivity and involvement within the company.

Measure Your Success

Measuring the success of your project should be included in your goal-setting process, however, measuring your success as a manager is equally important. This can include a project management audit, which will not only look at a project in-depth but also highlight the effectiveness of the management staff assigned to the project as well. This provides an effective way for you to become a stronger manager while also creating better systems for future projects.

Some benefits of measuring the success of both you and your project include:

• Supporting your growth as a manager through past performance
• Creating a stronger team through reviewing data throughout the project lifetime
• Supporting the long-term growth and success of the company
• Developing stronger processes for future projects

Build A Diverse Team

When you’re developing your team, selecting members from a diverse range of backgrounds is essential. A diverse team provides a variety of outlooks and perspectives that helps generate better ideas and navigate a project in a way that is suited to a greater group of people.

Managing a diverse team effectively reflects the strength of your management skills and it provides important benefits, such as:

• Developing better standard practices through expansive knowledge
• Creating inclusivity
• Facilitating a healthier work environment
• Increasing employee engagement
• Bringing in exceptional talent

Are you feeling a sense of dread, because your employer asked you to come up with a list of professional work goals? Rest easy, we’ve got you covered! In this blog post, we’ve listed tons of awesome professional work goal examples to inspire you.

And, while most of them are the type of HR-approved goals you’d expect, we understand there are some goals you might not want to share with HR–like your desire to leave work at 4 PM every day or to earn the maximum amount of money for doing the minimum amount of work.

That’s why this list also includes some professional goals you might want to keep to yourself, such as your plans to launch a new career.

However, before we get to those, let’s first define what professional work goals are, examine why they’re worth setting, and look at some of the ways you can increase the likelihood of achieving your professional goals. Then, on to the examples!

What Are Professional Work Goals?

Professional work goals are goals that are set with the objective of furthering your career, while improving your skills and abilities in the workplace.

Goal setting is done with an eye toward the future–for instance, by thinking through the answers to questions like, “Where do I want to be professionally in a year?” and “What do I want to be doing in 5 years?”

Sometimes, the answer is readily apparent i.e., “I want to be Chief Technology Officer.”

Other times, you might have no idea … that’s when we recommend setting goals that’ll help you determine where your interests lie and what you might enjoy doing in the future.

Regardless of whether you know where you want to be 5 years from now or are still figuring things out, it’s useful to set both short- and long-term goals.

Generally speaking, short-term goals consist of anything you can accomplish within the next 6 months, whereas long-term goals typically take longer than 6 months to achieve.

By establishing both kinds of goals, you’ll have a clear roadmap of the steps you need to accomplish–both in the short-term and the long-term–to ultimately create the career of your dreams.

Why Set Professional Work Goals?

There are tons of reasons it’s well worth it to set professional goals–whether your manager is making you do it or not.

Of course, when higher-ups are asking you to do it, it’s because they want to turn you into a better employee. While that’s all well and good for them, you stand so much to gain for yourself by establishing professional work goals.

For instance, here are some of our favorite reasons for creating professional work goals:

• Clear Direction – All too often, it’s easy to get caught up in busy work and the mundane realities of everyday life. Sure, there are things we want to accomplish, but we may struggle to find the time and clarity to do so.

  Professional goal setting forces us to establish a clear vision of where we want to go, which is so important, because as inspirational author Norman Vincent Peale put it, “All successful people have a goal. No one can get anywhere unless he knows where he wants to go and what he wants to be or do.”

  In the absence of knowing these things, you’re bound to have a less fulfilling professional life … after all, doesn’t it sound preferable to actively participate in shaping your career, rather than idly waiting to see where the current takes you?

• Higher Earnings – Setting goals–then making concrete plans to achieve them–is linked to significantly higher earnings. Take, for instance, a Harvard Business School MBA study of graduating seniors, who were asked whether they had written goals and a concrete plan for achieving them.

  Interestingly enough, the study determined that:

  • 3% of the class had written goals and a concrete plan
  • 13% of the class had written goals but no concrete plan
  • 84% of the class didn’t have written goals or a plan

  A decade later when researchers compared incomes among the study participants, they discovered that those who set goals and had a written plan for achieving them were making ten times as much as the remaining 97% of their class!

  So, rather than viewing goal setting as merely an exercise to placate your boss, think of it as a real opportunity to improve your standard of living.

  

• Job Security – Setting goals and achieving them helps you to improve your professional skills, while showing your employer how much value you bring to your position. Not only will that help you during future performance reviews, but it’ll also give you more secure footing at your organization.

  While, of course, establishing yourself as a valuable team player isn’t a guarantee you’ll never be terminated, it can go a long way toward decreasing the likelihood.

• Empowerment – There may be nothing more empowering than setting goals, taking steps to achieve them, then celebrating once you’ve accomplished what you set out to do.

  By creating–then working toward–your professional goals, it may at first seem like you’re stepping outside your comfort zone. However, once you begin noticing the progress you’re making, you’ll develop a greater sense of mastery, a boost in self-confidence, and higher self-esteem–which are all worthy goals in their own right!

• Passion – Working toward something you desire is a great way to inspire passion and engagement. Rather than merely going through the motions at your 9-to-5, goals motivate you to work toward your vision of a better, more enjoyable career.

  Not only will that passion make you feel more engaged at work, but it’ll also spill over into other areas of your life.

  For instance, as you start feeling more enthusiastic about the professional future you’re working toward, your upbeat outlook can’t help but have a positive impact on your relationships, both personal and professional.

• Better Time Management – It’s ironic–the more free time you have, the less efficient you’re likely to be. That’s because as Ohio State professor Lawrence Needleman explains, “having large amounts of unstructured time can contribute to procrastination.”

  Because it typically takes additional time and energy to achieve your professional work goals, you’re forced to develop good time management skills and yep, lose any tendency you may have to procrastinate.

How to Set SMART Professional Work Goals

When it comes to setting work goals, SMART goals are the way to go. SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. Before we go any further, let’s take an in-depth look at each of those elements:

• Specific – A SMART goal isn’t vague, instead it has a clear-cut objective. For instance, consider the two following statements:“I’m going to go back to school.”

  “This spring semester, I’m going to earn a Social Media Marketing certificate from Portland State University.”

  As you can see, although each of these statements identifies goals, the second statement is highly specific, whereas the first one isn’t well-defined at all.

  For instance, what does “going back to school” mean–taking one class at a local community college, earning a Master’s degree, or something else altogether? A SMART goal spells these details out.

• Measurable – SMART goals are measurable, making it easy to determine whether they’ve been successfully achieved. For instance, take the goal of returning to school to earn a Social Media Marketing certificate. It’s simple to assess whether this goal’s been accomplished–either you got a certificate or you didn’t.

  However, not every goal is so easily quantifiable. Say, for example, you want to improve your public speaking skills. How do you know when you’ve achieved your goal? This is something that’s difficult to measure.

  We suggest that when you run up against a goal that’s hard to quantify, you find a way to tweak it, so you can measure it in some relevant way. For instance, if you want to become a better public speaker, you might make a goal of speaking at a Toastmasters event twice a month for the next 6 months. Consistent practice is bound to improve your public speaking skills, and because your Toastmasters’ attendance is measurable, you can easily determine whether you’ve achieved your goal.

• Achievable – If you set a lofty, unattainable goal, you’ll only grow frustrated when you work hard to achieve it–but still miss the mark. Worse, you might become discouraged or experience a crisis of confidence, because you failed to do something that wasn’t realistically possible.

  That’s why SMART goals are achievable–although they might be ambitious, they’re always grounded in realism. For example, if you’re working in the mailroom today, it’s highly unlikely you’ll be promoted to CEO within the next year. A goal of heading up the mailroom during that same period, however, is a reasonable, achievable goal.

• Relevant – There may be multiple professional work goals clamoring for your attention. However, there are only so many hours in a day, so you need to be choosy by making sure your professional work goals are relevant to your broader career aims.

  For instance, say you’re considering a goal of learning to speak Chinese. While that may be relevant to your career aspirations if you’re a financial analyst for a multinational corporation, it’s less likely to be so if you’re a nurse.

  So, when developing your professional work goals, consider where you want to be in 5 years and what you need to do to get there. Then, select work goals that are relevant to where you are right now, while also being aligned with the professional future you desire.

• Time-Bound – A SMART goal is time-bound, meaning that you’ve given yourself a timeframe in which to achieve it. That’s important because setting a deadline will help you stay focused so you make consistent progress.

  For instance, take the following two examples:

  • I intend to write a book.
  • I intend to complete the first draft of my memoir within 6 months.

  As you can see, the first statement doesn’t really light a fire under you. The theoretical book may be written in a year, five years, or sometime after never.

  By contrast, the second statement clearly sets out a timeframe for the book to be written, and because it does so, it’s easier to identify which tasks need to occur (and when) to make that goal a reality.

  For instance, you might say to yourself, “I need to complete two chapters a month to finish the first draft within six months. To accomplish that, I’m going to block off two hours a day, five days a week, to work on my book.” As you might imagine, this level of clarity drastically improves the likelihood that you’ll meet your goal.

So, now that you understand SMART goals, let’s take a look at how you can set yourself up for goal-setting success!

What You Need to Know About Goal Setting to Be Successful

According to science, 92% of people fail to achieve their goals. What makes the 8% of people who succeed different? They typically have certain goal-setting habits that distinguish them from their less accomplished peers.

For instance, research shows that you’re more likely to achieve your goals if you do the following 5 things:

1. Write Your Goals Down – There’s something magical about writing goals down, rather than allowing them to just rattle around in your brain. In fact, the mere act of committing a goal to paper increases the likelihood that you’ll achieve it by 42%, according to one study.

   So, when developing your professional work goals, write them down. Not only will this increase your commitment, but it’ll also force you to get really certain about what it is you want to accomplish.

2. Realistically Evaluate Your Goals – One reason people give up on their goals is because they don’t realistically assess what it’ll take to achieve them. Most big goals require a serious investment of time and focus, and unfortunately along the way, there can be times where it doesn’t seem like you’re making any progress.

   Say, for instance, that you have a goal of speaking Italian fluently. You can tackle a Duolingo lesson every day for 30 days, and at the end of that timeframe, get discouraged that at best, you can still only greet a stranger in Italian.

   That’s why you’ll want to develop a realistic understanding of what steps are required to achieve your goal and just as importantly, how long those steps are likely to take. As the saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

   Once you’ve done your homework, then decide if your goal’s worth it. If you still think it is, set milestones for your goal’s attainment. These milestones will help you see that you’re making progress–even if your overall, “big” goal is still a ways off.

   

3. Find Your Inner Grit – When it comes to goal achievement, grit matters. According to Angela Duckworth, researcher and author of the New York Times bestseller Grit, grit can be defined as a blend of passion and perseverance to achieve a long-term goal.

   In other words, grit’s the ability to consistently practice over time until reaching a goal, even when challenges emerge–which is why a passion for your goal is essential. After all, if you don’t feel excited about your goal, you’re unlikely to keep at it when obstacles crop up.

   So, how can you apply this information when setting your professional work goals? One way is to realize that if you feel passionate about the goal you’re considering, that’s a step in the right direction–the more enthusiastic you feel about your goal, the better your likelihood of achieving it.

   Additionally, you’ll want to remember that consistent practice (even in the face of challenges) is crucially important to goal achievement. So, establish a certain number of hours per week that you’ll devote to your goal and keep at it–even if you experience setbacks.

   If perseverance is something you’ve struggled with in the past, consider working one-on-one with a career coach who will hold you accountable.

4. Don’t Go Overboard – Some ambitious individuals take goal setting to the extreme, trying to achieve far too many things at once. As a result, they only have minimal time to work toward their most important goals. Not only can this slow progress, but it can also increase your frustration, making it more likely you’ll abandon your goals altogether.

   That’s why it’s a good idea to set just 3-4 goals a year. While there are probably a number of things you’d like to accomplish in every aspect of your life, limiting your goals will keep you focused, while preventing overwhelm.

5. Establish a Supportive Environment – To achieve a goal, you typically need to change your habits, and interestingly enough, research shows us that our environment plays a big role in whether we successfully modify our behavior.

   Say, for instance, that you want to floss your teeth more frequently. By establishing a visual cue–such as leaving your floss next to your toothbrush–you’re more likely to remember to floss. Or, say that you want to lose weight. By keeping junk food out of your house, you’re far less likely to overeat.

   And while those are health-related goals, a supportive environment can also help you achieve your professional goals. For instance, if you want to read a new management book every week, keep one front and center on your coffee table.

   Alternatively, if you want to increase your productivity, set your phone to “Do Not Disturb” and keep your email closed while you’re working. Instead, check your phone and email just 3 times during the workday–upon your arrival to work, at lunchtime, and during your final hour of work.

   By making simple changes like these, you’re creating a supportive environment that fosters goal achievement, and because you’re not forced to rely on willpower alone, you’ll find it easier to make consistent progress toward your goals.

15 Examples of Professional Work Goals

1. Develop a Skill – There are tons of options when it comes to enhancing your professional soft and hard skills. For instance, you might set a goal of improving your written communications, developing better listening skills, mastering pivot tables in Excel, negotiating with confidence, or honing your interpersonal skills.

2. Network – If you’re like most people, you’ve probably thought to yourself more than a few times, “I really should do a better job of building my network” … then neglected to do anything about that insight.

   If this sounds all-too-familiar, why not make this the year to build your professional network? By doing so, you can strengthen your business connections, open yourself up to new opportunities, find a mentor, and even advance your career.

3. Earn a Promotion – Ascending the corporate ladder not only makes for a great professional work goal, but it’ll also mean more money in your pocket.

   For the best results with this goal, ask your manager for performance feedback, then take action on any areas identified as “room for improvement.”

   Along the way, don’t forget to take ownership for your work from start-to-finish, maintain a positive attitude, and document your achievements. Then, after a major success at work, plant the “promotion seed” by initiating a conversation with your boss about your desire to be promoted.

   

4. Improve Your Public Speaking Skills – Perhaps this is the year to make public speaking skills your professional work goal. After all, no matter what your profession, it’s safe to say that public speaking skills would probably be a valuable asset.

   To make progress toward this goal, consider signing up for Toastmasters, working with a communications coach, or enrolling in public speaking training.

5. Learn a New Tool – Learning a new tool is a great way to increase your value to your employer, as well as your own marketability. Fortunately, you have plenty of options to choose from.

   For instance, you might decide to master PM software like Teamly or try your hand at PowerPoint, Facebook advertising, YouTube video hosting, or Instagram marketing.

6. Improve Your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) – Another great goal is to improve your KPIs at work. Regardless of your industry, there are probably some applicable KPIs you can tackle.

   For instance, you might decide to improve your financial KPIs, such as your quarterly sales or the amount of revenue you’re bringing into the company.

   Alternatively, you could improve your productivity KPIs by increasing the # of widgets you produce or the amount of work you get done.

   Other worthwhile metrics to focus on include customer retention and time-based KPIs, such as faster call resolution, reduced hold time, or greater customer satisfaction.

   

7. Get a Raise – A raise is an awesome goal, just be sure you know what your motivations are. While obviously, you’d like more money, before approaching your manager, you want to be clear on why you think you deserve a raise.

   For instance, have you taken on more responsibilities at work but aren’t being fairly compensated for them? Are you earning less than comparable positions in your field? Has your recent performance earned the company significantly more money? These are questions you’ll want to be able to answer before making your case for a raise.

   After you’ve thought through your motivations, document why you believe you deserve a raise with hard data, such as a list of your professional achievements or comparable salaries in your area.

   Once you’ve completed that, read up on the best way to negotiate for more money, and request a meeting with your boss when the timing’s right. For most people, that’s typically 3-4 months in advance of their annual review.

   Follow these simple steps and by this time next year, you may be far more flush with cash. Ch-ching!

8. Assume a Leadership Role – Leadership skills are oh-so-important in the workplace. Fortunately, if you want to make this your professional work goal, there are plenty of opportunities for you to lead.

   For instance, you might consider heading up a committee, spearheading an office recycling initiative, or developing a diversity program for your workplace.

   As higher-ups see that you can successfully lead projects like these, you’ll be trusted with even greater responsibilities, which could just lead to a promotion.

9. Establish Yourself as an Industry Expert – If you want greater recognition in your field, becoming an industry expert is the way to go. To achieve this objective, think in terms of mini-goals you might need to complete to successfully be viewed as an authority in your industry.

   For instance, you might decide to start a blog, join a trade group, publish an eBook, develop a social media following, attend networking events, or join Qwoted, a website that partners industry experts with reporters seeking quotes.

10. Become a Mentor – Interestingly enough, a study of 1,000 employees found that those who acted as mentors were a whopping 6X more likely to be promoted and 20% more likely to get a raise.

    Even better, acting as a mentor is a great way to improve your leadership skills, while enjoying the warm fuzzy feeling that goes hand-in-hand with helping others. And, of course, your mentee will find the experience gratifying as well–making this professional work goal a win-win!

    

11. Explore a New Career – Career switches are relatively common. So much so that the average person changes careers 5-7 times over the course of their working life.

    However, if you’re considering a career switch, it’s a good idea to first spend plenty of time researching the career you’re considering before making the leap.

    Furthermore, the best research is immersive–hands-on experience is the most reliable way to determine whether you’d truly enjoy the new career you’re contemplating.

    So, a great professional work goal is to explore a new career by shadowing a coworker in another department, interning, or volunteering in the field you’re considering.

12. Work for Yourself – Launching a freelance career is a great professional work goal if you’re tired of “working for the man” and want the freedom and flexibility to be your own boss. However, this goal takes some pre-planning, so don’t quit your day job just yet.

    Instead, begin laying the groundwork now by accepting part-time assignments, so you can develop a clientele. And make sure you have several months of savings set aside–at least 3-6 months’ worth of living expenses–before quitting your job, since freelancing income is less reliable than a paycheck.

    

13. Earn a Degree or Certification – As the saying goes, you’re never too old to learn something new. So, if you’ve been thinking about earning a degree or a certification, start doing research now to find a program you like and begin exploring your financing options.

    For instance, you may be able to fund schooling through a grant, scholarship, or your employer’s tuition reimbursement program. Not only is furthering your education a great way to expand your career options, but if you can do it on someone else’s dime, all the better!

14. Interview – A great professional work goal is to go on a certain number of job interviews each year–even if you’re not actively searching for a new job.

    Not only will interviewing help you hone this essential skill, but it also gives you the chance to research what job opportunities are out there, how much they’re paying, and to evaluate whether you want to remain at your current job or seek greener pastures elsewhere.

15. Work with a Career Coach – If you’re at a career crossroads–or just want someone to hold you accountable as you strive to fulfill your professional goals–a career coach just might be the way to go.

    A career coach can help you develop leadership skills, determine what steps you need to take to earn a promotion, navigate a career change, launch your startup, land a new job, and more.

    To find a good career coach, ask your colleagues for recommendations, or failing that, start searching on the Internet. Once you’ve narrowed your search down to a few potential candidates, schedule consultations to determine which career coach has the style and approach you think would be the best fit.