Practice career goal setting for a rewarding & fulfilling career

Believe it or not many people neglect professional career goal setting. Most do have career goals at the beginning of their careers. But after some time, they start to forget about it due to one thing or another.

There are a number of reasons for this ;

1. They have achieved a job level that they are satisfied with. They are comfortable with their role and happy with their salary. They rather focus their time and efforts on other things.

2. They have been discouraged by their job and the corporate world. All the initial excitement and goals have faded away after they discover that apart from money, their jobs give them little fulfillment in every other area.

3. They’re so busy and caught up with their work and other stuff that they have no time to think about career goal setting.

Think about it, in a normal career we are spending the best years of our lives working. This is even more true if you are a salaried employee. For around 30 odd years, you will be spending 8 or more hours every weekday doing that job. By not setting any career goals, you are lining yourself up to have those 30 years of your life wasted.

Ultimately when it comes to career goal setting, it should not be just about reaching a certain corporate position or amount of salary. There is much more to it than that. Your job takes out a large chunk of your life. It is a part of your life so don’t put it aside.

Instead pursue career goals which helps you grow and aligns you with your life purpose.

For good career goal setting, be sure to include these categories ;

Growth – What areas of personal growth that you hope achieve from your career? These include things like gaining new knowledge, learning new abilities and developing life skills such as decision making, communication, management etc.

Contribution – Contribution is important because it gives us a sense of meaning and purpose in our career. How would you like to best contribute to others and the world through your job?

Financial – Obviously you cannot neglect this.

Alignment – Set goals for the alignment of your career to your life purpose. The ultimate goal that most people want is to have a job that is their passion. Most people think that is not possible, however there are actually many ways to make it happen that they never consider. Ask for a change of role, transfer to a department or sister company which is related in your passion, switch to your chosen industry while still making use of your prior experience, have full on career change, be an entrepreneur in your area of interest etc. All these are possible alternatives, however most people have never even considered it.

Career goal setting

Set long term and short term career goals. Think about and set your long term goal for each category. Then proceed to set short term goals of those categories. These short term goals are the incremental steps you must take to reach your long term goal.

Your long term goal can range from 1 year to 15, 20 years. It all depends on what the goal is. Be flexible to change your goals if you later discover that it is not what you really want. On the other hand, don’t change your goals all the time. Striking a balance is the objective here.

After you have achieved each goal, celebrate! Reward yourself for the good job done. Then continue to set new goals. We don’t want to get complacent here. No matter how far you’ve climbed, there’s always a higher mountain somewhere.

Final thoughts….

Organizations nowadays are gearing more towards taking care of their staff’s needs. Gone are the days where employees just get a paycheck. With so much competition in the business world, employers are doing all they can to make sure that their employees are happy with their jobs.

Many companies have career development programs which caters to other aspects of job satisfaction such as professional development, growth, alignment of personal goals to organization goals, etc. So depending on where you work, your company may be able to help you achieve your career goals.

One a final note, you can use the goal setting forms template for your career goal setting. Just add in the relevant categories into the template and you’re good to go.

Wish you all the best and a great day ahead!