Life passes quickly. If you’re not paying attention, years can disappear while you trudge through your day-to-day routine. To really make career progress, you need to set career goals and work every day to achieve them.
Sorry to depress you. But attaining career satisfaction is hard. One study showed that more than half of workers (52%) say they are unhappy at work. Translation: just finding a job you like is a coin flip.
Much of this dissatisfaction can be traced back to stalled careers. A separate study indicated that more than three out of four workers (76%) are looking for chances to expand their careers. Finding ways to do that will not only lead to higher-paying jobs. It will also increase your personal satisfaction.
So how do you split that difference? How do you push your professional development with objectives that you can actually achieve?
Three Tips for Setting Achievable Career Goals
1. Start with Long-Term Objectives and Work Backwards
Not every career move takes you closer to a better situation. Without a clearly defined objective, you end up churning through gigs, making one lateral move after another.
Before making any near-term decisions, settle on a long-term plan. Even if the details remain hazy, at least understand where you want to end up a few years down the road. That will give a benchmark to create more concrete goals that you can achieve much sooner.
2. Create a Timeline of Mini-Goals
Once you have a grand objective in mind, it’s time to work out a more detailed plan. It’s like looking up driving directions once you choose a destination. Your timeline will provide the turn-by-turn necessary to actualize your ultimate career ambitions.
It’s important to keep a few things in mind as you go through this process.
Get Specific
The more detailed your plan, the easier it will be to track your progress. Clearly define what you want to achieve. Also, combine your general hopes with quantitative, measurable outcomes.
Set Deadlines
Goals aren’t just about the “what.” The “when” plays a big part as well. These deadlines will help push you towards your goal.
Set targets like finishing a selected task by the end of the year or the end of the week, whatever makes sense for the particular ambition. Also, the more fine-tuned your timeline, the easier it will be to reach your short-term goals.
Write Down Your Intermediate Goals
Yes, this is basically a “to do” list. Just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it won’t work. Rather, the goal here is to add chunks of your long-term career objectives to your daily routine.
Squeezed between “go shopping” and “do the laundry,” you’ll find your networking target or the skills class you’re taking at the community college. Writing down the items will help you make them part of your day-to-day schedule.
3. Talk to People Around You
The more you know about a destination, the easier it is to travel there. This concept works for your career objectives as well.
Gather information from those around you. Talk to your bosses, coworkers, and professional contacts, as well as your friends and family. They can give you advice and insight to ease your journey.
This strategy lets you tap into your network. Talking to people enlists them in your longer-term goals. These connections will be more likely to help you down the road because they feel more invested in your success.
At the same time, you can stumble into unexpected job opportunities. A conversation can easily blossom into a chance to achieve one of your career ambitions. Talking about your goals opens up your possibilities.
Ready To Take Your Career To The Next Level? Hiregy Can Help!
Talking to an expert can help too. A top recruiter, like Hiregy, can put you on the perfect path to reach your long-term goals.
Contact Hiregy today to learn more.