Use This Career Goals Example to Build Your Success Road Map
Aha Moment: Does your career road map lead to greatness or mediocrity?
The goals you set for your life and career WILL make all the difference.
Without goals, your career can languish.
With career goals, you’ll have a defined path to get you from where you are now – to your future self.
The process of creating your destiny becomes even easier when you have career goals and examples to guide you.
In this blog, we’ll cover why you should create career expectations and how to reach them. Let’s get started.
Why goals matter
Professional athletes. Artists. Business people. Anyone who is ultimately successful in her field uses goals to get there.
When you set a goal, it gives you a vision for your future.
And ultimately, it will guide your short-term steps so that you can reach these goals.
In effect, with clearly defined steps, you won’t veer off the path – and into a hum-drum job that leads to nowhere.
Set your foundation
There are a few keys to setting successful goals. These involve first understanding how to set personal goals for your career.
Step 1: Get the picture
Start with the big-picture view of your career aspirations.
So, think about where you want to be in 5, 10 years. That’s your starting point.
These goals may be about your career, salary, or personal development.
Step 2: Move backwards
With this big target in mind, break down your goals into bite-sized chunks.
Think of these as a series of smaller, progressive targets you need to hit in order to move forward.
Try creating a five-year plan, then break those milestones up even further, into 2-years, 1-year and 6-month plans.
With these goals in hand, you’ll need a plan of attack for how to proceed.
Next, break your goals up into daily tasks, so you’ll feel like you are accomplishing them and working toward your future.
You’ll be able to see it in black and white!
Step 3: Get to work!
With your goals in place, all that’s left to do is to take action!
Create SMART goals
Useful goals are the smartest goals.
If you’ve been through a personal development workshop or read a book about setting goals, you’ve probably heard about SMART goals. These are:
Via Hubspot Academy
Keeping these principles in mind, these career goals examples will help you define your own:
Vague
“I’d like to be president of my company.” (This goal is too vague, focused on outcomes, not performance.)
SMART
“I’d like to be in a management position in 5 years.” (This goal is specific, focused on performance, not outcomes.)
Vague
“I’d like to work for myself one day.” (This goal is too vague, focused on aspiration not tangible result.)
SMART
“I’d like to run a business offering IT strategy consulting services to help companies secure their data.” (This goal is specific.)
Vague
“I want to take on a new role in my company.” (This goal is too vague and not focused on performance.)
SMART
“I would like to transition from Finance to a Marketing Management position in two years, which will allow me to use my MBA Management and Strategy skills to help our company grow sales.” (This goal is specific, tangible, and performance-oriented.)
With SMART goals that span the next week and next decades of your career, you’ll be in a position to enjoy your accomplishments and success.
Use these career goals examples to get started, and let the sky be the limit in terms of what you want to achieve.
Just remember that with success comes a lot of hard work and dedication.
If you’d like a mentor to walk you through personal development milestones like setting career goals, then it’s time to get a career coach!
