Goal setting is never a bad move. Goal setting to further advance your professional position – even better!
To-Do lists and creating Intentions are something I’ve always been a fan of, but often I’ve not been able to bring to fruition – until recently.
SMART goals—specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound—help to streamline your progress and maintain focus in our easily distracting modern world.
What can often happen however, is the goals you’ve enthusiastically set yourself in your January “New Year, New Me” Resolution phase (we’ve all been there… I’m SO guilty!) can become unachievable in the real world, which in turn can leave you lacking the drive and enthusiasm you had when you initially set out on your quest to better yourself.
- When setting professional goals, you need to be specific. For instance, if you’d love to become bilingual for the potential future career opportunities in your industry, you need to research your field to determine the most relevant language for your line of work.
- It also helps to make sure your goals are measurable by including specific numeric targets, like “Learn five new Spanish words per week” for example. This makes progress tracking easier and breaks down the tasks needed to achieve your goal effectively.
- Try to ensure your goals are attainable in order to avoid them becoming more of a pipe dream than something that’s actually achievable to you. Adjust them according to your abilities to ensure you can commit.
- Keep goals relevant to your objectives. For example, focus on learning job-specific vocabulary if you’re aiming to become an “International Marketing Executive” proficient in Spanish.
- Set time frames for goals to enhance your motivation and accountability. If you give yourself a whole year, you may procrastinate on the goal. However this comes back to attainability and if your goal is not achievable within say, the first quarter of your working year; then it would feel too unrealistic to achieve.
A goal I set myself this year was to grow my LinkedIn Content Performance by 100% in the first 90 days of starting my role here at Superfly. When I started my career in Marketing, I knew I needed to grow my network, raise the profile of my Personal Brand and connect with other marketing professionals. I identified that in order to do this I needed to commit to increasing my content posting, which was actually easily attainable in a role I have immediately felt comfortable and passionate in! 90 days later and I’ve surprisingly been able to grow it by a whopping 330% since my start date!
My achievement just proves that if you put your mind to something with realistic outcomes and timeframes in mind, then professional goals are totally 100% achievable.
Why not give this a go and drop me a message or comment on LinkedIn if you managed to achieve your goal too!