It’s a new year, time for making plans and setting goals for your health, relationships and lifestyle; but what about your career? Having a clear vision of what you want to achieve in your working life is key to achieving your goals and enjoying success. Do you know what you want your future to look like?
Why Set Goals?
Top-level athletes, successful business-people and achievers in all fields all set goals. Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation. It focuses your acquisition of knowledge, and helps you to organize your time and your resources so that you can make the very most of your career.
Here are some steps you can take to help you articulate your vision statement for your career which will help you achieve your goals.
• Set aside some time.
Creating a vision for your career cannot and should not be rushed. After all, you are going to be spending the majority of your time at work, so you may as well spend some careful consideration when planning.
• Review your goals and values: Write or type out what you are currently doing and what is important to you for a healthy working life.
• Long Term Goals: What do you enjoy doing? What are you good at, what type of work is important to you?
• Short Term Goals: What knowledge or skills do I need? What industry should I focus on?
• What would your career be like if you had the power to make it any way you wanted?
• Imagine yourself in the future at a point in which you have achieved great career success. What is it that you have accomplished? What does your life look like?
• Where would you like to be in your career in 5 years? In 10 years? In 15 years?
These are just a few simple questions to get your creative juices going. Once you start to express your feelings and thoughts about your career, you will start to see a plan form. Keep your statement nearby where you can read it regularly to inspire you. Revisit it often to make sure you are staying on track and to reinforce the image of you in our ideal career which will help you both consciously and subconsciously develop goals and action steps that will lead you to success. Have you created a Vision for your Career? Leave a comment here or head on over to our Facebook or LinkedIn pages, or tweet @marshallbcoach and share your experience!