Creating Career Success: How To Deliberately Design Your Goals (Part 1)

This is part 1 of a three-part series.

You want to take your career to the next level and move beyond that survival mindset.  You’re ready to feel like you’re proactively creating versus scrambling and reacting. But, what do you want? Take a few minutes to really think about what YOU desire. Maybe you want to create teacher trainings or impactful retreats. Maybe you’re ready to get out of a survival mindset and stop scrambling. It’s time to think bigger about your career path and be deliberate about taking steps to get there.

It can feel scary to actually dream about and declare what you want.  What if you fail? Where do you even start? It often feels overwhelming to even THINK about your career dreams and goals.

Let’s start at the beginning:

The first step to achieving career success and happiness is being able to clearly articulate where you want to go. Most people don’t walk around thinking about what they really want and creating a plan to get there. If you want to achieve your goals, you actually do need to do the thinking and planning about what you truly want. Otherwise, your life is lived by default. Thinking and writing out your goals is the first step to making them happen. Your dreams and goals are your internal picture of the future. Everyone has them yet many are unconscious and based on personal history versus deliberately created.

Here are five tips for designing your goals and creating a career plan:

1. Your goals should be a stretch for you but achievable.  Many times we go from one extreme to the other when setting goals.  If you think too small, you probably won’t be excited to go for those dreams. On the other hand, if you design goals that aren’t realistic, most likely you will feel like it’s too much and set yourself up to fail.  
2. Put aside the “should’s” and other people’s opinions.  Often we set goals based on something we think we “should” do but either aren’t ready to do or it’s not truly what YOU want. Don’t set your goals based on someone else’s opinions or desires. Either of these scenarios will result in you having no real connection to the goal or why you’re even putting in the effort to achieve it.  
3. Focus on the positive versus limiting yourself a negative mindset.  You don’t want to create goals based on what you don’t want.  It is easier to envision change from a mindset of positivity of what already exists. This calls for you to be imaginative and push aside the limitations you may have created based on where you are right now.
4. Watch out for the mediocrity mindset. Settling for mediocrity is tempting. It’s easier and more comfortable to sit in “it’s not great but it’s not terrible”. We tolerate, justify and have a list of reasons why it’s OK to not reach for our greatest potential. I promise you weren’t put on this earth to be mediocre or live an “it’s just OK” life. Challenge the human tendency to just settle!
   
5. Share your goals with people in your life and who will be supportive. Steer clear of talking about your dreams with those who are prone to focus on the negative. Having positive people in your corner helps with accountability and support. Also the more you talk about your goals, the more likely you are to stay connected to them and follow through.

Action Step:

Take some time to think about what you really want and why. Take the time to research and investigate what you would need to do to get there. Let go of the negative and limiting internal chatter that may tell you it’s not realistic, too hard or you’re not good enough. Focus on deliberately designing goals that reflect what success looks like for YOU.

Stay tuned for the next instalment of this blog series, Taking Action!