ALT-1 The Importance of Establishing Career Goals
Career goals provide a measurable target of what it is that you want to achieve in your working life. Constructed around both the short and long-term, career goals can be set on an entirely individual basis, or can be agreed with your line manager or employer in a way that works to mutual advantage.
Career goals are not something that is set once and then left in stone. As part of any career development plan, your goals should be reviewed on an ongoing basis. Ideally, as certain goals are achieved, new ones should replace them, but it may also be the case that some of them are no longer appropriate or required, and therefore new goals need to be set to replace them. The important thing is that you are working to a series of goals at any one time. There are a number of reasons for this.
You will achieve much more in your career
With a set of structured, measurable career goals, you will achieve much more in your career than if you just played things by ear, as they happen. Targets and objectives give you something tangible to work towards, and can break down longer-term aspirations into bite-sized chunks of work. For example, your long term aim might be to run your own business. That could be a long way away from what you are doing now. A series of career goals can plug the gap between now and then, identifying the opportunities and experience that you need to establish yourself in business in the future.
Career goals can help you clarify your aims
By going through the process of setting career goals, many individuals gain a much clearer view about what it is that they want to do. The goal-setting process forces individuals to ask themselves questions about their real intentions and can cut through some of the romance of certain career choices. As children, nearly everybody had a dream about being an astronaut or a train driver, but that was based only on a romantic notion of how much fun that would be. As an adult, career goals help you clarify your strengths and aspirations and work towards something more realistic (though in some cases, of course, that could still be as a train driver or astronaut).
Career goals help to motivate you
Most individuals experience dips in their career when they feel demotivated or as though things are not going as well as they would like. Career goals can see you through these periods. They can give you a chance to focus on what it is that you are trying to do, shifting targets and aims if appropriate to get you back on track. Without specific goals and targets, your career will be very unstructured and it will be very easy to feel as though things are not going well. The measurable nature of career goals gives you something to refer to at all times to help you decide whether you are where you think you need to be. Career goals can greatly reduce stress and anxiety because you have a clear view of the longer-term picture.
Career goals give you something to share easily with others
As you work through your career, you will certainly work for multiple managers or employers. You may have different mentors and you will certainly have different peers. Throughout this change, career goals can offer you a level of consistency that ties everything together. You can review the same goals and plans with different people, taking in a different perspective each time, but still remaining focused on the same achievements. Your career goals bind together all the other changes in your working life and maintain a sense of achievement and direction.
So many individuals work without ever really establishing career goals, but the chances are that they greatly under-realise their potential. Career goals are simple, but very useful tools that can help manage careers at any level and will ensure that individuals achieve the very best that they are capable of.
