Let's Talk Career: Goal Setting

Goal Setting

Tips to Set and Achieve Even Your Wildest Dreams

Recently in my 9-5 (and by recently, I mean I should be writing them right now), we were instructed to set some professional goals to achieve by the end of 2017. And as it does every six months, it got me thinking of the process of setting those goals. The word "Goals" is always so loaded and means different things to different people. It's easy to sit down and day dream about what you want to achieve by the end of a certain period of time. It's another issue entirely to set yourself and your goals up for success. Below, I've outlined my top 6 tips for setting and achieving my goals, professionally and otherwise!

Determine What You Really Want

To set and achieve a goal, you have to first decide what you want. Not just what would be cool, but what you really want to achieve. In the scale of weight loss, how much do you really want to lose? If you're revenue focused, how much do you really want to make? How many new clients do you really want to obtain? I'm all about dreaming big here, swinging for the fences. No mountain too high in this case. And when you write down the two or three things you really want, it's time to scale it back (bear with me here).

Scale it Back and Make it Attainable

Swinging for the fences and dreaming big is so important. Don't let anyone tell you differently. How can you expect to progress or move forward if you don't have a dream? With that in mind, you can't forget that achieving your dreams is the sum of a series of accomplishments, aka goals. So to achieve the big picture, you have to set your sites on milestones along the way. Those will be your goals. Set a roadmap to the top and get to stepping!

Give Yourself a Deadline

Goals will never move to accomplishments if you never move to achieve them. Tear through procrastination by putting yourself on a realistic timer. Remind yourself of that deadline every so often to keep yourself motivated (and light a much needed fire under your behind). Put it in a place you can see it. Let time hold you accountable. It's there, never stopping so you may as well wrangle it and use it to your advantage.

Outline Your Progression

Another way to keep yourself accountable is to set a timeline to achieve your goals. Break your smaller goal down even further into mini milestones. It's like setting a pace on a run. If you'd like to go as far as set deadlines for those as well, do so! List the steps you need to take to move (if ever so slightly) toward your goal.

Set Rewards for Those Milestones

This may be a hot button topic, but I'm a big proponent of rewarding yourself for achieving your goals, no matter how small! For writing the first chapter of your book you reward yourself with a new makeup brush, do it to it! A pay-for-performance based system can be so valuable on those days when you simply can't get motivated. A bit of materialism (in the cases of the makeup brush) means nothing if it helps keep your head down and moving toward your goal.

Enjoy Your Success

When it is all said and done; when at the end of the year, month, week, DAY (you know we've all had those days when you need that feeling of accomplishment ASAP), don't forget to pat yourself on the back. Brag on yourself a little bit. Document how you feel so you can look back on it when you're in the thick of your next goal journey. Brag on yourself (you know I'm all about some self-love, y'all). Now is the time to boast, to be grateful for your own success!
Setting goals is time honored and terrifying. At first glance, it's an arbitrary, daunting task that seems to set you up for failure. Change that attitude, and make those goals the pillars on which you build your life. Build your legacy, one accomplished goal at a time.

Live Loudly, Friends!