Formulating Career Goals & Objectives - The SMART Method
The Elevate Team - 5 minute read
We all have dreams and aspirations, but for most people this is where it ends. Converting dreams and aspirations into reality requires formulating, implementing and executing career goals and objectives in a sequenced order to achieve an end result. A goal without a plan is just a wish!
It's no secret that focus is crucial in driving a successful career. This is achieved by having a road map of milestones. Milestones are goals and objectives that represent incremental achievements towards an ultimate end goal. In this instance we are referring to macro goals for your career.
Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation, while allowing you to have a clear path to a defined end point.
Research has found that setting strong goals boosts performance by motivating people to increase their effort, inducing stronger focus and helping them prioritize what’s important.
This sounds obvious but outside of the exceptional few, most of us start our careers with an idea but rarely invest the time to evaluate, review and adapt our personal career strategies over time.
Not setting goals is equivalent to trying to navigate across the country without a Map App, or some form of directions.
The SMART acronym or method stands for specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and time-bound. The concepts development is attributed to Peter Drucker and explored in his Management by Objectives framework.
Specific - What do you want to accomplish?
Measurable - How will you know when your goal is achieved?
Actionable - Do you have the skills and experience to achieve the goal? What resources do you require?
Realistic - How relevant is this goal to your overall objective? Is it achievable in the context of your current situation, resources, skills and experience?
Time-bound - set a realistic time frame to achieve the goal considering the above.
Having a clear set of goals that meet the SMART criteria enables you to have purpose, focus and direction.
To begin use these steps in creating a personal road map for your career:
- Create a vision - where do you ultimately want to be?
- Develop a plan - how to get from your present situation to your ultimate goal
- Measure your progress - keep track of your progress against your plan
- Review - has anything changed? Adapt your plan as and when required.
To be effective your vision needs to be specific and clearly defined.
For instance; become known as the best project manager in a certain industry, obtain the job of Creative Director at a digital marketing agency, be the VP of Finance at a global Investment Bank.
Researching people who have already achieved the same ultimate goal will provide insight into a potential career path to your goal. Remember this can be broad strokes for the time being and revised in the regular review process as opportunities arise or your work environment changes.
It's crucial that goals and objectives are always SMART - specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and time-bound. Without this you essentially have an idea or concept with little chance of achieving the outcome.
The periodic review process allows you to modify your plan, goals and objectives to reflect your changing priorities and experience.
The following guidelines will help you to set effective, achievable goals:
- Set realistic goals – It's important to set goals that you can achieve. Employers, parents, media, or society and a host of others can set unrealistic goals for you. They will often do this in ignorance of your own desires and ambitions. When setting your lifetime goals, make them challenging and exciting. Base them on your strengths but make them relevant to you and ultimately achievable.
- Be precise – Specify clear goals with dates and times to measure achievement. Neglecting this will make it difficult to track your progress and achieve your goal.
- Use a Top Down approach - Set your lifetime goals first. Then, set a ten year and five-year plan of smaller goals that you need to achieve if you are to reach your lifetime plan.
Creating and executing a career strategy is straightforward when using the SMART process of defining goals and objectives to map out the way forward.
Implementing your career goals and objectives in your daily work life will allow you to identify opportunities to gain the experience and skills necessary in working towards your ultimate objective.
Sharing your career goals with friends, colleagues, and manager creates an expectation for fulfillment. This will typically provide you with additional motivation to follow them through to the end.
Finally, Visualize your success in achieving the goals, objectives, milestones and ultimate career aspirations as part of the process of incrementally building on your achievements on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis.
Need help clarifying your purpose or direction? Get our complete insider track on kickstarting your career and other courses designed to give you an edge over the competition here.