In building a career path, intentional goal-setting is a must. Doing this helps you allocate your time and resources more efficiently to achieve the goals you’ve set for yourself. Otherwise, having no clear career roadmap may hinder you from getting the results you want and need. As challenging as it may seem, setting your goals can be easier if you follow a certain set of criteria or framework. With that, coming up with SMART goals can help you be one step closer to your success.

Defining and Setting SMART Goals

Why is setting goals important? How can this process help me succeed in my career?

Being able to set goals is part of a long-term plan for both your personal and professional development. This process helps you form habits, guides your focus, and sustains your drive to achieve things. More so, be conscious in setting your goals, as these will play a vital role in determining your career success. Hence, you have to be SMART about it.

What makes a SMART goal? How can I set one?

The SMART goals model is said to have been developed by Peter Drucker (1955) and G.T. Doran (1991).

For employees, managers, and organizations, SMART goal-setting allows them to create, track, and turn their objectives into results. The acronym SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based. These represent how the process can help you create clear and trackable goals.

The role of a manager is crucial in helping employees set, understand, and accomplish their goals. However, you must have enough knowledge to set goals on your own. As we break down each of the SMART goals, heed and use this framework to help you level up your goal-setting!

Specific Goals

Avoid setting unclear goals as these can cause you to be unsure of how you must do your work. Hence, you’ll be far from reaching your goals. Instead, strive to come up with those that describe certain results you desire. Make them detailed and focused to help you better understand how you can achieve them.

Also, coming up with vague goals can hinder the increase in your productivity.

Now, what questions should you ask yourself to check if your goals are specific? Here are some of them:

Are my goals precise? What outcomes do we aim to achieve? What strategies should I follow?

Measurable Goals

Managers and employees must have a common grasp of the metrics used to check if the set goals are achieved. As an employee or team member, your goals must be aligned with key performance indicators (KPIs) set by the company or by your immediate leader. These KPIs help determine and measure an achievement or outcome relating to a percentage, a frequency, rate, or number.

Ultimately, doing this will let you carry out a stellar work performance and achieve your goals more efficiently. Further, ask yourself these:

Can I measure the success of my goals through quantity or quality? What criteria should I follow to track my goal achievement progress? How will I know if significant progress has occurred?

Attainable Goals

For a worthwhile goal-setting, your goals must be big enough to push yourself to strive hard. However, you still have to make sure they’re realistic for you. Consider a feasible path with a healthy balance of challenging yourself and your abilities.

With that, how can you ensure that your goals are attainable? Let these help you find out:

Are my goals doable given the time and resources I have? How can my manager or leader support me in achieving my goals? Does my goal allow me to challenge my ability?

Relevant Goals

Align your goals with your long-term plans both for your personal and professional success. Match them with your core values, as much as you can. This can help you avoid getting frustrated and instead maintain your motivation toward achieving your goals.

Also, make sure your goals align with your desired career path by reflecting on these questions:

Can my goal contribute to my personal growth? What does this goal mean to my team? How can it support the overall success of the business?

Time-Based Goals

Set deadlines or timeframes! You can break down your long-term goals into shorter intervals for them to be more manageable and easier to track.

Doing this also allows you to hold yourself accountable in measuring your goals regularly. To check if you have time-based goals, review these points:

In achieving the goals, is there an agreed date? Is the target date in line with the quality of the goal rather than just for the sake of it being attained? Is the timeline feasible?

Further, if you’re that someone who always wants to take things up a notch, then you may try to upgrade your SMART goals! Some authors have expanded the SMART goal-setting framework into SMARTER, to include Evaluated and Readjusted. True enough, you also have to make time to sit down, reflect, and assess if your set SMART goals are still in line with your desired career path. Likewise, if after gauging your set goals you find that it’s time to make new ones, you can readjust them to fit your revised career roadmap. #careeradvice #smartgoals #goalsetting

Do you want to work in a stress-free workplace? Check out the signs of a happy work setting through this infographic from Resume Professional Writers.

1. Positive Ambience A happy workplace exudes positive energy. Instead of showing off their grumpy faces, staff in these companies chat and laugh while they work.

2. Clear Communication In a stress-free workplace, communication is free-flowing. Everybody is open and willing to share important details. Above all, they know what goes on the work front.

3. Low Staff Turnover Employees who love their workplace will never think of leaving it. They are happy with their working time and the company’s management system.

4. Opportunities to Grow Besides offering opportunities to advance and grow, employers in a happy workplace support and push their worker’s creative capacity. Managers in such firms instill leadership skills in their staffs by delegating vital tasks, leveraging their talents, and seeking their inputs.

5. Supportive Colleagues Employees in a stress-free workplace are happy when new people join their team. When somebody applies for a promotion, both the team leaders and the group support the decision.

6. No Gossiping Employers and employees working in a happy workplace hate gossiping. They prefer openly discussing their views with their peers to talking behind their colleagues’ back.

Stress-Free Workplace Statistics You Should Know – A stress-free workplace makes employers take 10 times fewer sick days than unhappy, stressed bosses. – Stress-free workers are 12 percent more productive. – The brain works much better when workers are positive. – Salespeople in a stress-free workplace produce 37 percent greater sales. – Stress-free firms with happy workers outdo the competition by 20 percent. #motivation #anxiety #advice #stress #careeradvice #stressful

If you are in search of a job now, keep count of the negative job traits you should omit and positive behaviors you should flaunt in your resume. This can help you create a more defined statement and a stronger career profile that puts you ahead of your rivals.

Positive Job Attitudes

Respectful Staff should be courteous not only to their higher-ups but, likewise, to their clients and workmates. They should treat others politely and professionally even when they disagree with their reasons and points of view.

Committed Bosses highly value employees who commit to their goals, initiatives, and positions. They adore those who are willing to fulfill their duties and develop ideas to make the company and its services better.

Innovative Innovative workers are those who think differently and find new ways to carry out existing tasks and goals. Though other people doubt their ideas, they do not lose hope and always give their proposals a shot.

Helpful Employers love working with engaged, devoted, and helpful staff. They hail those who resolve client issues quickly and those who aid fellow workers in achieving business goals.

Negative Job Attitudes

Job Insecurity The fear of losing one’s job can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. It does not only frustrate the employee but also affect other people in the workplace. It can hinder the workers’ output and lead him toward losing his/her job.

Lack of Confidence Employees who are doubtful of their skills often harm their jobs because of their hazy reasoning. They put less effort to their tasks, feel frustrated, and influence their workmates to think the same.

Haughtiness Haughtiness happens when an employee sees himself/herself as generally superior to others. Such all-knowing and pompous people can create a wedge between the team and urge the members to take sides.

Hatred of Work People who hate their jobs are often mediocre, critical, and indifferent. They often complain and blame others for their own faults. This negative attitude affects not only their colleagues but also the company in general.

Do you hold any of these positive and negative attitudes at work? Make sure you highlight the good traits and ditch the bad ones. Seek and expert’s help or visit our website for updated and effective sales and marketing resume examples. #motivation #wordsofadvice #inspiration #careeradvice

Engagement with Seniors is so vitally important and this is what I specialize in, including Seniors with Dementia & Alzheimer’s. #seniors #healthcare #retiree #careeradvice #inspiration

hello everyone i have been looking for a job as everyone is these days. But in particular i will be moving in with my fiance perty soon. I have been applying for jobs.... but so far no responce i feel helpless sometimes... but again i have no idea where to start again. its been almost three years since i got a job on my own.... i do not know what to do..... #careeradvice #advice

If this is you, understand that this is a normal and actually a healthy place to be.

Who’s to say we’re supposed to always have next steps 100% figured out?

If you’re not sure what you want to do, I’m guessing there’s a good chance that you DON’T want to do what you’re doing now or what you just left?

Great!

Instead of trying to think or guess what you can do next, utilize the information that is already out there to help you.

Sites like this one, Indeed, among others have tons of job descriptions. Simply type in some keywords that illustrate the kind of work you would like to do (i.e. Customer Service, Training, Account Management) and see what comes up.

You are simply using the job descriptions that populate to help you get a sense of what types of roles are out there.

Read them casually and when you see something within those roles that interests you, insert THOSE keywords and keep searching.

As you do this, the picture will become clearer: you will find roles that interest you and roles that do not. Both are valuable.

Finally, once you have some ideas for your next step, find folks who are already working in those roles and see if they’d be willing to talk to you so you can learn even more and get the full story.

#jobsearch #jobsearchtips #careeradvice #jobseeker