Where are you at in your career goals for 2023? Got them all set for yourself or are you one of those people who is trying to decide whether you’ll focus on your health, reading, or career for your 2023 goals right up until New Year’s Day. Well, what are you waiting for friend? I mean, I do understand that we’re only to mid-December and prime goal time is January. I want you to be prepared. Maybe your past career goals have been ho-hum or maybe you’ve never set a goal for your career. This year though, this was the year that helped you to realize that you needed to be more intentional about your career. This year you decided to make it count. That means that 2023 is the year that changes. Your 2023 goals are going to be something to get excited about.
This year, get specific, get aligned, and get after it. Make consistent actionable progress toward what you want. Are you already ready for it? If you know where you’re going but just need the little nudge to make the changes you want to see in your life, check out Challengers. Challengers is a goal achievement mini course that will take you from dreaming about any goal to accomplishing it. If you know what you want and just need the accountability to get there, skip the rest of this post and head to Challengers to sign up.
Wait, wait my 2023 goals aren’t quite ready yet
If you’re feeling like I skipped a step, the rest of this post is for you. Let’s talk about how create your career goals in 2023 so you’re ready to make progress on them right out of the gate. Like I mentioned before, this year we’re going to get specific, get aligned, and get after it.
Knowing what you want
You have to know what you want and why to set great goals and achieve them. If you’re thinking your goal is advancing at work and that is where it ends, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Now if your ultimate goal is to lead X team, or lead a project, or even learn more about ____ discipline, you’re getting closer. Start thinking about why you want it. So, even it was a promotion you wanted, go further, what role and why? If you don’t understand what you’re running after and why you’ll fall off. Even if it’s a great goal, you’ll get distracted by other shiny things that pop up. More likely than that though, if you’re not digging into why the odds are you won’t set a really useful goal. It’s ok to be just a little squishy here but you have to have the general idea.
Let’s use me and my goal as an example. For many years now I have wanted to lead of leaders. That sounds good right? To lead leaders means I’m not only guiding people well at work but developing them in a way that supports them in their ability to lead as well. I pursue that because I firmly believe everyone has the capacity to lead in their own style and but not every person or every style is supported. Squishy yet solid direction right there, like a stress ball, but we need to go further to create an actual goal.
Get specific
Now that you have a general idea of where you want to go, let’s narrow it down. Perhaps you wanted to make more money and that was your directional, stress ball, version. How much money do you want to make? How do you want to earn that money? Are you looking to get promoted in your role? Do you want to change jobs or employers? Is a side business or investment the way to go? If those questions feel overwhelming, look back to your why. Why you want to achieve your 2023 goals will help direct the how.
For example, if you’re looking to make an extra $2,000 for a vacation with your kids, that could be a temporary WFH second job for a couple months. Now, if the goal is actually to have that extra $2,000 annually to spend more time with your family. The time away required for a second job might not be worth it. You might want to focus on a more long-term strategy like a promotion. If you’re looking for that same $2,000 to support your professional development or education, is there a way to negotiate this with your current employer?
Let’s look back at our example
I wanted to lead leaders, lovely. Which leaders and when? How did I want to accomplish that? Does that mean physically driving a group of senior citizen charity workers to a thank you bingo night? No, it does not. So, what does it mean? It means instilling complex leadership skills into people in more junior level positions. I want to foster strategic thinking, growth mindset, the ability to understand and apply feedback, and large scale, multiple variable problem solving into individuals and team leaders. I can accomplish that by working with increasingly senior level employees to develop these capabilities, and in time, the skill of teaching it to others. So based on that how, I’m looking for a promotion. The goal is to get to the next level of people leadership.
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Get aligned
This step is the most fun. When you get aligned with your 2023 goals you correlate your actions with what you’re trying to accomplish. Alignment with your daily actions and your goals clarifies where you say yes, and where you say no in life. To achieve the goal of proficiency in the basics of data analytics, align your actions to spend more time there. So you say no to planning the team get together this month. Then you say yes, or even request to, help review reports and trends.
You could even take your practice outside of work. For our data analytics example, offer to analyze the past 3 years budget of your schools PTO or other organization or club you’re a part of. Heck, you could certainly analyze your own personal numbers too. Say yes to practicing analysis on credit card spending, screen time frequency, or your resting heart rate for the past month. Maybe then you’re saying no to online shopping, social media scrolling, or a Netflix binge.
Get after it
This is the step where we get out of our heads and start working. I mean it. Go do the thing. You have to take the first step. Make the first phone call. Set the first meeting. Execute on the project plan. Pull out the dang spreadsheet. Too many people make the plan and set that carefully crafted outline in the drawer or in the folder on their desktop never to be seen again. Don’t be one of them. If you’ve made a strong plan, go and execute. If you’re feeling like you have an idea but could you a little more support, now is the time to head over to Challengers for the daily prompts of this week-long minicourse that will help you build your action muscle and facilitate change. You got this friend.