2 Setting your goals

Throughout this course, you’ve been exploring what career resilience is and how you can build and enhance it. In Week 5, you looked briefly at setting goals when you considered the GROW model. This week, you’ll consider some goals and break them down into actions.

Figure _unit9.3.1 Figure 2

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This decorative photo shows a lightbox with the words ‘goal’, ‘plan’ and ‘action’ spelled out.

Figure 2

The key to effective goal setting is not to set yourself too many at once. If you have too many things to achieve, you can end up feeling overwhelmed and demotivated.

Another important element of goal setting is to make sure your goals are SMART. Watch this short MindTools video to find out more:

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Transcript: Video 2 How to set SMART goals

NARRATOR

Welcome to Mind Tools’ video learning series. How often do you set goals for yourself that somehow end up falling by the wayside? Chances are you set out with great intentions and loads of enthusiasm, but then, all of a sudden, you lose track of your goal. Perhaps you got distracted by the pressures and demands of daily life and work. Or maybe your goal was so overwhelming that you just didn’t know where to start. If you’re serious about increasing your goals though, you can increase chances of success by making them SMART. This means that your goals should be: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. Let’s look at each of these points in turn.

First, your goal should be specific. Be precise. Ask yourself: what do I want to accomplish? Why is this important? Who is involved? Where is it located? What resources will I need? And what restrictions might I encounter?

Next, your goal needs to be measurable. If you’re going for a promotion, for example, what training courses will you need to pass? How long will these take? And what length of experience will you need in your current role? Setting concrete objectives and deadlines like this can help you to measure your progress, and stay focused and motivated.

Thirdly, make your goal achievable. Your goal should stretch your abilities, but it should also never be out of reach. Ask yourself: how can I accomplish this goal? And how realistic is it?

Then, examine whether your goal is relevant. Make sure that it mattters to you, and to your organisation. Ask yourself: is this goal worthwhile? And is this the right time?

Finally, make your goal time-bound. Set a target date to work towards. When you have a deadline in place, it will be easier to focus on achieving your goal, and to keep other, less important tasks from sidetracking you.

When you frame your objectives as SMART goals, you take woolly thinking out of the equation, and replace it with clarity, focus and motivation. In short, you make it easier to achieve the things that matter most to you. To learn more about SMART goals, read the article that accompanies this video.

End transcript: Video 2 How to set SMART goals

Video 2 How to set SMART goals

Although there are some slightly different ways to define each letter in the word SMART, the MindTools team chooses one of the most widely recognised, which is:

• S = Specific
• M = Measurable
• A = Achievable
• R = Relevant
• T = Time-bound

Keep those categories in mind during the next section.