We often believe that if we are motivated enough or disciplined enough, we will achieve our goals. However, reality is, we are human beings, living in a very fast-paced era. Relying solely on your ability to wake up every day excited to invest effort in your goals, will eventually lead to failure or half-achievements. Your career plan need to specifically cater to your lifestyle and commitment limitations.
“life is made up of millions of tiny daily decisions.” Great achievements are never achieved by big grand steps, they are made by those who take the decision every single day to force themselves to wake up at 4:00 am to build the startup they want (to name one example).
If you are struggling to achieve your career—or personal—goals, it is not because you are weak-willed, it is because you aren’t making it easy for yourself to progress. That’s what this article will help you achieve.
Table of Contents
1. Go from result to career plan
Before we begin, you need to make sure of one thing: Are your goals current? Are you sure you aren’t working from an old script?
Sometimes we don’t notice that we want or are trying to achieve goals we outgrew a long time ago. It’s human nature to focus on what’s lacking and obsess over its absence from our lives.
I came across a very interesting study by Leadership IQ, where 3,995 goal-setting employees were surveyed in 2021. One of the findings was that only 14% of participants think their goals will help them achieve greater things in life. Around 36% believe their current efforts will serve on some level their life goals.
Spend a few moments thinking about your bigger life; how do you see your ideal lifestyle? What would make you happy? Your lifestyle is hugely impacted by your career choices and goals. Yes, there’s a new trend led by GenZ to separate your work from one’s personal life, but that’s not reality, at least in my own experience. You can’t have a demanding and stressful job, or struggle daily due to an ill-suited job description and be completely okay after 5:00 pm. Life doesn’t work that way.
Now write down your definition of your ideal lifestyle in detail. Explain your day-to-day activities on a perfect mid-week day.
Based on that, explain your ideal career in excruciating detail. In a perfect world,
- What does your daily job looks like?
- Why you wake up and get excited?
- What does a perfect workday look like to you?
- What kind of professional and personal reward do you want?
Now, using your answers to the above, define your ultimate career goal. Maybe you discovered that it was starting your own business. Or you may notice that while you thought your goal was to be a department head, the tasks versus the reward you seek fit better with a consultancy-style job. You may have discovered that yes your goals are exactly what you want from life.
In both cases, congratulations! You now know exactly what your ultimate career goal is.
2. The 100-day career plan
Since everything is made up of little decisions, as the above saying goes. Your next step is to break down your goal into tiny milestones. To do that we will follow an old-school approach of establishing SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound.
Working back from your ultimate career goal, write down at least one achievable goal that you can complete within the next three months.
The goal you set should be specific enough, allowing you to measure your percentage of progress. It should be realistic and achievable with the current resources you have.
Yes, some parts of your goals may rely on external influences, but start with what you can definitely achieve. The closer you get to your goals, the more likely external factors will work in your favor.
Once you are done with your short-term plan, you can either plan for the upcoming six months, year, and so on. However, I prefer that you don’t. You know what you ultimately want and what you can do about it today.
Wait until you accomplish your 100-day plan and from your reality and results then plan the following months. Life is changing too fast for long-term plans to be accurate.
3. You know someone who can help you
Yes, right at this moment. One of your colleagues, friends, business contacts can help you in one way or another. It takes a village to grow, being open to help makes your journey much easier and shorter.
Do you know anyone who achieved your ultimate career plan or goal? If yes, invite them for coffee—or a COVID-conscious virtual chat.
Prepare a list of questions beforehand and make use of the opportunity to get insights into everything, such as their mistakes, pitfalls to avoid, lucky breaks, shortcuts, must-dos … etc.
Make sure to also scan your network for contacts who can help you one way or another. It doesn’t have to be an immediate contact, a friend of a friend may be willing to help you. I once had the husband of a business client walk me through a technical glitch. I simply asked for help and it worked out.
4. Reward yourself for milestones
If you think you are a self-motivated grown-up, you thought wrong. Short-term rewards are subconsciously highly motivating. If you promise yourself a massage when you successfully pitch a client or accomplish the difficult project you are dreading, you will get it done to get your reward.
5. Visualize to achieve the career plan
Mark Murphy, the owner of LeadershipIQ, wrote in Forbes about the above-mentioned 2021 study his company conducted. One of his core findings was the participants’ lack of clarity and visualization when it came to goal setting.
The study subjects were asked to rate their level of agreement with the following statement: “My goal is so vividly described in written form (including pictures, photos, drawings, etc.) that I could literally show it to other people and they would know exactly what I’m trying to achieve.” Unfortunately, less than 20% of the subjects fully agreed with the statement.
The more you could visualize your goal, the closer you are to achieving it. You don’t have to share it with others but it should be vividly clear to you. Perhaps that’s why vision boards are very popular.
Another trick is to visualize your progress. If you can quantifiably measure your goal then draw a chart where you are currently at point A and your ultimate goal is at point B. Record every progress you make on the chart, and like the above reward system, your subconscious mind will seek the reward of the “visual progress” it is achieving. The important thing is to keep the chart somewhere where you see it every day.
How about if your goal isn’t quantifiable? Then try this trick:
- Get two jars, ideally identical
- Fill the first with stones or folded papers, each representing one of your small milestones
- With every achievement, no matter how small, move one stone or folded paper to the other jar.
- Of course, also keep the jars in a place where you will see them daily. Your work desk, for example.
The pitfall many fall in
One final piece of advice is to never treat career development as a linear process. Both life and career don’t work that way.
Be mentally and emotionally ready for delays, for everything going wrong, for extremely slow progress. The ones who accomplish goals aren’t the ones who just put in the work, read the right books, or do the right mediation, but rather the ones that keep trying a million solutions until one works.
About Me
Hi, there. I am Lin. Together with my husband and two kids, we live in the beautiful Netherlands in Europe. I am dedicated to self-development, creating quality time for the whole family, and fully supporting kids with their potentials and possibilities with all I have learned from engineering, MBA, and 10+ years of working experience in the energy sector.
