Setting Goals

Work takes up a large chunk of your life, so job satisfaction is important. Achieving it doesn’t necessarily mean changing job, it could just be a matter of broadening your existing role. Knowing what you enjoy and want to achieve will help ensure you’re in the right job. If you’re in the right job, you’re more likely to succeed at what you do.

Examining your ambitions

Getting a clear view of your ambitions is not quite as easy as it seems. First, you may have arrived where you are more by chance than by design and it can be hard to avoid being influenced by your current situation. So, if you are working in sales, you may not look beyond a future in which you progress through the ranks to become sales manager and then sales director. Second, you will have family ties or other responsibilities that limit your freedom to follow your dreams. Third, your “ideal” job will change over time as you develop skills and experience.

Looking at the future

There are many ways to look systematically at your career and life goals. Some prefer to work with a coach—an objective, sympathetic, and experienced person who can help identify directions for progress. Others favor less formal consultation with their colleagues or peers, but it is equally valid to work through the options on your own. Indeed, the question is so central that it is worth applying more than one approach and repeating the analysis from time to time as your circumstances change.

Visualizing the way

Visualization is a technique that can help you clarify your goals. Set aside some time to sit undisturbed and relaxed. Picture yourself at various points in the future, say in three, five, and ten years’ time. Think graphically and generate images of your ideal world, asking yourself questions such as:

Note down your thoughts and assess the picture that emerges against fixed constraints, such as your obligations to family.

Now reflect on the results. How can you work toward being where you would like to be? This process is not intended to make you dissatisfied with your present circumstances, but to open your eyes to new possibilities.

• Where will I be living?

• What job will I have?

• What type of organization will I be working in?

• Will I own and be running my own business?

• What will I be doing on a day-to-day basis?

• Will I have a team working for me or will I be a specialist?

• Will I be commuting or working from home, perhaps?

• What will my interests be?

Discover what is important to you