How To Achieve Your Work Goals in 10 Steps
8 min read
Are you one of those people who struggles to set goals at work? Do you generally just go with the flow and do your assigned duties without any thought to broader initiatives that might help you enhance your skills and advance your career? If so, then you’re not alone. Many workers in today’s economy go through their entire careers without ever setting or achieving work goals; they simply do what they’re told and never give much thought to the things they need to do to move forward in their careers.
If you’re focused on specific career goals, however, that laissez-faire approach won’t help you obtain your objectives. Instead, you need to understand work goals and how to achieve them. In this post, we will provide a simple ten-step approach you can use to help you accomplish your work goals.
What are work goals?
First, it is important to understand work goals. These goals are short and long-term objectives that you set to further your career aims. They are milestones that help you track your progress as you pursue your broader career vision. Some people refer to them as professional goals since they include all those objectives that you may set to help you learn new skills, reach new levels of performance, and bolster your list of accomplishments.
Why is it important to focus on achieving work goals?
It is important to set and achieve work goals if you are interested in developing your career. Knowing how to set goals at work can enable you to chart a clear path to advancement while giving your work more meaning and purpose. With the right goals, you can ensure that you receive more than just a paycheck for your labor. You can also develop the skills and experiences you need to increase your value as an employee and prepare yourself for even better job opportunities.
Steps to help you achieve work goals
Goal setting at work can sometimes be difficult, especially if you’re unsure about how to begin that process. Fortunately, we’ve compiled an easy-to-follow strategy that you can use to help you with setting work goals.
1. Pick the right goals
The most important element of achieving work goals is to make sure that you’re setting the right objectives. To do that, you need to consider several factors:
What skills, knowledge, or performance achievements would contribute the most to your team and company?
How do those objectives align with your own career goals?
What does your manager think? Ask them to provide some guidance to help you identify things that they would like to see you learn or improve on.
If you can identify specific objectives that will enhance your performance, capabilities, value as an employee, and broader career goals, you’ll know that you’re on the right track.
2. Identify available support
As you think about the goals you want to set, ask yourself whether you’ll have the support you need to achieve those objectives. How will your efforts to achieve those goals impact your work-life balance? Will your family be supportive? What about your manager and colleagues? Is there someone you can reach out to for mentoring or other advice?
3. Create sub-goals and deadlines
After you’ve created your long-term work goals, work backward to figure out smaller, short-term objectives that you can pursue to help you achieve your vision. Your short-term goals should be things that you can achieve in less than six months, and you should be able to set a clear deadline for each of those objectives. Those deadlines can help you ensure that your progress toward achieving work goals can be easily tracked.
4. Develop an action plan
For each of those sub-goals, develop a clear and straightforward action plan that describes all the necessary things you’ll do to reach your objectives. This plan can include the amount of time you’ll devote to your goals each day and additional training or education that you’ll need to obtain, how you plan to get that training, and skills you may need to develop to prepare you for later goals. Your action plan will help you to stay on track and focused on achieving your work goals while adding yet another metric you can use to track your progress.
5. Prioritize your objectives
When it comes to goal setting at work or in life, priorities matter. After all, there are only so many hours in each day, and you’ll need to make the most of them if you want to see steady progress toward your objectives. Make sure that your sub-goals and action plans are focused on achieving high-priority goals first. Those tasks and objectives should always be at the top of any list of things to do.
6. Stay positive
One of the main reasons why so many people never commit to goal setting at work is that following through on those commitments is not always easy. Like New Year’s resolutions, these types of commitments can quickly become overwhelming if you’re not mentally prepared for the effort. One of the best things you can do to stay on-task and work toward your goals is to focus on maintaining a positive attitude.
Each day, you should focus on positive self-affirmations to ensure that you maintain the right mindset about your efforts. You can leave yourself positive, affirming notes around your home or office, or even sit down in front of a mirror and remind yourself just how important your goals are for your career advancement. You should also spend time visualizing the steps you’re taking to reach your goals and the benefits you’ll experience once that process is complete.
7. Work toward your goals every day
If you were stuck on a desert island and your only food source was a dead dinosaur, how would you go about eating it? One bite at a time, of course! Achieving work goals requires that same approach – you need to take everything one step at a time, working each day to make progress toward your objectives. You may not learn that new skill in a day, but you can learn it eventually if you keep working on it each day. Remember – one bite/one day at a time.
8. Remember to assess your progress regularly
Along with your action plan, you should have a set schedule set up to assess and analyze your progress. This regular evaluation can help you manage your efforts, identify potential obstacles, and determine whether you need to try new strategies to improve your progress. These assessments can also be a powerful motivational tool to keep you focused on your goals. If you’re seeing regular progress, it will likely inspire you to keep working toward those objectives.
9. Revise goals as necessary
It is also important to remain adaptable to change when necessary. There is no shame in revising a goal that turns out to be unrealistic or unattainable in the timeframe you envision. If there are too many obstacles preventing you from achieving your work goals in the time allotted, you may need to revise your deadlines. Alternatively, changes in your career goals may make a certain work goal unnecessary. Never be afraid to make the revisions you need to keep yourself moving forward toward those objectives.
10. Keep persevering
In life, true failure only comes when you quit trying. As long as you’re still working toward your goals, you’re still on the path to potential success. If you ever get frustrated at the pace of your progress or begin to feel like the challenges before you are more than you can handle, take a few moments to remind yourself that nothing worth having ever comes easy. How many people in history have quit trying just before they were about to find the success they were seeking? We’ll never know because they quit.
By persevering in your efforts, making revisions where necessary, and focusing on taking things one step at a time, you can ensure that you remain on the career path to success. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, you need to stay on that yellow brick road to success until you reach your destination. Your broader career goals will get closer with each step, hop, or skip you take.
Achieving work goals can help advance your career
Learning the best strategies for achieving work goals may take some time and a lot of trial and error, but the benefits are well worth that investment. Once you learn how to set goals at work and create action plans that help you reach those objectives, you’ll discover a whole new world of career advancement opportunities.
Does your resume showcase your experience in achieving work goals? Get a free resume review from our team of experts today!
Recommended reading:
Written by
Ken Chase, Freelance Writer
During Ken's two decades as a freelance writer, he has covered everything from banking and fintech to business management and the entertainment industry. His true passion, however, has always been focused on helping others achieve their career goals with timely job search and interview advice or the occasional resume consultation. When he's not working, Ken can usually be found adventuring with family and friends or playing fetch with his demanding German Shepherd. Read more resume advice from Ken on ZipJob’s blog.
