It's easy to become stagnant when it comes to professional growth, but with the right approach, employees can set
Fifty percent of people will set a career goal for their year, according to Gallup, and while the new year is the most typical time to get those ambitions in order, it's important to regularly revisit what you
"One of the reasons people don't end up achieving their professional goals is that they only visit it once a year," says Sarah Doody, career strategist and founder of Career Strategy Lab, a career coaching platform. "Doing this on an ongoing basis, and not just two days before your performance review, is a way to help ensure that you actually make progress."
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A few months into the year is a great time to revisit your intentions and see if progress is being made, and if not, what can be done to either adjust those goals or kickstart your efforts, Doody says. Most importantly, the exercise helps refresh your memory around the specifics of what you want to achieve.
Doody uses a tool she calls a "career compass" to help identify goals and create benchmarks in both the long and short-term. This helps people stay focused without getting distracted by another immediate goal that could interrupt progress.
"Balancing that short and long-term goal is really the idea of the compass, and it's a check-in to evaluate each decision you make," she says. "Let's say someone has a desire to become a manager in the next five years. A lot of times, that's words on paper. If a new job comes up, that goal may go out the window. You can see if it aligns with the career compass, and if not, where do you need to adjust?"
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Creating a career compass should also involve your life outside of work, too, Doody says. Ensuring your life goals and career goals connect is more likely to lead to success.
"Ultimately, your day job has such an influence over not just your finances and schedule, but your ability to do so many other things in life," Doody says. "Do you want to work remotely? Do you want to be able to pick your kids up from school every day? In order to have these things happen in your life, what job or career path would you need to take?"
Investing in professional development
Many employees are going through this process as they
"It's so important for employee retention," Doody says. "Create those opportunities to connect more than once a year and identify who is on the professional development track."
It's important for managers to acknowledge that not every employee will be pushing themselves professionally, Doody says. That's OK, and gives managers an opportunity to invest where it will make the biggest impact on their business.
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"Of course, there's going to be employees who are just there to do the job and go home. And there's other employees who want to invest in themselves," she says. "That allows managers to really identify who on the team they want to be investing more in because they're more likely to be responding to opportunities for growth and more responsibility."
If a person revisits their goals and realizes they've made little progress so far, or have failed to reach what they hoped to accomplish, it's not time to throw in the towel just yet. Checking in frequently gives employees the opportunity to adjust and get back on track.
"One of the first things is to ask, why did this happen, and try and detach your personal self worth from not reaching the goal," Doody says. "Then look objectively at what happened and see what was in your control and what was not. The emphasis is really just making sure that you are recalibrating your compass frequently."
