3 Tips For Getting Clear on Your Goals

Alice came to a fork in the road.  “Which road do I take?” she asked.

“Where do you want to go?” responded the Cheshire cat.

“I don’t know,” Alice answered.

“Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.”

(Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland)

When you don’t have goals, you’re like Alice, wandering around in a strange land. 

Sometimes, however, we don’t want to set goals because we’ve been disappointed by past shortfalls.  Sometimes we want something different but we don’t know what.  We have long lists of what we don’t want because it’s easier to identify our pain than our pleasure. 

It’s important that goals be clear, and relevant to where you are on your journey right now.  Perhaps at one time you had a goal to have a certain type of job – a senior executive position, top salesperson, or owning your business.  Then life happened.  You had kids, your spouse lost their job, you lost your job or got divorced, or you finally admitted that your chosen career doesn’t light your fire anymore, if it ever did. 

Goals should support you on your journey like a compass providing direction.  They shouldn’t make you feel bad about yourself or be what someone else wants for you, even your own self five years ago.  Check in with your goals on a regular basis.  I do this at New Years, but anytime will do. 

Here are my three favorite tips for getting clear about your goals.

1.     Instead of thinking about what you want to do, have or accomplish, think about how you want to feel and work your way back from there.  If you want to feel happy and energized in your job, it’s possible you can create that feeling in your current situation perhaps by changing your perspective or taking on new responsibilities.  Or it might become really clear that you’ll never have that feeling in your current job so it’s time to look for something new.

Put on your ‘coach’ hat and ask questions to peel back the layers.

For example:  How can I reorganize my day so I have time to work out?  That’s a pragmatic time management question, and I can come up with lots of options that will look great on paper.  If I dig a little deeper, I would ask:  How can I reorganize my day to have the time to work out so that I enjoy it.  OK, that’s a different question and calls for a different answer.  The time management answer probably had me getting up an hour earlier (which I hate), but when I require joy as part of the solution, I come up with options like finding a walking buddy or taking a class.  Then I can tackle the time management piece.

2.     Plant a seed and let your brain go to work.  Our minds are amazing computers, but to solve big problems they need time to process.  In my corporate job my staff learned to bring problems or questions to me towards the end of the day.  My brain was full, so I couldn’t give them an answer on the spot, but once I got into the car driving home the answers would bubble up.  So plant the seed then a break.

3.     Language is key.  Have you ever tried to recall a dream and have it just fade away as you try to describe it?  In my coaching practice I use assessments with all of my clients.  They are an objective third voice that provides needed perspective, and they put language around vague concepts.  The more you can put words and pictures around what you want, the more concrete and real your goals will become.  I love dream boarding.  I use a bulletin board and then rifle through magazines to find pictures and words that inspire me and convey what I want or how I want to feel.  Try it!  Using a bulletin board lets you easily make changes and improvements as you become more clear.

Try these tips work for both your personal and professional goals and share your comments below. 

5 Signs It’s Time to Change Jobs

Some days at work are better than others.  However, when you can’t remember the last time you had a ‘better’ day, it may be time to look for a new job or a new company.

We all want the same things from our jobs as other key relationships including mutual respect, a feeling of belonging, appreciation and being challenged to be our best.  Like any other relationship there are obvious signs that you need to get out NOW like being physically, emotionally, or verbally abused, bullied, or sexually harassed.  

Outside of the obvious, here are five important signs it’s time for a change. 

1. Values disconnect.  We make decisions based on the values which are most important to us such as integrity, security, authenticity, or autonomy.  When something associated with our job goes against one of those values, the situation becomes intolerable.  I had a client who came to me after receiving a bad performance review and written warning for termination.  She felt a senior manager was gunning for her because she refused to sign off on something that was not in compliance with governing regulations.  She became engaged in an escalating battle that had reached the president.  I asked how she felt about working for a company who would continue to consider or consider not changing something once compliance issues were identified.  That was an eye-opener for her.  I don’t know whether she was correct about the regulatory issue, but it doesn’t matter.  It ran against one of her core values which made it a no-win situation. 
2. Not feeling the love.  We all want to be recognized and appreciated; we all want to be challenged and know there are opportunities for advancement.  It's important to work for managers who support your career goals.  A friend’s daughter is a junior staffer in marketing at a large corporation who wants to get promoted.  Her manager says she doesn't have time to work with her to plot a path to the next level, so she keeps trying to show her dedication, taking on extra work, thinking of new ideas, training new employees.  Instead of getting her considered for promotion, it appears she's being taken advantage of.  I asked why she doesn’t look for a different job in that company with a manager who would support her ambition.  She doesn’t want to look for something else; she wants her current manager to recognize her.  Until she moves her ego out of the equation, she’ll continue to feel like a kicked puppy.
3. No role models.  During a session with a client who was feeling stuck, I asked her to find a role model amongst the women senior managers at her company.  Her response was immediate.  She didn’t aspire to be like any of the women senior managers because they were bullies.  It was clear to her that to be a successful woman executive in that company required a pattern of behavior that wasn’t the type of person she wanted to be.   That doesn’t make it a bad company, just not the right company for her.  She’s now happily employed elsewhere.
4. End of the road.  Sometimes you look around and just don’t see any other job in your company that you want to do.  That happened to me when I worked for a mid-size software company.  After being with them for seven years there wasn’t anything else I wanted to do there.  If you’ve topped out or reached the end of the road, it’s time to put sentiment aside and take your experience to a bigger playground.
5. Toxic overload.  For years people told me I would be great in sales.  So I leveraged my experience and got a job selling localization services to software companies.  What a disaster!  It entailed hours cold calling trying to book appointments, putting together proposals and then arguing about pennies per word.  After a few months I was just beaten down, depressed and despondent. A friend said, “this job is toxic for you.”  How right she was!  There are people who thrive in sales, but it wasn’t the right job for me.

I’m sure there are lots more signs, but if any of these five pop onto your radar, think seriously about making a change.  Refresh your resume, strengthen ties with key people in your network, and start looking.