The turn of the calendar most likely formally or informally prompted thoughts of the year ahead. If you had an amazing year last year, then the thoughts might be how to continue to bask in the good fortune or build upon it. If last year was unfavorable, you may fear what’s ahead, harbor bitterness, or have promising ambition to not have a repeat of the same. Yet undirected feelings can often cause more harm than good.
You may or may not have set goals this year or in the past, and if you did, you might think trifle if the time frame you set was not achieved. Although it is statistically true that people who set aside time to officially think about and proceed to put their goals in writing are more likely to achieve them than those who don’t. Yet my pastor reminded me this weekend that if I did not take time to ask God what His goals, desires, plans, and purposes are for my life, then my goals and glory, dreams and desires, plans and purposes, wants and wishes are at high risk of disregard.
Proverbs 16:9 reads, “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.” A goal to spend more time listening to the still, small voice within and reading His promises for us will undoubtedly help—as it has for me—when looking back at what seemed to be a bad year, yet, in the present, looking forward to see how valuable it really was.
Career-Changing Goals for Personal and Professional Development
The typical goals people make include spiritual, financial, career, intellectual, fitness, family, and social. If you notice, “career” was given its own category, yet I have found each of the others exists as a subset of your career. Setting spiritual, financial, intellectual, fitness, family, and social goals within your career is what makes your career successful. After all, your career is part of your life and not a separate entity from your life. These simple goals you may set in each of these categories will change your career.
1. Setting Spiritual Goals for Career Success
Whenever you want to change something in your life that you have done everything in your power to change, this is where spirituality often lands as an option of last resort, regardless of your religion. A.A. explains it well when they describe how to break free from addiction. In the workplace, your dependence could be anything preventing you from your career goals. The small change you can make is to look within and look up first and reach out to others with spiritual wisdom to share in the challenges you are having and to pray for you. The only thing you have to lose is the challenge you are struggling with because you are still exercising your free will to choose to invite God in or not.
“A.A. is not a religious organization. Alcoholics Anonymous has only one requirement for membership, and that is the desire to stop drinking. There is room in A.A. for people of all shades of belief and non-belief. Many members believe in some sort of god, and we have members who come from and practice all sorts of religions, but many are also atheists or agnostic. It’s important to remember that A.A. is not a religious organization; we have a simple idea that there is a power greater than us as individuals. What we all have in common is that the program helps us find an inner strength that we were previously unaware of—where we differ is in how we identify the source. Some people have thought of the word “God” as standing for “good orderly direction” or even “group of drunks,” but many of us believe that there is something bigger than ourselves that is helping us today. This power may lie within some person’s religious beliefs, or it can be completely separate from any religion. For example, one member looks at the sea and accepts that it is a power greater than him. We could ask ourselves, “Do I believe that somehow there is a power greater than myself?”
2. Achieving Financial Stability for Career Growth
Working toward putting aside three months of savings will change your career. For those of you who remember the old Christmas Clubs that the banks did in which they took a small amount out of your paycheck, weekly, set aside for 45 weeks. A few weeks before holiday shopping, no matter where you were financially at the time, you will remember the feeling of receiving the check and the relief of not having to worry about where the money was coming to cover the extra expenses associated with the holidays and buying gifts for your loved ones. If we are introduced to an unemployed candidate, with no savings, for career matchmaking and not career coaching, we often suggest they get a job and then plan their career because the chances of a successful match are reduced when financial worries interfere with the decision-making process. Three months of savings protects your peace of mind in the event of an unexpected layoff from your current employer and enables you to eliminate the worry of paying your bills so you can focus on building your career. You can calculate what that looks like per your region in Florida at SoFI, and here is an article with some help on how to make what seems impossible happen.
3. Setting Intellectual Goals for Emotional Intelligence in Construction Management
Intellectual goals are often thought of as reading more, taking a class, and continuing some form of formal education. In today’s ever-changing and competitive business environment, intellectual goals that develop your emotional intelligence and sharpen your communication skills can be the most valuable. A simple goal is to practice self-awareness and develop curiosity about what you don’t know in your current work environment. How do you do this? Ask more questions about your company, the people associated with the company, and the business model to understand what is important to be aware of beyond the tasks associated with your job responsibilities.
4. Setting Fitness Goals That Impact Your Career Positively
The fitness goal that changes your career is to care about your own well-being and the well-being of others you work with. This is especially important when you are not feeling well, regardless of how badly you want to be there, making sure you dial back for your care and comfort and the protection of others who may not say anything yet are concerned for you or their exposure to illness.
5. Best Practices for Family Communication in Your Construction Career
Career goals, when it comes to family, are to set best practices when communicating with your home family what interaction is mutually preferred by you and your associates to allow you to be most successful at work with your responsibilities. Your work family will typically be supportive of your home family until it affects your ability to stay engaged with the team and your assignments.
6. Setting Social Goals for Workplace Collaboration and Career Growth
Career changers, when it comes to workplace social goals, are as simple as scheduled interaction with others in the industry or from your workplace to get to know them better as individuals outside of the environment you collaborate in for business. This especially holds true for those you might not enjoy working with as much as others. As Abraham Lincoln said: “I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.” Your career is forever changed when you invest time in the people beyond the tasks.
Just as your home life evolves over time and your goals change as your family and circumstances change, your work life is interwoven into how that might look and how it might feel in a significant way. The small changes suggested above will bring big changes to your big picture of life over time. What are you waiting for?
To Setting Simple Goals for Big Pay Off,
Suzanne Breistol
