How to Make Work Goals You Can Stick With

Creating professional short- and long-term goals for yourself is a fantastic way to keep advancing within your field. Sometimes goals can be a bit tricky to keep up with, but we’re going to give you some you can stick to.

Identify your values. Identifying your values is a great first step towards making work goals you can stick with. Your values will tell you what’s important to you, like learning new skills, advancing within your career, getting promoted, etc. You’ll also be able to make a list of things you want to achieve moving forward. 

Create a list. Creating a list of what goals you want to achieve to advance professionally will help you stick to them. You’ll be able to define what your aims for the future are and see a visible representation of them. Writing things down also makes them more concrete and might give you that little nudge to feel more committed to them. 

Picture where you want to be. Picturing the end game for where you’d like these goals to take you will aid in being able to create achievable short-term goals to reach those long-term ones. You might aimlessly pick skills to develop, courses to take, or job positions that aren’t necessarily going to help you get there. It’s always good to pick up a new skill, but it’s a lot more helpful when it’s towards your end game. 

Make both short- and long-term goals. The hardest part of goal setting is getting to the finish line. When you have a big end game, getting there can seem so daunting that you might not even want to start. However, setting short term goals can benefit your long-term goals. For example, if a long-term professional goal of yours is to become a manager one day, take little steps to make that happen. You can ask your current manager about leadership opportunities and discuss actions you can take to help you grow. You can talk to managers you admire and see if they’ll give you advice. Smaller steps also feel a lot more achievable and will create a very rewarding journey towards reaching bigger achievements. 

Start small. If you want to be an expert at a certain skill, start by taking courses. Ask people you admire for advice on how they got to fill the role you hope to one day. Do some research. You don’t have to conquer the world in a day. You can take small steps toward your goal. 

These are some ways that will help you stick to the work goals you set for yourself and make them feel a lot more achievable. Incrementally making progress towards your bigger goals will make them feel much more doable, as well as writing them down so you feel like you have a tangible list you can check off with all the steps you’ve accomplished to get to where you want to be.