In the article on Seven career goals you should set each year, I talked about the importance of setting career goals. Whether you are coming into the job market for the first time, switching industries, or growing where you are, goals will help you identify the short- to medium-range actions that together help you achieve your long-range vision.

With that backdrop, it is critical to stress that HOW you craft your goals can mean the difference between success and failure.

In 1981, George Doran, Arthur Miller, and James Cunningham coined the SMART framework for setting goals. I have adapted and expanded the framework to SMARTER to focus on how to set career goals. As you break your wider vision into smaller goals, your goals should be Specific, Motivational, Accountable, Realistic, Time-bound, Exciting, and Relevant.

Specific

Your goals should feel tangible and well-defined. What are you working toward?

Instead of: I want to “level up” in the new year.
Say/Do: I want to return to school. I want to ask for a pay rise. I want to lose weight. I want to buy a house.

2. Motivational

Your goals should demand something from you. They should be far-reaching and call forth a better and greater you to achieve them. Your goals must motivate better choices and improved behavior. They must want to make you learn and grow.

Instead of: I want to work on more projects.
Say/Do: Next year, I want to work on a cross-geographical regulatory project so I can learn more about regulatory frameworks and build my network of international colleagues.

3. Accountable

Specificity is a solid start, but it’s missing something important:numbers. Quantifying your goals makes it easier to measure progress and verify its completion.

Instead of: I want to earn more.
Say/Do: I want to increase my income by 50 percent by December 2023

4. Realistic

Your goals should take into account the results that you can achieve given the resources that you have available or that are accessible to you. While your goals should be aspirational, they should also exist in the realm of possibility, given you do the necessary work.

Instead of: I want to change careers in one month.
Say/Do: Set a timeframe that feels more reasonable.
Complete the smaller tasks between where you are and where you want to go, such as assessing your skills gaps, identifying role models, up-skilling, and finding the role you wish to apply for.

5. Time-Bound

Your goals should have a time frame within which you would like to achieve them.

Instead of: I want to change jobs.
Say/Do: I want to change jobs to X industry or company by December 31, 2022.

6. Exciting

Your goals should also inspire excitement when you think about working toward them.

Instead of: I want to take on more projects.
Say/Do: I want to take on projects in product architecture because I feel fulfilled, interested, natural, and excited when I work in this area.

7. Relevant

Since your goals are a breakdown of your big-picture vision, they should be relevant to the vision that you have for yourself. If you cannot identify how a specific goal contributes to the attainment of the vision, then that goal is irrelevant.

Instead of: I am taking a course in shoe design.
Say/Do: I am taking a course in shoe design because I want to start my shoe brand in twelve months.

In Visible Strengths, I talk more about the proven strategies and methods you can use to aid you in accomplishing your career goals. To learn more about goal setting, you can get Visible Strengths on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Roving Heights and Scribd today.

This article was written by Mary Mosope Adeyemi, Founder & Career Strategist at viSHEbility

Do you have good goals?

Specific