Goal Setting for a Successful Job Search. 

Anytime is the best time of year to set your intention(s) or decide what goal(s) you want to achieve for 2023.

These intentions or goals are usually something to sink your teeth into, get excited about, and help be your guide throughout the year.

You may want to adjust the plan or the route to accomplish the goal periodically, but at least the vision will be decided earlier in the year. Shoot for the stars!

Here are some tips for goal setting in 2023.

  1.      Create a one liner, phrase, or a few words as a tag line goal.

This headline is the one, overall vision you have for your work or home life goal for the year.  Some people may choose to call this the New Year’s Resolution, but I think if this is well thought out and then planned out on a goal sheet, and posted everywhere, it will stick. Then it will be worked on throughout the year, rather than during one midnight moment, quickly forgotten.

  1.      Put pen to paper. 

The key to putting the vision in writing is to figure out how to achieve it.  This written version will help to create a clear path to achieving something, even if it is not perfect, this day, one year from now, will show that something was accomplished, even if there were detours along the road.  Change is okay. Modifying is probable.

  1.      Put a few words or pictures that describe some version of the who, what, where, and how. 

If your vision is to live healthier every day, for example, who will help you achieve that, what do you need to do every day, and how do you plan to make this happen?  Hire a trainer, or walk with a neighbour.  What will you need to make this vision of achieving this goal happen in 2019?

  1.      Why this goal is important to you is the last point. 

One statement or just a few words or picture is all this takes. This is just as important as determining the goal in the first place.  “To live longer” might be the only answer using health as the example.

Visualizing your intention or goal is powerful. Having it front and center at all times is also critical to reminding you and helping you throughout the day. Stick your phrase on a stick note on the mirror. Put it on your desktop and mobile screensaver.

This exercise will take you further.

Goal Setting FAQ – Transcribed from an Interview with Sharlene Massie

How do you Choose the Right Goals?

Well, you know, the first thing that you need to do is think of just one thing. I want people to just focus on something that’s important to them and if its, you know, finding a new job, that’ ok, but make it reasonable, not “find my dream job.” 

It can help to know what jobs are in demand though.

If you’re looking for a job in Alberta you can check out our post on the Most in demand Jobs in Alberta.

If you aren’t in Alberta we also have a post focusing on jobs in Canada as a whole

But think of something that’s maybe just a few words or one line, a tag line, that going to be something that you can just really bite your teeth into and get your head wrapped around, more than a new year’s resolution. Think of something you really want to attack this year.

What are some good examples of Parameters?

So maybe, you know, finding a job or whatever might be a good one for you. Or a great one would be something like work-lifestyle balance. They say that that doesn’t really exist but maybe it can exist so one of the tips I have is, writ edit down, make it visible to you on your screensaver or on a sticky note, doesn’t matter.

But find out who can you enlist to help you achieve those goals. There’s going to be people out there that are going to help you to get there, you can’t do it all by yourself. For example, if it’s going to be work-life balance, you’ll want to write down: talk to my boss, bring your boss in on it; “hey, I’m overworked this year or underworked this year I want to balance it out a little bit”, maybe your spouse as well or your partner:

“You know, I really want more balance, can we work on achieving that goal” or whatever the goal might be, bring in the people that are super important to you to get you there.

Why is it important to have these written down?

Yes, because I really believe that if you see it, it will happen. We achieved it last year, that’s why I’m talking about it today, is we hit every single thing that we set out and we had it on a vision board. We wrote down the words as a team and threw pictures in it, cut out pictures, and we did some online and we just had a combination of things.

And we hit all of our goals last year and every single person in the company hit their goals because they did, they wrote it down, we put it right into our offices, we carried it around with us, and all the goals were achieved.

So, I know that this can work, and you should really thing about what it is, who you’re going to enlist and then how are you going to get there. Think of those steps, what do you have to do to make that happen. I really do think it will happen.

So The next Part is Defining the Steps?

That’s right, yes, you need to think about how. The how piece. So, it’s great to say I want work-life balance, and it’s great to say I’m gonna bring this people but then what are you gonna do to make that happen. You need to really put some effort into this, maybe you want to read some blogs or whatever, but you really wanna think about how can I achieve that goal? And look at other (resources), look online, there are some many resources to help you with that, but you wanna think about how, what does that mean for you, and then that brings you to the why.

If you can figure out that why piece, why is this important to you, it’s less stress, healthy lifestyle, healthy relationships, healthy workplace, if that’s your goal, then you can easily figure out, how can I then get there, what’s its gonna take for me, what are the four steps that I need to do this year in order to make this happen.

Start to work toward it. I like it a lot. So maybe just take a couple of minutes out of your day today and start jotting some notes down on that. And thank you so much for coming in today Sharlene. Appreciate it. You’re welcome.
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