Why career goal setting is crucial to your success!
Career goal setting is important for growth in our occupation or profession which we follow as our “life’s work”, from which we generate income to be able to live the life we design for ourselves.
We can have many careers throughout the course of our life.
For some, choosing a career is easy and natural. For others, it is difficult. As we graduate from high school, we are expected to choose our education path, which will formulate our career path.
Having completed our education (high school, college, university, etc.), we either end up in the career we’ve been educated on, or we find we can’t find employment, and we move on to something else. We sometimes end up in careers that we thought we would love but then find out we don’t.
Selecting your career is one of the most difficult decisions we all must make. Once we are in our chosen career, changing careers is one of the most difficult decisions we will make.
Career goal setting is therefore very important.
My next 10 goals are designed to help you select your career, develop your career, and excel in your career. Adopt, modify or change these 10 goals to make them your own.
Top 10 list lifetime career goals
53 - Find or develop your passion
54 - Join a professional association
57 - Be an expert in something
58 - Become an authority figure
60 - Create multiple income sources
Browse this career goal setting site and develop your own career goals unique to your situation and personal ambitions. For some, being a good employee and rising the career ladder will make you happy. For others, it may be your ambition to be your own boss. There is no right or wrong answer. Your career is critically important to so many things that will define your life.
The greatest amount of time in our life will be devoted to our career, so its essential that you choose a career path that you will be happy with and is aligned with your other life goals. Financial rewards and income potential is a key consideration for choosing our career path. Choosing the wrong career may severely limit your ability to achieve your life goals.
In my own situation, the following jobs define my career progression:
- Helping my dad grow and sell organically grown tomatoes from our roadside stand
- Working at a farmers market selling locally grown produce
- Picking apples
- Performing in a band as a young musician (playing in local bars at age 16)
- Working as a Faculty Assistant at DeVry Institute of Technology where I graduated as an Electronics Technologist
- Service technician for a biomedical equipment manufacturing company
- Bid Coordinator for Bailey Control, a control system company which eventually was acquired by ABB
- Purchasing agent for Arbell, a distribution company selling into the electronic manufacturing industry
- Sales and Marketing assistant for ISTEC, a small start-up high technology company manufacturing and selling stabilized camera systems
- Proposal Coordinator for the same company
- Manager of Bids and Proposals for the same company, acquired by a large US company
- Landlord and property manager for personally owned residential real estate (6 different properties)
My very first job . . . helping tend to and sell organic tomatoes grown at my family home with my father Morley Klodt and my Sister Laura (we grew over 2,000 tomato plants in our "back yard").Career goal setting and other essential skills
I have worked for the same company for the past 25+ years as the company has grown from just 45 employees to more than 1,000 employees. I am still full time employed with this company and an integral and active part of the Sales and Marketing management team.
With respect to the 10 Career Goals listed above, I have good experience with career goal setting and have achieved good results with the majority of these 10 life goals.
Examples of more specific goals that you may consider as part of your career development include improving your . . .
- Communication skills such as writing and speaking
- Daily usage of email and email etiquette to write more effectively
- Delegation skills (if you are in a supervisory or managerial position)
- Positive work attitude with those that you work with, including your chain of command
- Completion of assigned projects and goals, providing regular feedback to your boss
- Willingness to take on new work and new projects that will enhance your skill and knowledge areas
In founding this 100 Goals Club, I am fulfilling my long held desire to pursue my passion to help people lead a goal inspired life, especially those that are in the early stages of their career. Career goal setting is essential if you with to grow your career.
It is possible to be an employee all of your career and have an exciting and purposeful life. Don't think that you need to have an entrepreneurial career or start your own job to live life on your own terms. Through the goals recommended at the 100 Goals Club or your own personalized list of goals, you can live the life you design.
You will invest much of your adult life working so being able to focus and getting inspired through structured career goal setting is essential.
Last updated: November 12, 2019