Career Tips for Kenyan Corporates! How to Set Clear Career Goals for Success

In one of my previous articles, I talked about why it’s important to have clear career goals if you want to succeed. Today, we shall delve into how you can set these goals so as to elevate your career and professional life. It should be noted that setting clear career goals is very important and like the wise say, ‘Direction is more important than speed’.

Understand Your Vision

Before setting specific career goals, it’s important to have a clear understanding of your overall career vision – what are you looking at, what do you want to achieve at the end of it all? It might also include achieving a certain job title, working for a particular organization, or developing expertise in a field. 

Have Career Objectives

Career objectives include ideas and desires about your job, the employment relationship, the profession, the industry, working conditions, duties, and responsibilities. Pay and your position also play an important role here.

Examples of career goals:

• Higher salary
• Taking on more responsibility
• Raise/New position
• Employment with desired employer
• Transition to self-employment

Make Your Goals SMART

The 5 SMART principle is a very popular method for setting effective goals and it stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Let me try to break it down for you; 

• Specific: Your goals should be clear, articulate and very specific to what you want to achieve. This could be in months, in a year, or in a quarter.
• Measurable: To track your progress, your goals should be measurable. Here you could commit to completing a short course in two months.  
• Achievable: While it’s important to dream big, your goals should be realistic and attainable. This simply means that you should be realistic in what you want to achieve.
• Relevant: Your career goals should align with your overall career vision and values. Ask yourself the relevance of the goal you are setting in your professional life.

• Time-bound: Set deadlines to keep you motivated and accountable. Define when you want to achieve each goal. 

Too Big is Not Good – Break Your Goals into Smaller Steps

To make your career goals more manageable, it’s important to break them down into smaller steps. This doesn’t only make it easy for you but also takes off unnecessary pressure that would otherwise lead you into failure.

Be Flexible

As you progress in your career, you may find that new interests, skills, or opportunities emerge that weren’t part of your original plan, and this is why you have to be flexible. Being flexible enables you to easily jump onto the next big thing.

Seek Guidance and Support

Very many young people don’t have mentors, or don’t even want to hear the idea of it. It’s very important to seek out mentors, coaches, or colleagues who can provide you with advice, guidance, and encouragement as you work toward your goals. The white man always reminds us that ‘NoMan is an Island’, and they are right.

Also remember that networking with professionals in your field can open doors to new opportunities and provide insights into how others achieved success.

Track Your Progress and Celebrate Every Small Win

Regularly review your career goals and assess how far you’ve come. Also it’s very important to celebrate every small win as this gives you momentum and gas to reach the next milestone. So, go toast a beer, have some fun and celebrate every single win.

Setting clear career goals is one of the most effective ways to ensure professional success, and this is simply because you have drawn up a map of where you want to be and how you want to get there. I reiterate that direction is more important than speed – it’s important to hurry slowly sometimes.