Create the right habits and achieve your objectives

As we’re nearing the end of the year, now is the perfect time to evaluate your career progression over 2018 so far. Here are my essential tips for keeping yourself on the right trajectory and achieving those all-important goals.

Why do we need to set goals?

Even if you’re really happy in your job, after a while it can become a habit. You can stop asking yourself what you want out of life because you have become comfortable in your present situation.

But nothing lasts forever, and unexpected circumstances can come our way. Automation, in particular, is making the job market more uncertain than it has been in recent decades. It is essential to make sure you are prepared for the future so your career can weather any storms.

In addition, setting yourself goals is extremely important from a personal point of view. It is only by critically evaluating your career that you can truly decide if you are heading in the right direction, or simply coasting without a destination in mind. Think of your career as a journey, and your goals as places that you want to visit on the road to where you want to be.

When is the right time to assess your career?

Certain milestones during the year (New Year and birthdays, for example) can make us sit up and take stock of our lives and careers. With the Christmas break approaching, now is a good time to start planning ahead and deciding what you want to achieve in the coming year. Reaching your career goals will involve adopting new habits and deciding which old ones aren't working for you anymore, so it's a good idea to look at this if you want to improve your focus. I have to do this all the time - with my busy career as a writer of LinkedIn profiles, and as a mother to two young children, with a husband who travels extensively, my life frequently gets derailed. I have to prioritise, so I can concentrate on the areas which are the most important to me.

Defining your career goals and working towards them doesn’t have to be daunting. But don't try to overstretch yourself as that will only lead you towards feeling that you are failing on all fronts. Choose a maximum of three goals and make these your clear focus. 

This might not always be easy – achieving your goals always means redirecting your attention and using your time more productively. For example, I knew years ago that I wanted to focus on my career while still being able to give as much time as possible to my children. This meant I had to give up watching television. While I do miss knowing who the latest Prime Minister is (they seem to change a lot), I realised time spent following news events was impeding on time required to achieve my personal and professional goals. I don't have time for television. Or the radio. Something has to give. But it’s worth it. You just have to consider what you want most in your life.

How to define your career goals

A good way to start is by asking yourself:

• Are you happy with your career?
• What are your goals and values?
• What drives you to do what you do?

Asking yourself these questions will enable you to create a personal mission statement, which can be the basis of all the habits you need to put in place.

What habits should you put in place?

I’m a believer in being future-oriented. Your LinkedIn profile should reflect this, it should talk to who you are, not who you were, and it should be updated once every three months based on job adverts that have interested you in the interim. Make sure you skim your job alerts on LinkedIn and Seek, and find the most prominent keywords that recur in the ads for the jobs that interest you the most. Then include these keywords in your profile and skills to ensure you stand out as an attractive candidate.

Networking is also vitally important, both virtually and in person. Spend a few minutes each week building your network, and foster these relationships as you never know who could be a collaborator or employer in the future. Also, once a week, go for a coffee with a new acquaintance. If you take the time and trouble to get to know people better, you are more memorable, and therefore more employable.

Developing these habits does not have to be time-consuming. All of these steps will only take you a few hours each month. Isn’t it worth it to be more prepared for the future?

What would you like to change?

If you need help defining your career goals, do not call me!

When I'm not running LinkedIn workshops, I am improving LinkedIn profiles. I don't career coach. Ever.

Wonderfully, there are many excellent career coaches in Australia. I highly recommend clicking on this link for a list of our top career coaches. (If I've left somebody off the list please add their name in comments and I'll periodically edit the article to ensure no one is missed.) These experts will help you define the things you want to achieve, and the habits needed that will enable you to realise your purpose. 

This is the perfect time of year to reflect on what might have derailed you in 2018. So that you can set firm plans and have strategies in place for achieving your goals in 2019. Have you started thinking about these yet? What are you looking to have different about your life? I hope you will share your goals in the comments below...

Karen Tisdell Careers was born in 2009 as a LinkedIn profile writing consultancy, emerging from a lifelong obsession with words and a 14 year career in recruitment. In early 2018, after running countless corporate LinkedIn workshops and presenting on the topic of LinkedIn at the AICD (twice), CPA Womens, MGSM, Australian Institute of Project Management and a few agency events, Karen officially launched a corporate LinkedIn Training business.

While Karen enjoys delivering one-to-many workshops/presentations/keynote talks, she also appreciates close collaboration with executives and board members - giving guided instruction on how to help senior specialists and business owners to show up in all the searches that matter by writing on their behalf a keyword-optimised LinkedIn profile.

?Karen also builds company pages and is supported by a clever design team who create LinkedIn backgrounds.

Karen Tisdell ? Sydney, Australia ? [email protected] ? 0404 083 678