To Have a Happy Finance Career You MUST Have a Goal

The wise words of Denzel

I saw a clip of a talk given by Hollywood star Denzel Washington recently, and it struck a chord.

https://youtube.com/shorts/x9JmHWd4BfA?si=HHYjHnS0O8XlXOKZ

He said, “don’t confuse movement with progress. Because you can run in place and not get anything done. So, are you moving forward? And who are you taking with you?”

It made me think, because so many people I meet are frustrated that they’re very busy, but don’t seem to be making progress, in career terms.

And the main reason for that is that they refuse to properly define progress. But not in the way you might think.

Progress, relative to what?

The ONLY way you can truly define progress is with reference to a defined GOAL.

And that’s because the word ‘progress’ is a relative term. Progress takes you closer to something.

So, how can you know whether you’ve made progress unless you know what you want to move closer to?

Stephen R. Covey said (in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People), “It’s incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busy-ness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it’s leaning against the wrong wall. It is possible to be busy – very busy – without being very effective.”

Movement. But no progress.

No goal, no progress... but also no failure

So, when I say that people refuse to define progress, I mean that they refuse to have a clear goal. And without a clear goal, it’s impossible to measure progress.

Here’s my stab at why people resist having clear goals.

It’s because the other word that is defined by goals is this one – ‘failure’.

If you don’t have a goal, then you can’t fail... or so you tell yourself.

So, I wonder whether you’re like this with your career? You resist setting yourself a goal. You convince yourself that you just want ‘progress’...

... perhaps it’s because if you set a goal, then you might fail?

... but now you’re disappointed because all you seem to be able to achieve is movement, busyness, stress.

Progress is not pay rises!

To illustrate a further point, I can imagine some people saying, “yeah, well I’m ok. I’ve had good pay rises and promotions, so I’m doing well so far. I’ll just keep going.”

Implicitly that means that their goal is simply to get promotions and good pay rises.

The problem is that quite often the promotions and job moves - those short term wins - eventually stop. You reach a dead end. And you end up being disappointed and feeling stuck.

And at that point, you realise that you actually wanted to go further (towards a CFO role), but then it’s difficult to go back and fill in the gaps.

Movement, not progress. Ladder leaning against the wrong wall.

A goal guides decisions

The advantage, however, of having a (long term) goal, is that not only can you measure progress, but it becomes clearer what you need to do to make progress.

“If I want to get to a CFO role, I should focus on learning x, y and z, and not a,b and c.”

You can take a look at CFOs, and build up a picture of what constitutes a good CFO – the CFO you’d like to be. And then you ask, how can I develop the qualities to be like that?

Tip: the picture you paint will look completely different to the person you are now. Don’t let that scare you. Did you think you could get a bigger job and huge leap in salary without changing and growing?!

The point to understand is that the things you will work on to change and grow will be different from what you would have worked on otherwise. The goal guides your decisions on what to learn and how to behave.

What if I don’t know what goal to set?

Some Finance professionals get all churned up, because they don’t feel like they want to be a CFO, or they don’t feel like they can do it. And they’re floundering, because they don’t know what goal they should have.

However, my conviction is that in Finance, it’s good for everyone who wants to “make progress” to set a goal of getting “CFO ready”.

Since every role in Finance is somewhere in the hierarchy, on the way up to the CFO role, surely whatever it takes to be a CFO will also get you halfway to the CFO role, too? Or any place between where you are now and the CFO role?

CFO Readiness Builder

And that is what I designed CFO Readiness Builder to help you with.

CFO Readiness Builder is opening for enrolment again in a few weeks time. CLICK HERE to see a little more information and register your details to make sure you get the full information when it’s available.

The way I designed CFO Readiness Builder was to start with the questions:

-?????? What are the things that you really need to be CFO ready?

-?????? How can someone get those things in the quickest time with least effort?

If you are keen to progress quickly in your Finance career, you need to focus on the skills and capabilities that make the difference – the business acumen and behavioural skills that will make you a business leader.

Our CFO Readiness Builder program is designed to help you to do just that. CLICK HERE to find out more.

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About the Author – Andy Burrows

I’m Andy Burrows , and I’m Founder and CEO of Supercharged Finance , a provider of online learning and coaching, aimed at helping Finance professionals get better at helping the businesses they work for.

I qualified as a chartered accountant in the UK, and have worked for more than 25 years as a senior Finance professional in a variety of businesses of different sizes and sectors.

I’m now a popular writer in Finance and Accounting. In 2019 Anders Liu-Lindberg described me as one of the "Top voices on LinkedIn for Finance, accounting and FP&A". And in 2024 I was given official LinkedIn Top Voice status (see the little blue badge on my profile !)

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