To be successful, learn how to set the right career goals

The first step in achieving ambitious career goals, is understanding how to define goals. A lot of research has been done on the topic of effective goal setting. And it all starts with the discussion about outcome versus process based goals.

An outcome based goal would focus entirely on the desired result. For example, getting promoted this year, becoming a VP in the next 12 months or winning the Bengaluru night marathon.

A process goal on the other hand is about doing the right thing consistently, regardless of the outcome. Examples could be reading a people management article every week and applying it in your job, or running for 60 minutes 3 times a week.

A lot of literature nowadays emphasizes the importance of setting such process goals instead of outcome based goals,for two reasons mainly.

First, because these process goals are entirely under your control. The expected outcome of getting that promotion or winning that marathon race depends on other factors, like the performance of your peers, the weather conditions or the career opportunities in your company. 

Second, with outcome based goals we might become obsessed with the result we want and forget about the process that will get us there. When you become too focused on the result you want to achieve, you can program yourself into a negative mindset.

Take a goal that I heard from a lot of young, ambitious professionals : I want to reach the next level, get promoted. Subconsciously you’re telling yourself you won’t be happy until you get that promotion. You start focusing on what you don’t have, rather than on the process steps needed to get you there. You will measure yourself continuously versus that goal of being promoted or even worse, versus the progress your peers are making. All you do is making yourself more anxious and disappointed that you are still in the same place.

Athough I agree with these dangers of outcome based goals, I believe that just focusing on the process and the things under your control is not sufficient if you want to have a successful career. I might be going to the gym 3 times a week consistently or reading and applying these people management articles every week and therefor hitting my process goals. If I don’t focus on any outcomes or results, I might be meeting my goals, but not make any progress. We have to evaluate the outcome of our actions and our process steps regularly so we can review whether we are coming closer to our ultimate goal. Only this learning loop will allow us to improve.

So how do I define career goals ? I believe we need to create an effective system, guided by an outcome based goal. OK, complicated. Let me explain the concept by referring to sports athletes.

Ambitious sports athletes set stretched outcome based goals. Winning the cricket IPL with their team, winning the Boston Marathon, reaching the podium of the Tour de France. They will always have this north star that motivates them, that reminds them why they are putting in all the efforts. In order to reach those ambitious, longer term goals, they set performance goals for themselves. Running a 20k in less than 65 minutes will be an important milestone to coming anywhere close to winning a full marathon race. Being able to achieve a batting strike rate of 130 plus at any time, would be a great performance to help your team win the IPL (*). To achieve such performance goals, sports athletes have riguruous process goals or routines I would rather call them. They will go to the gym 3 times a week for muscle practice, go running run 10k everyday, practice batting for 2 hours every day …..

So sports athletes have their ambitious career goals, which are outcome based. However, the success of the sports athlete is not about who sets the most ambitious goal. Success will depend on the system that the sports athlete creates and executes with the highest discipline. They define performance goals that they need to achieve, to outperform their competitors. And to achieve these performance goals, they define a set of routines (process goals), which they follow diligently. The sports athlete who outperforms others on that system, basically who achieves the best performance during training, works the most consistently on the routine or process, has the highest chance of achieving that ambitious outcome goal of winning that marathon, the IPL or Tour de France. 

Let’s apply this to a professional career. If your ambition is to become a Finance VP, great. Keep that as your north star. Don’t define your goal as becoming the Finance VP in the next 12 months, as there are many other variables at play here. Instead, think about your system. How will you get there. First, define performance goals that, when achieved, will ultimately help you get to that career aspiration. To be considered a candidate for the next Finance VP, you will need to stand out as one of the best performing Finance Managers in the company. Think about the performance standards you will need to achieve to be considered as such. Examples could be to beat your financial targets this fiscal year, to have at least one best practice coming from your team that gets implemented across all other Business Units and maybe to have the strongest network with the Board. To achieve these performance goals, you will need to define process goals, or as I prefer them to be called ‘routines’. You will have weekly financial KPI reviews to improve performance versus target, you will read a financial newsletter every week to get inspiration for best practices and so on.

So be clear on the north star, the next outcome you would like to achieve in your career, but don’t focus all your energy there. Focus your energy on refining your system. Establishing and reviewing your performance goals, which you achieve through consistent routine execution. If you stand out through stellar performance, your career progress will come as a consequence. 

(*) OK, this one sentence took more research time than the whole article and even validation with cricket expert Dinesh Khanna. And still, it will most likely trigger a more heated debate than every other concept that I have written about today ;-)