Career goals are overrated

You need more than career goals.

Our culture is very focused on career and work. Most people have goals to get the next promotion, the next big career move or a better performance review and the raise that goes along with that.

There is a big problem with being hyper focused on career goals. Unless you work for yourself, you are relying on someone else recognizing your value. Someone else needs to give you that promotion, hire you or give you a raise. You can’t achieve that goal solely on your own merit. You need visibility, which can be hard to get. It takes time to gain a reputation that matches your skills after you’ve acquired them. Worse yet you might have to fight against a bad reputation that you’ve earned before gaining new skills.

The road to the next big thing in your career isn’t always very clear. You can think you’re doing all the right things only to discover that the goal post has changed. Someone moved your cheese.

If your only goals are focused on your career, at some point you are going to be discouraged. This can be a difficult to dig out of. You can get a narrow view, focusing only on what you don’t have.

There is more to life than work. Work is important but it is ultimately a means to an end. We are setting ourselves up for misery when attach our identity to work.

What’s the solution?

You need goals for the rest of life. Pick an area where you have more control. No one needs to give you permission to start losing weight, start a fitness routine, invest more or to spend more time with your kids. Give yourself permission.

With most personal goals the path is clear. To lose weight burn more calories than you consume. It takes time but it’s simple math. To get stronger you lift weights, each time doing a little more than you did before (more reps or more weight). The path is clear.

In the workplace you might only get a win every time there is a performance review. You might need to wait a whole year before seeing the results of your labor. In the rest of life you can see gains almost immediately.

Don’t worry so much about your career goals. Pick personal goals and pursue them with as much gusto. Keep work in it’s proper role, as a means to an end.