Goal Setting
Setting Goals for your Career
One of the most important personal management skills is the ability to set goals. Regardless of your interests, a successful person can set a goal and work towards achieving that goal. Before setting goals, consider the following three points:
What is a Goal? -Goals are the ways in which people plan to make their wishes come true. Goals are the ends or aims toward which you direct your efforts. People choose to work toward a personal goal, whether it is something they want to do or experience, or some way in which they want to live.
You make choices about your life based on your goals. Goals reflect your needs and desires. Goals allow you to act upon personal values and expectations. In a way, they are pictures of the standards people set for themselves. Goals give purpose to your actions as you choose the ways in which you will go about reaching them. Goals can help you focus energy and spend time.
Working towards Your Goal - Knowing a goal and moving toward it involves clarifying the steps toward that goal and creating a plan of action. Wanting $1000 by the end of the year is a dream; setting dates, saving, banking, and handling obstacles is working toward the goal and reaching it. Sometimes, careful identification of a goal can provide you with information that helps you realize that this is not really something you want. Perhaps the goal is not important enough for you to spend time and effort on it. Sometimes it will become clear that the goal and the actions needed to reach it do not agree with your personal values.
Factors Affecting Goals -Family, friends, and others influence individuals' feelings about the goals they should have. How and where people live, what resources they have, and the messages they take from the world also influence the goals they choose. Goals vary in importance. Primary goals are extremely important; people will work to reach those goals. Some goals are of less importance; in fact, they may lose their importance altogether as personal interests change. As well, some personal goals may conflict. It may be necessary to choose those which are more important.
Applying Personal Management Skills
Applying personal management skills: making the dream a reality
Career planning is an ongoing process. It involves continual efforts to be aware of, prepared for, and ready to explore and adjust to all sorts of work. Also, a person's career planning is influenced by home, school, and community experiences. In turn, the plans you make now can affect your lifestyle and future occupational choices. For example, when planning a career, you make choices about the amount and type of education to pursue. That decision will affect your future occupational choices.
Successful career planning involves accepting responsibility for one's actions, decisions, and choices. While support is available, individuals are ultimately responsible for their own actions. Applying personal management skills is the first step in formulating a plan to entering the workplace.
The BC Ministry of Education has identified a number of indicators that define Personal Management.
Personal Management Skills
These are a group of skills that you can develop to manage your everyday behaviour in life, learning, and work. They include:
Planning and Goal Setting
You are good at Planning and Goal Setting if you:
- Know what motivates you to pursue certain goals
- Establish realistic goals and make plans for meeting them
- Predict the consequences of your actions
- Re-evaluate your goals and make adjustments when it's necessary
- Delay immediate gratification in order to pursue long term goals
Time Management
You are good at Managing your time if you:
- Plan how your time will be used and keep track of it
- Realistically predict how much time a task will take
- Complete things on time and meet deadlines
- Reevaluate and revise your timetable when unexpected situations arise
Organizational Skills
You have good Organizational Skills if you:
- Organize information so you can find it
- Do the important things first
- Manage the activities in your life so that you can handle numerous tasks and demands efficiently
Responsibility
You have a good sense of Responsibility if you:
- Show initiative by looking for things that need to be done
- Know the standards expected of you when completing quality work
- Produce quality work without constant supervision
- Take pride in your work and know where you need to improve
- Do what you say you will do
- Complete the work in spite of setbacks
Accountability
You are Accountable if you:
- Do what is expected of you
- Take responsibility for your actions and mistakes without blaming others
- Demonstrate good attendance and punctuality; show up when you say you will
Personal Ethics
You have good Personal Ethics if you:
- Know what your own values and beliefs are about "right" and "wrong" actions
- Behave in a way that is honest, responsible, and aware
- Are honest in your dealings with others
- Respect confidentiality of information and know when privacy is important
- Act safely
Flexibility and Adaptability
You are Flexible and Adaptable if you:
- Respectfully interact with others from diverse backgrounds and experiences
- Respect and care about the feelings of others
- Respond positively to comments and suggestions from others
- Understand that you can't control or know everything
- View constant change positively
- See opportunity in change and diversity
- Believe that you can respond to unexpected events
Positive Attitude to Personal Heath and Stress Management
You have a positive attitude to Personal Health and Stress Management if you:
- Have a healthy eating plan
- Exercise regularly
- Get enough sleep daily to give you energy
- Manage and balance of all the activities in your life and take time to relax
- Understand which activities are contributing to feelings of stress
- Know that stress can be managed
- Know if you need support and where to get it
