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Each week, you will receive two newsletters written by the Oppstartr Team. Mondays — Our career-focused newsletter. Fridays — Out of Office where we discuss life and other thought-provoking ideas.

Today’s Pillar: Craft the Skills

There is a difference between a good goal and a goal that is good for you. I know that is a bit nuanced, but in this post, I will show you a simple guide for picking goals for yourself.

First, let’s discuss what a good goal looks like. You may have heard of SMART Goals, first coined by George T. Doran in Management Review. This concept has been discussed ad nauseam on the internet, so I will briefly mention it here. For those unaware, SMART stands for:

• Specific

• Measurable

• Achievable/Assignable (From Doran’s Original Article)

• Relevant/Realistic (From Doran’s Original Article)

• Time-Bound

SMART is the anatomy of a good goal, but just because a goal has been carefully outlined does not necessarily make it a good goal for you.

Two Main Types of Goals: Mitigating Goals and Advancing Goals

I know there are different types of goals such as career vs personal, long vs short-term, etc., but I believe that most goals can be grouped into two broad categories: mitigating and advancing goals.

• Mitigating = Goals to get rid of or reverse a bad habit.

• Advancing = Learning, improving, or acquiring a quality.

Mitigating Goals

Most, if not all of us, have bad habits. We can form them knowingly or unknowingly, but regardless of how they arise, they hold us back. We have to cut the tethers to these bad habits if we want to become the best versions of ourselves. The habits that especially hold us back from our goals and dreams are the pressing issues that we should focus our efforts to rid ourselves of, e.g., thinking negatively, idleness, or bad time management.

Things to consider when listing bad habits:

• Is there something that is bothering you?

• Is there something that keeps you down?

Advancing Goals

Though we may have severed the tethers to our bad goals, we are not going to advance without improvements. We should seek to rise above where we currently stand with advancing goals. These are the goals that we can highlight and market or help us to become more knowledgeable, e.g., writing a book, learning a new skill, or reading more articles for your job.

Things to consider when listing advancing goals:

• What excites you?

• What are you already good at? (I highly recommend reading Now, Discover Your Strengths written by Donald Clifton and Marcus Buckingham from Gallup)

• What will propel your career?

• What is the impact of this goal?

• Does this goal make you stand out?

How to pick a goal

Now that we know there is a framework for a good goal and the two main types of goals, how can we go about picking goals for ourselves?

Below, I have created a simple guide to help you list and choose goals to focus on.

Step One

Write a list of bad habits, things you want to do, things you want to improve, etc. These can be lofty goals, simple goals, short-term or long-term goals. Simply write down the goals that come to mind.

Step Two

Separate the goals from step one into the two categories mentioned above.

• Advancing (i.e., things you want to learn, things you’d like to build upon)

• Mitigating (i.e., bad habits, or things you are bad at and you need to fix)

I advocate for goal separation as it enables self-improvement through the use of advancing goals and severs ties to hindering habits through the use of mitigating goals.

Step Three

From the mitigating list, circle the items that you constantly beat yourself up over or the items that irritate you the most. From the advancing list, circle the items that bring you the most excitement or have the most potential to better your life. Set aside the other goals for a later time. (But Jake, why didn't you have us circle the most impactful items first? Even if a goal is impactful, we need to be motivated to carry it out, and that is why motivation appears higher on this hierarchy).

Step Four

From the new lists you created above (again, keep them separated), circle the items you think you will hold yourself to or at least the items where the outcome is so sweet that you will force yourself to remain dedicated. What will you build a habit around? If you don’t believe that you will stick to these goals, then you will end up discouraging yourself. It would be best to focus on goals you will dedicate yourself to, otherwise, improve your focus before taking them on.

Things to consider:

• What is the time commitment?

• What will you have to give up to get to the goal?

• Is the goal long-term or short-term?

Step Five

Take the lists created above and rank order from most impactful to least impactful. The goals at the top are your goals to focus on. We should focus on the goals that have the most “bang for your buck”. This is the most efficient use of our time and resources, and this is especially important for our career-focused goals.

There you have it, a simple guide to pick the goals that are the best for you. I wish you the best in your pursuits, and may your goals bring you happiness and success this year!

Action

Take those two goals and devote yourself to them in 2024.

Thank you for reading Career Advise. Be sure to read our upcoming Out of Office issue on Friday.

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