How Can Professional Women Boost Their Professional Goals in 2013?

Do you have a clear picture where you would like to be professionally by December 31, 2013? If you haven’t created goals/steps to help you achieve a more successful career life, it may be because you are not sure what you want your life to be like when your major goals are accomplished!

As women we often need more time to process or as I like to call it “percolate” about what we want to achieve. You may wish to start by asking yourself if you are satisfied, in general, with your present position or even your current career choice.

Questions to ask yourself to help you focus on your future career goals:

1) Does your job/practice still reflect your personal life passion?

2) Are you living in integrity with your value system?

3) Do you feel you are valued professionally and as a person?

4) At the end of a work day or week do you get a feeling of satisfaction, most of the time?

5) Is your input into the decision making process heard—and respected?

If you answered “yes” to all of the above questions, your current position/career is probably where you still want to be by December 31, 2013! If you answered “no” to one or more of them, you may want to consider:

1) Developing more skills to deal with the negative aspects of the job/career

2) Changing your perception about it, or

3) Consider exploring options (a new job or even career)

Please note before considering any major changes such as a job or career change, you may wish to work on the first two suggestions above. If you discover with some reflection that you are feeling very dissatisfied with the path you are currently on or the position you are in professionally, (i.e. you answer several of the five questions “no”), it is wise before making a move to consider what you really want from a position/career rather than feeling the need just to run away from a stressful situation. I am sure you are all familiar with the old saying “out of the frying pan into the fire”. A fast move can sometimes just put you into a worse situation. A carefully planned out transition, is usually the wise way to go!

Taking some time to envision what your future professional self/life could be like is another way to help you plan for this coming year. Starting backwards from where you might want to be in five years (or if you are very young ten or even more years) from now is a creative way to help you begin to plan your path to success. It then becomes much easier to create your yearly goals to fit in with your overall career success plan.

Visit the January blog for more details how to do an imagination exercise that will help you more clearly define what your future could be like once you have reached your career peak.

To know where you want to be professionally by December 31, 2013, put the cart behind the horse before writing specific yearly goals!