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15 Personal Goals For Work To Help You Succeed In Your Career
Being successful in your chosen career takes a lot of hard work and dedication. However, you can’t dedicate yourself to working hard if you don’t know what specific goals you’re trying to reach.
That’s why setting goals for the workplace is so important. Once you have set achievable and concrete goals, you can start taking steps to make your career dreams come true!
These 15 goals for work to help you succeed in your career will allow you to stand out amongst your colleagues and other professionals in your field. Before you know it, you’ll be at the top of the career ladder!
1. Practicing Gratitude Daily
When you’re trying to progress in your career, it’s natural to find yourself wishing you were further along on your journey. However, it’s important to remember to practice gratitude for where you are now.
Practicing gratitude every day, either by keeping a gratitude journal or simply reminding yourself of things you have to be thankful for, will help to keep you grounded in the present, which will ensure that you can dedicate yourself fully to your work.
Additionally, practicing being grateful in the moment means that you’ll be able to appreciate your next promotion or big opportunity more when the time is right.
2. Connecting With Others At Work
It’s often tempting to try and accomplish everything by yourself at work, especially if your personality type leans more towards introversion. With that being said, fostering connections with others in your workplace is essential if you want to achieve success.
The connections you foster should also be meaningful, so talking about the weather isn’t going to cut it. Instead, you should make an effort to have personal conversations with and remember important details about your colleagues to ensure professional yet friendly work relationships.
This makes for a happier workplace and better teamwork, with better results.
3. Saying Yes To Opportunities
Sometimes, our worries can get the better of us, and we find ourselves saying no to opportunities that we should be grabbing with both hands.
Before you automatically say no to an opportunity because you have a lot of work to do already, or you’re not sure about your capability, stop and make sure that it’s not just your self-doubt talking. After all, saying yes when opportunities present themselves is the key to progressing in your career.
4. Knowing When To Say No
As much as it’s essential to know when to say yes at work, it’s equally important to know your own boundaries and say no when necessary.
For many of us, overworking and overwhelming ourselves at the office is second nature because we associate it with success. However, saying yes too often just to please others can diminish your productivity and the quality of your work.
Next time your boss asks you to pick up another assignment when you’re already working late to finish your other commitments, know that it’s okay to say no.
5. Be Helpful To Others
Succeeding in your career involves looking out for yourself and making your own work a priority. However, you should also make sure to extend a helping hand to your colleagues if you can.
Part of fostering strong relationships with others at work involves being helpful and working as part of a team. Offering assistance will also help to develop your communication skills as well as demonstrate leadership skills.
6. Ask For Help When Needed
On the flip side, it’s also important to be comfortable asking for help when you need it. There’s no shame in admitting that you’re overwhelmed or confused about something, and if you know how to ask for help in the right way, you’ll demonstrate that you can handle difficult situations with honesty.
If you’re struggling at work, it’s totally okay to reach out to a trusted colleague or your boss and ask for help. Make sure to thank them graciously for their time and the knowledge they have imparted.
7. Take Regular Breaks
We all know the stressful feeling of having so much work to do and so little time. However, you shouldn’t let this feeling persuade you to work throughout the day without a break.
In fact, studies have shown that taking regular breaks at work can have a positive impact on your productivity because it allows your brain to recharge.
Taking scheduled breaks is one of those daily habits that can drastically improve your brain function, especially if you use your break time to enjoy a healthy snack like a piece of fruit and drink some water.
8. Surpass Expectations
Here’s a secret not many people know: surpassing expectations doesn’t mean working yourself to the bone. It simply means promising less than you deliver.
If your boss asks you to take on another assignment, and you think you can maybe finish it by Wednesday, don’t promise you’ll have it done by Wednesday.
Instead, promise to have it done by the end of the week, and try your hardest to have it done by Thursday at the latest. This way, you will have surpassed expectations without putting so much pressure on yourself.
9. Work Hard, Play Hard
It is essential to create a good work-life balance if you want to be successful in your career. In the same vein as taking regular breaks during the work day, you need to be able to make time for your personal life if you don’t want to end up burnt out and resenting your job.
Sometimes, this work-life balance requires setting some boundaries with yourself and others. Maybe you make a commitment to stop taking work home over the weekend, or you dedicate an evening every week to uninterrupted time with family and friends.
This will ensure that your home and social life don’t suffer as a result of your career goals, and you’ll go back to work feeling more fulfilled.
10. Remain Humble
No matter how highly you achieve at work, it’s important to remain humble. Bragging endlessly about your new promotion or how good you are at your job won’t make you any friends at the office.
In fact, it’s an indicator of low emotional intelligence, poor social skills, and indicates that you’re not a team player.
Whenever you achieve something at work, remember to acknowledge the people and circumstances that helped you on the way. It’s also good to remind yourself that you always have personal growth as well as professional growth to do.
11. Be Inquisitive
Something as simple as asking questions can really help you to go further in your career. Asking how exactly something works or why something needs to be done a certain way will give you a deeper understanding of your field and will show those around you that you are eager to learn and grow.
Both of these things are essential if you want to meet your career goals.
Each time your boss or supervisor explains something new to you, make an effort to ask at least one question to demonstrate your active listening and critical thinking skills.
12. Practice Conflict Management
Inevitably, conflict sometimes arises in the workplace. Obviously, it would be ideal for conflicts to be kept to a minimum, but when an argument does happen, it’s important to learn and practice conflict management skills.
Learning how to mediate during an argument is an excellent relationship-building exercise and one of the core career skills that will help you to rise to the top. Make sure that everyone feels heard and understood and learn to navigate different communication styles to find the best solution for everybody.
13. Embrace Differences
No two people are the same in any workplace, and that’s a good thing! If you want to progress in your career without endless disagreements, you’ll need to embrace differences between yourself and your colleagues and use them to everyone’s advantage.
For example, based on your different skills and interests, you can delegate tasks more effectively within your team to reach a common goal.
14. Anticipate Good Things
You will struggle to succeed in your chosen career if you approach each task with negative thinking. If you have a tendency to see the glass as half-empty, try to practice positive thinking.
Learning to anticipate that things will turn out for the best can have the biggest impact out of any goal on this list. This is because positive thinking reduces stress and encourages proactive behaviors, both of which are likely to lead to success.
15. Get To Know Yourself
Finally, being successful at work always involves knowing and mastering yourself. This means acknowledging both your strengths and weaknesses so that you can work to and around them.
If you know, for example, that you get easily overwhelmed under pressure, you can take steps to rise to challenging situations more effectively, whether that’s through practicing meditation or knowing when to delegate tasks.
Final Thoughts
If you make an effort to meet all the 15 goals listed above, you should quickly find yourself enjoying more success at work.
Remember, success in the workplace isn’t just about working hard. It’s about working smart, building positive relationships with other workers, and creating a balance between work and rest that allows you to be your best self.
