by Rosamunde Bott

Goal setting is important in any area of life where you want success, and this includes career change planning.

There are people who will avoid setting goals because either they think they can never achieve what they really want, or because they think they are no good at setting goals. The truth is that neither of these is true. Anyone is capable of achieving what they want, as long as they have the physical capacity, and anyone can learn how to set achievable goals. If it has not worked for you in the past, that may be because your goals have been unclear or unrealistic. Or perhaps they were just not motivating enough.

If your goals are not motivating, it is going to be difficult to keep to your game plan. Your goals should get you out of bed very morning and keep you determined to overcome any obstacles to achieve them.

It is wise to remember that goals can be flexible; if your goal is not working out, and you have given it enough time and done everything on your plan, it may be that it just needs tweaking.

Some people may give up on a goal because their actions are not producing the results that they wanted. This does not mean that your goal is unachievable, or you are not able to do it; it just means is that you need to adjust your actions. Creating smaller, easily achievable goals within a shorter time span can give you greater confidence to go for the larger goal.

Before setting your goals, you need to take a good look at where you are right now. No-one plans a journey by starting from somewhere other than where they are, so you need to be very clear about the reality of your current situation.

Awareness of yourself and your present situation will give you a good starting point for you to start setting clear, specific and actionable career goals that will move you forward from where you are right now.

First of all, write down some notes about yourself. What are your values? What do you enjoy doing? What are your skills? How would your friends describe you? What were you doing when you felt most fulfilled and happy? What qualifications do you have? Understand who you are and what is important to you.

Now project yourself forward to a year’s time, and then five years’ time. Where would you like to be? What kind of career can you see yourself in? Does it fill you with excitement and make you smile? If not, keep thinking.

You will know when you’ve hit on something. It’s what’s called that “gut feeling”. Now it’s time to start getting specific. Vague goals create vague results. The more specific you make your goals the more focussed you will be on your target and the closer you will get to that target.

Write down all the things you want in your new career. Where do you want to work? What kind of company will you work for? Will you work for yourself? What kind of office or work space? What kind of people will you meet? What will you be doing every day? Also, ask yourself WHY you want this particular career. What is it about it that would satisfy you?

Imagine the sights, sounds, smells and taste. Good writers always use all the senses to make their readers feel they are right in the scene. It’s the same with visualising your goal. You need to feel every detail, as well as just see it.

When you do this, your subconscious mind starts automatically looking for opportunities and creating ideas that move you forward to fulfilling your dream.

Now, write down a statement as if this career was already in place. Begin with “I am now…” and include all the details of your job: your job role, your income, the company you work for, where you work etc. Put this in a place where you can see it every day.

You will want to do some research now, and find out exactly what you need to do in order to get from where you are now to this statement you have just written down. You might need training or further work experience, or you might need to consider relocating.

Once you are clear about all the things you need to do, you can start writing your action plan. Write this out, step by step, working backwards from the goal so you can clearly see what needs to be done at each stage of your journey. Some of the larger steps, such as relocating, will need to broken down into smaller steps.

When you do this, you will have a realistic idea of how long it is going to take you to achieve your career goal. You can now add to your statement the date you will have achieved this. Once you have your plan of action, start working it!

Motivation and goal setting go hand in hand when you are planning a career change. Unless you choose a career goal that excites you, you will be likely to end up once again in a dissatisfying situation. You are the only person in charge of your life. Choose a great one!

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Ros is a career and home business life coach and is also a writer and home business owner.

Ros’s coaching site is at Career and Home Business Coaching

Article Source: http://www.articlerich.com