CHICAGO — Heading into a new year, it’s important to create or reevaluate goals for the upcoming year, both professionally and personally. From SMART goals to the five C’s or five F’s of goal setting, there are a plethora of ways to examine goals and set yourself up for success. Trade Show Executive took pointers from the leading business experts and sources to create a Goals Guide for Young Professionals to help kickstart efforts aimed at achieving exceptional performance in 2025 and beyond.
Creating Your Goals
When it comes to brainstorming what your goals are for the year (or any time period), many experts recommend starting with the SMART method. Ensuring your goals are SMART means you’re ensuring they are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound.
Another point of necessity is having a “why” behind the goal that aligns with your professional and personal values. Having a strong why behind a goal will help you to feel connected to your desired outcome.
Harvard Business Review notes that understanding the “why” behind a goal helps you to avoid distraction and focus on the pursuit of the goal, as well as helps you to gain awareness of your vision, better articulate your ideas to yourself and others, find out what you should not be doing and prioritizing what you should be doing.
There is also the PACT Method, which according to the National Society of Leadership and Success (NSLS), is more output-focused and useful for more long-term goals. PACT stands for Purposeful, Actionable, Continuous and Trackable, which is similar to SMART goals but differs in that Continuous is about experimenting with actions so long as they contribute to progress, giving yourself room to make mistakes and grow.
Setting Up a Plan to Achieve Goals
Another great way to set yourself up for success is to find create a sense of accountability. Whether it’s a colleague, peer, friend or even an app, having someone (or something) who is invested in your goal to a degree and willing to hold you accountable is important.
“Find a peer or someone you know who can hold you accountable. Then share with them your goals, timelines and plan so both of you know what should be getting done. Make sure to have a monthly or quarterly meeting to check in and account for what you accomplished or what you didn’t. That person will push you to stay on track and help you be more focused on your goals. For things you didn’t accomplish, you will have to explain to them why and what you’re going to do in the next month to stay on track. Accountability partners have been so great for me and my business,” stated Kyle Clayton of RE/MAX Professionals in a Forbes article.
Tracking Progress
Besides your typical spreadsheets and checklists, there are tools out there for tracking progress of tasks and goals. Task manager apps and project management tools can also be utilized for goals, and keeping a calendar for important milestones and deadlines can help keep you on track.
Tools and apps like Habit Factor Lite, Hive, Coach.me, and HabitBull, among others can help keep all your progress, notes and overall goals in one place, according to Business News Daily. For those who like a more traditional tracking system, bullet journals offer easy customization on paper and digitally.
You can also set up regular meetings with a supervisor, peer or friend to get their perspective on your progress, and to get another viewpoint on how you can adjust your current actions to best align with your goals. See if they agree with where you believe you’re at and be open to constructive feedback.
“An accountability partner offers different perspectives regarding your approach to certain situations and tasks,” says an article on Indeed, How To Be an Effective Accountability Partner at Work. “It’s important to gain insight from a varied point of view as you determine new ways of overcoming obstacles and meeting challenges. To create an effective partnership, listen to your partner’s perspective and show that you value their feedback.”
When working toward clear goals, it can be easy to get caught up in striving for perfection, and that’s why focusing on continuation rather than improvement can be important when it comes to some goals. A large part of this is keeping yourself from getting hung up on “failures,” and instead turning those moments into motivation.
Celebrating Success
There are plenty of ways to celebrate reaching a goal, and whether you want to share the celebrations with others or keep it low-key, it’s entirely up to you! There is no “best way” to celebrate, but some ideas include giving yourself a gift like a spa day or even a mini vacation, expressing gratitude for those who supported parts of the journey, or hosting a small get-together with friends or colleagues.
And there’s nothing wrong with a little self-promotion every now and then. Share your accomplishments and story on LinkedIn to expand the reach of your news. This can also help connect you to someone who is striving toward a similar goal or someone reflecting on when they achieved something similar, which can lead to a possible mentorship opportunity (or just a great conversation).
As well as celebrating reaching a major goal, it’s important to recognize the small wins along the way, the new skills learned and the lessons you’ve taken away from the entire journey. Even if you didn’t reach your main objective in your set timeframe, it’s likely you learned things along the way that helped you to continue improving, which is an achievement in itself.
According to Hardvard Summer School from the Harvard Division of Continuing Education, “While small wins might not feel like much at the time, with consistency and persistence, they will lead you toward a larger, more ambitious accomplishment. They are worthy of celebration because small wins are the building blocks for future success.”
