New Year goal and resolution setting aren’t just for your personal life! Setting goals, intentions, and areas of focus over a set period have long been a proven method of personal development. The same principles hold for your professional goals. Taking time to ponder, write and execute your goals is a sure way to keep your momentum growing over time. Today, we look at best practices for new year goal setting to help you keep on track professionally!
Konik, a Technical Talent Network, has assisted engineering and architecture professionals in navigating their careers for nearly 50 years. We want to share some insights into what works for many professionals like you.
Well-defined career plans not only set goals for your future but help you become a successful professional and create energy and momentum for yourself and those around you. With the New Year approaching fast, it is an excellent time to settle down and decide what career goals you might want to accomplish in 2022!
If you feel like you’ve stalled over the past year with achievement planning, today is a great time to rethink where you’d like to move towards over the next 12 months. Both engineers and architects have their recipe for success that must be realistic and attainable. In today’s challenging and fast-moving world, however, it can be a little overwhelming for engineers and architects to develop goals that have potential.
Whether you are designing a complex system or a structure as an engineer or a building as an architect, you will need to channel your inner energy and creativity. Along similar lines, don’t you want to flourish as an engineer or architect and become the best version of yourself? As you start setting your goals and making progress towards them, positive energy and momentum is created.
How to Set a Plan for Career Growth?
When setting your career goals this New Year, one of the most challenging things you might face is getting started with the process. When developing a career growth plan, there are a few points which you should keep in mind. Let’s have a look at them below.
As both engineers and architects belong to a field with a broad scope and multiple aspects, you will need to narrow down your choices and determine an area of interest. Assess where you stand and list down the hurdles you might face. After starting a shortlist, think about the item or two that gives you the most excitement and interest. If one is more exciting yet challenging to you, you’re more likely to stick to it as it adds value to your career. Learning a new engineering skill that you’ve always wanted to know, for example, will be easier to jump into and schedule time for in the months ahead.
After that, write down the goals statements; make sure that they are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, and Relevant) and move you towards your long-term career vision. An example of a SMART goal statement is “I will finish 50 hours of ANSYS 3D modeling training by June 1st, 2022″. When you are done setting the plan, make sure to go back to it every week to make sure you’re tracking towards your goal.
How to Learn New Skills to Grow Your Career?
In engineering and architecture, there is always space for you to grow as an individual. Along with a lifelong learners mindset, you want to keep learning new skills. As an engineer, you should keep yourself updated on the latest technical knowledge and critical reasoning. Similarly, you should expand your horizons and thinking skills by thinking out of the box as an architect.
You should invest your time in seeking challenging assignments, finding a coach, polishing your creativity, and moving your skill sets forward in areas that are both exciting to you and stacks on top of your current mastery. You can also invest your energy in team-building, communicating with clients, and enhancing your knowledge of buildings and construction.
How to Journal to Document Goals?
Did you know that many engineers and architects prefer maintaining a journal as it helps them keep track of their progress? The journaling technique will prove very beneficial for you to track your progress and write weekly updates on how you’re doing.
You can use various methods to journal and document your goal’s progress. A pen and pad are the simplest, or a Word document to file your journal. There are an unlimited amount of free online journaling resources that allow you to log in from any device from anywhere.
The first method is the old-school method, which involves a pen and a pad, while the other could be any online easy-to-use journaling application. Once you decide your goals, jot them down in your journal in a list. Make sure that the list aligns with your long-term career vision and excites you to move forward.
Ensure that you refer to your journal weekly. When you document your goals in your journal, you will expand and modify them later on according to your results. Furthermore, this allows you to be honest while journaling to know where you stand as an engineer or an architect.
How to Keep Yourself Accountable To Your Goals?
The feeling of setting new goals is always exciting, but it is essential to keep in a feedback loop if you want to achieve them on time. Like planning a new structure and designs for a project, you want to make sure that you commit to a schedule. Also, partner up with someone who will hold you accountable and check your progress now and then. Review how your work is going and whether it requires any improvement or not.
Moreover, once you complete your goal, don’t forget to celebrate it. When you celebrate your win, you will be further motivated to achieve more.
Take the first step today and journal your goals for the new year, then set up 2022 to be SMART!
Tom Goettl writes at the intersection of careers, leadership, and technology. Konik is a technical talent network focused on architecture, engineering, and manufacturing professionals in the Midwest.
