Prioritizing Goals
Goals are wonderful tools for organizing your career and your life. However, you will soon have an excess of goals. Some will guide your long- and short-term success; others will direct your business and personal projects. What can you do to make sure that you are working on the most important goals? You can prioritize them.
Many professionals begin with their life's goals and make sure their career goals fit within them, rather than the other way around. If your life goal is to nourish and enjoy relationships with your family, obviously this will conflict with the time requirements of your career's long- and short-term goals. You must establish a balance.
A priority is something that is prior to another thing. The priority can be based on time, such as dressing before you leave for the office, or it can be set by importance to your long-term goals, such as earning an advanced degree before you launch your business. In your life, there will be conflicts among goals, but most often time will be the telling factor. That is, you have twelve business and personal priorities for a Thursday, but you know you can't get to them all. Which ones should you tackle first? What about the others? Making those decisions is prioritizing, following a list of tasks in order of importance.
How can you prioritize the goals of your career? By determining their relative value to you. Is earning $100,000 more important than serving as many clients as possible? Is advancing your education more important than spending an extra hour on the phone each day? These can be tough questions, especially as you mix in goals from other aspects of your life.
Many professionals begin with their life's goals and make sure their career goals fit within them, rather than the other way around. If your life goal is to nourish and enjoy relationships with your family, obviously this will conflict with the time requirements of your career's long- and short-term goals. You must establish a balance.
One effective exercise is to list your personal and professional goals, determine what the requirements are, then analyze how each is important to your life goal. From this you can develop a list of goals in order of importance. Prioritizing isn't easy, nor is it an exact science. Your priorities today will surely be different from those of a year from now. Also, some goals and priorities will be thrust upon you by clients, family, and others. A financial downturn in your field or a medical emergency at home can shuffle your priorities in a moment. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't have priorities; just use them as guidelines for planning your days. Goals are aspirations, not requirements.
How can you ensure that your career goals support instead of subvert your life goals? Communicate. If your life goals involve family, talk with the members, asking them to help you prioritize your time and assets. What do they need from you to meet their own goals? If they don't know, help them understand the importance of goals in your life. Have the same conversation with yourself. What do you need? With such an understanding, you can better prioritize your career efforts to balance your life.
