Photo by Andrea Piacquadio
We believe lifelong learning is the cornerstone of a successful and fulfilling career.
The question is, how can we fit our learning goals into our busy lives?
Learning goals are typically set by educators in the classroom. At the beginning of a school year or the start of a semester, a professor might create SMART goals to design their lesson plans around.
These goals might be detailed in a syllabus that outlines the week-by-week goals for the class. All effective learning goals will outline the most important concepts, ideas, methods, and perspectives necessary.
While education is more clear-cut than a job, it makes sense to set learning goals in our professional lives, too.
What if, upon starting a new job, we considered ourselves "freshmen" and worked on a "semester" basis to improve competencies, learn new skills, and foster a centered approach to continuous professional development?
Whether you're in your "sophomore" year at your job or you're a "super (super) senior," setting and achieving learning goals might be the way to revitalize your passion for your job.
Let's look into it!
How to Build Effective Learning Goals
To get started, we researched how some of the formative institutions set out to create learning goals for their students. Stanford has a great resource on writing learning goals, which we took some inspiration from to create ideas for professional learning goals.
1. Ask Questions Related to Career Learning Goals
When writing any learning goals, Stanford first advises asking (and answering) various questions. These questions should help to build clarity and purpose around your learning goals.
Examples of Questions to Ask:
- What are the most important skills and competencies needed in my current position?
- What is my current state of understanding when it comes to these skills and ideas? (e.g., Would my understanding of Google Analytics be considered "proficient" or "advanced"?)
- What challenging questions might be asked in an interview for my current job? What challenging questions might be asked to be promoted to the next level in an interview?
- What is the most important skill I would need to learn to take my career to the next level? What resources do I need to learn this skill? How much time would I need?
- What other learning objectives do I have? Should I enjoy learning this new skill, or is it solely to gain a deeper understanding of software, strategy, or discipline?
2. Backward Design
Once you've asked your questions, you should be able to create a goal, or even a series of goals, that you'd like to work on achieving. The backward design approach encourages learners to consider the goal first and work on the details in the opposite direction.
3. Make Your Goals SMART
Specific: Ensure that your goals are well-defined and clear. The more specific you get with your goals, the easier it will be to build an actionable plan to achieve them.
Measurable: Know when your goal has been achieved! Establish criteria for measuring progress on each goal you set. Ask yourself: “How will I know when my goal is accomplished?”
Achievable: When you focus only on the most important and attainable goals, you’ll be that much more likely to accomplish them.
In addition, you’ll develop the exact abilities, attitudes, and skills to reach them. Set a goal that you’re willing and able to work toward. From there, you can build bigger and better goals!
In addition, you’ll develop the exact abilities, attitudes, and skills to reach them. Set a goal that you’re willing and able to work toward. From there, you can build bigger and better goals!
Relevant: Your goals should be relevant to the bigger picture. Make sure your goal fits into your life, values, and bigger, longer-term goals, too!
Time-bound: Set a deadline. Every goal should have a time frame. Without one, you have no sense of urgency to accomplish your goal. Time-bound boals prevent you from falling into the "someday" trap, where you never achieve the goal because there's always tomorrow.
Short-Term Learning Goals to Set + Achieve
Short-term professional goals are generally small objectives you set to achieve your long-term career goals.
Aside from dividing a complex objective into several smaller ones and making it more achievable, short-term goals also motivate you on your way to long-term success. Creating smaller milestones means that you are always focused on your next target.
For the purposes of this article, we'll identify short-term goals as goals that can be reasonably completed within six months.
- Earn a certification or complete an individual course.
- Learn about (and connect with) influencers in your industry.
- Learn how to create a professional portfolio.
- Learn how to network effectively.
- Exchange knowledge with someone in a different department than you. (e.g., teach foundations of design to the accountant in exchange for killer spreadsheet skills)
- Create a list of quick wins to achieve over the next month, quarter, or year.
Long-Term Learning Goals to Set + Achieve
Long-term goals are more complex goals that might include smaller goals within. These are our "reach" goals that relate to building ourselves up.
These longer-term goals might take anywhere from a year to a decade (or several decades) to achieve.
- Learn an unfamiliar software or language.
- Earn an associate's degree.
- Continuously work on a life skill, like confidence.
- Learn the skills necessary to transition your entire career.
- Create clear boundaries between your work life and personal life.
- Personally connect with the influencers and thought leaders in your industry.
10 Tips to Keep Significant Learning at the Center of Your Career
Now that we have reviewed how to write learning goals and why they're so advantageous, let's rattle off some quick tips to keep your learning fresh and focused.
1. Know the type of learner you are and the types of learning you respond best to.
Are you a visual learner? Do you respond better to hands-on learning, or can you read written lessons to learn a concept? Identifying your learner type will help you effectively map and personalize each step toward your goal—all according to the way you prefer to learn.
2. Keep a positive outlook.
Not to sound like *that person*, but outlook is everything. Set out with a positive outlook and celebrate small gains along the way to keep your outlook on the up and up!
3. Set and track your own learning goals.
You're the boss of your own learning goals. Set the pace and use your calendar (and maybe a journal!) to track and document your progress.
4. Manage your stress.
When looking at big goals, it can get stressful—and fast. Manage your stress by managing your expectations and tweaking them when necessary.
5. Be open to new ideas and approaches.
Some goals are only as good as our flexibility in our approach to achieving them.
What we mean is this: It's totally okay for the goal to change. Sometimes, it takes working towards one goal to realize it's not the right one to pursue. Adjust accordingly. Look at goal-setting as a work in progress.
6. Visualize a positive outcome.
Visualization is one of those "woo-woo" things that actually work.
Visualizing your outcome can be the key to making it happen. Put yourself in the position of having achieved your goal. What does is look like? What opportunities are available to you once you've reached your learning goal?
7. Learn from your mistakes.
Mistakes can contain our biggest and most transformational changes, but only when we're open to learning from them. When you experience setbacks, evaluate what happened, why, and how you can avoid it in the future.
8. Be flexible and resilient.
Know that one missed deadline does not constitute a failure. In fact, it's best to expect to experience setbacks, mistakes, and struggles. A great way to prepare for dealing with setbacks is by forecasting what you might do in certain cases. Some preemptive problem-solving is the best way to keep one mishap from taking you completely off course.
9. Manage your time.
Time management is extremely important when working on self-directed goals, especially alongside your full-time job. Your calendar is your friend, so use it to block off time to work on your self-education.
10. Relax.
You've got this. Really.
