Goals – the short and long of it

In these current times, it’s hard to predict what will happen over the coming two or three days, let alone next week or next year. With daily government announcements changing everyone’s perception of the global health crisis every 24 hours, we have a situation where workers are on furlough and some self-employed people are wondering how they are going to manage in the coming weeks. Because of the uncertainty and lack of a defined route out of this, long-term goals are all but impossible to set and achieve.

At Career Evolution, we usually advocate long-term planning when it comes to career progression. But in these current times, which are challenging both personally and professionally, some form of looking ahead remains important. At some point things will return to normal, though it may still be a way off and it may be a different normal to what we are used to.

Daily exercise

A useful exercise is to identify short-term goals that you can define and influence. As businesspeople this may be against our nature. We are hardwired to develop long-term goals – quarterly or 12-month plans – but don’t increase your stress levels by trying to do that at the moment. Making a short-term plan could involve looking after your key stakeholders. This may be internally, for example your employees, to make sure they stay engaged. Or it could be external, such as customers, suppliers, key network and warm contacts.

Developing and nurturing relationships in these dislocated times, is perhaps more important than ever. In the same way that many of us are working remotely, you can still connect to anyone you would normally see in person, or ring on the phone. Use your LinkedIn or other business community platforms to engage and communicate, building bridges that you may, post economic lockdown, be able to cross.

A learning curve

Even working remotely, you can still share experiences and new ways of doing things – those that have worked well and those that haven’t. The best way of learning is usually talking to someone who has experience of doing it. It’s amazing what you learn just from listening or participating in discussions online, either one-to-one or on forums or networking groups.

We are all in this situation together and people are generally more open about the issues they are facing during this testing time. The confinement and limiting of movement are impacting physical and mental health, as well as the way we carry out our jobs and interact. Having a plan – even a short-term one – will help give you clarity and purpose. Set out goals that align with the SMART formula – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timeframe – and think about how to implement these new benchmarks in the future. In this way, you will gradually be putting in place plans you can activate as normality returns – and it will provide you with anchor and focus for the time being.