| How do I find my ideal career path? | Set the kind of goals that connect you to your values and encourage you to grow. |
In our shared room, long after the conference day had ended, her words hung in the air. My bed on the left, hers on the right. In the space between us, the weight of her forty years’ experience:
“Your boss isn’t looking out for you, you know. He’s thinking about what’s best for the organization.”
I was still an intern, trying to land my first full-time job. She was a veteran of the environmental nonprofit world. She didn’t mean my boss was mean or that he was taking advantage of me. She was simply pointing out that bosses have their own responsibilities. She was right, but it was news to me.
School teachers, piano instructors, soccer coaches, and so many other adults in our lives have one job when we are young: to guide us. They are paid to focus on us, to prepare us for our lives. They give us information, build our skills and our confidence. When they are great at their job, they help us see our individual potential and encourage us to grow into it.
Then, suddenly we are ejected into the real world — the adult world — and those relationships evaporate. The rehearsal is over, and it’s time to perform.
Career goals are a tricky thing. For the first twenty-ish years of our lives, society points us towards a standardized set of building blocks for adult life.
We learn to move about on our own. We learn to communicate and absorb information. We develop an understanding of the world around us, what we like to do, don’t like to do, and what we simply have to do.
Next thing we know, we are on our own. For eight decades or so, there are no predetermined milestones or goals.
It’s easy to miss the transition at first. There’s plenty of career advice, training programs, and social forces to tell us what the “right direction” looks like. For a while, we might think that a certain job, title, salary, or project win equals success. But sooner or later, we all find ourselves laying in bed realizing that the training wheels have fallen off.
We can spend our adult years reacting to what the world offers us, hoping it will be for the best. Or, we can choose our goals. Either way, what happens in the ensuing decades is shaped by us — and no path is the same.
Growth is the ability to do things that you couldn’t do before, to do with ease what once seemed hard. Growth isn’t about getting things, acquiring things; it’s about being.
Our experience of growth is linked to our goals. Without goals, growth is just change — it’s the experience of being different today than in the past, but without a deep sense of achievement or progress or meaning.
We often talk about organizational goals in nonprofit life — missions, campaign objectives, fundraising targets, visions for the future. It’s less common to talk about ourselves, our performance, our professional development, and us as humans.
For some, personal goal-setting comes naturally; you may be one of those people who has done this all your life. You map out your career, pursue your dream, and never look back.
For others, goal-setting is harder. You might not realize you can set your own goals. You might not believe that you have the power to influence what opportunities arise, so you set safe goals. Maybe you find it hard to commit to just a few of the thousand fabulous dreams that fill your mind every day.
But, natural or not, goal-setting is the key to creating your ideal career path.
There are two types of goals, for people and organizations alike: “what” goals and “how” goals.
The first type, tangible milestones, like securing a position in a specific field, earning a new job title, securing a higher salary, or successfully completing a dream project gets a lot of attention in career advice resources.
The second, the attitudes and habits you nurture along the way, like your work ethic, how you listen, how you speak, the way you prioritize your time, or how you make decisions, not so much.
“What” goals are helpful, but on their own they are not enough to make you happy, fulfilled, or to create meaningful impact.
Many people who chase their career goals wake up one day and realize that something is missing. The job title they earned doesn’t make them as happy five years later. The field they’ve landed in never seems to provide a perfect role. They love their organization’s work, but their co-workers are a pain; or, vice versa. In the end, ‘what’ is not enough.
Once we pass a milestone, it shrinks in the rearview mirror; its ability to bring us satisfaction fades. That’s why “how” goals are so important. They shape how much meaning you get out of everyday life — regardless of what milestones you achieve or what the world offers you.
“How” goals connect you to the values and attitudes that matter to you, constantly encourage you to grow, and shape your unique path. They free you from things beyond your control and from the limitations of other’s imaginations.
There is no other human on this planet who has the same mix of aspirations, faces the same current set of challenges, and has the same potential as you. When you set your own “what” and “how” goals, you forge a path that is ideal for you.
Don’t wait for a manager or advisor or an organization or a blog to tell you what path to walk. You are the only adult who knows which mix of values, aspirations, and capabilities you should develop.
People are attracted to social impact careers because they want to feel like their work matters — and it does. But the social impact world can also let you down sometimes. It’s not an ideal place; it’s messy and human.
When we take the time and care to do our work in ways that are truthful to, and serve, our ideals, we can achieve our mission with greater integrity. When you simply accept the goals that are set for you by others, you lose a chance to be better, wiser, and to do more good.
How we are affects our work. If you find it hard to set goals for just your personal benefit, do it for the mission you love.
There are many online resources about goal-setting; however, they often strongly focus on ‘what’ (often other peoples’) over how. We encourage you to set your own goals and decide for yourself how you want to be once there.
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