Setting Professional Goals for the Year Ahead [Video]

What Are Professional Goals?

Former football player, coach and analyst Lou Holtz is credited with saying, “In this world, you’re either growing or you’re dying.”

Shannon Deamer, an executive coach and talent acquisition expert, takes this advice to heart and translates it for her clients in the business world. “We’re always in this constant mode of wanting to grow and develop to get better,” she says. “It’s important to set professional goals so that you can have something that you’re striving for, and then you can measure your success toward achieving that goal.”

Professional goals are, quite simply, goals having to do with work. Some contain a built-in end point, such as vying for a promotion or a salary bump. Some, like mastering the art of public speaking, are more nebulous and qualitative. Many involve not only the employee’s individual development, but that of the company as a whole.

Professional goals are meaningless, though, unless marketers also set …