Putting Our Thoughts Into Action

This month we find ourselves entering the third module of Peter Weddle's career fitness program, "Warm Up Your Career Fitness Plan: How to Stay True to Your Calling." This module invites the reader to develop a plan to improve their career fitness. This is the pivotal point in the book where we transition from passive self-reflection to becoming career activists with firm goals to get our careers pointed in the right direction.

Previously in this course, we have defined what working in modern America looks like and what it means to be a professional in higher education. We reflected upon our career happiness and evaluated our "career fitness" using the tools that Peter has created and shared in this book. We have sought out to determine who is in control of our career. Are we the ones standing at the helm steering our careers into favored waters? Or, are there outside forces that have control, blowing us off course? Most recently we have started to investigate who we are, what our Natural talents are, and what would make us happiest at work.

Having achieved all of that, we are now left with the daunting task of setting goals. The object is to make meaningful goals that won't be discarded, as Peter puts it, like New Year's resolutions, but carried on and integrated into our daily work.

These three goal cycles that are discussed in chapter 6 of Work Strong each have their own purpose. The first one is based on Achievements, the second one is focused on Advancement, and the third and final one is about Development.

As these goal cycles apply to careers in higher education, I felt the first one had the most universal feel to it. The first goal cycle is focused on achieving something near-term (6-12 months) that will be immediately enjoyed and have a positive impact on your current job. If the 21^st century version of loyalty to one's employer is to perform at optimum levels at all times, a professor working in academia could view such loyalty to be expressed in terms of volume of published work, as that adds to an institution's prestige.

The old adage, publish or perish, can be the driving motivator to create your first goal. A goal to publish their work within the next 6-12 months and apply for a new grant. One way to accomplish this goal would be to develop a new system for organizing their research and thoughts, so when it comes time to publish an article, everything is laid out orderly and they can focus on just writing. Once successful at achieving this goal, a person will not only feel better about themselves, but also add something to their CV to help them prepare for the next goal, Advancement.

Read on in chapter 6 of Work Strong and share your thoughts about this system of career goal setting and how you might use this system. Please share your story about a system of goal setting that works for you.