Setting Your Career Goals for 2024

by Pradip Ananda and Kerrie Bondi

It’s the start of a new year and maybe time for some fresh thoughts about your career or work path. A new year means the opportunity for New Year’s resolutions, but where do you begin? Should you set goals for the next six months? The next twelve months? The next five years? It can be helpful to set different goals for all of these different timelines, but you have to start somewhere, and we have some ideas that can help you move forward. Here are five tips to help you set some professional resolutions for 2024 and beyond.

Take a Look in the Rear-View

While you don’t want to dwell on the past, it’s helpful to look at where you’ve been to see where you want to go. Reflect back on what has gone well in your career and perhaps those areas where there were some challenges. If you felt excited or really happy, what were you doing? If there were moments that made you feel stressed or burned out, what was the cause? Make sure to be specific about what was causing the good or bad times this year, whether that was the people you work with, specific tasks or project, the sheer volume of work, or the nature of the work.

As you’re going through this process, make yourself one list of things to embrace and another list of things to avoid. If you’re unsure about where you stand with the work you did, this might be a great time to look into a strengths-based assessment to see where your natural strengths lie and how your current job aligns with them.

Dream Big

Now that you’ve put in some honest reflection, let your imagination run wild with ideas of where you can go. Try not to put a time limit on the goals you’re thinking of here – these goals could be short term ones like landing your next promotion, long term ones like what your ultimate goal for your career is, or anywhere in between. If you don’t know where to start, think about how you could use the items on your “embrace” list more in the future and consider whether you can do those things at your current position or company. If you can’t, you may have to think about making a big change to your career in 2024 to let you flourish and grow your career in a sustainable way.

Take Small Steps

After you’ve dreamt big, it’s time to start thinking about the small steps you can start taking in the new year to work towards your goals. If you’re looking to move up in your current company or make a lateral move, this is a great opportunity to start gathering information. You can do this by looking at open positions in areas you want to be and seeing what the job requirements are for that role. Another way to learn more is to talk with people who are already doing this work through coffee talks, aka informational interviews. You want to make informed decisions when it comes to your career, so it’s important to learn about your destination before you start moving towards it.

Try Before You Buy

For those who have decided on a major change in their career, there may be some additional skills, experience, or education needed. At this point, hopefully you have a sense of what you’re interested in and you’ve done some research about what you need. Rather than running out to enroll in a new degree program or spending tens of thousands of dollars on some form of academy, start small. If there are specific skills you need to learn, consider taking an introductory course to see if you enjoy doing that work. If it’s experience you need, see how you can volunteer in your current role to get more involved with that work, or you can even look into volunteering at organizations on the weekends. This diversifies your resume, allows you opportunities for networking, and can even lead to some new hobbies! The main point is that this is a journey, so you have to make sure you’re investing your time, money, and energy wisely.

Find Your Support Network

As mentioned, this is a journey and it won’t happen in a single day. Bringing others along this journey with you can be beneficial for keeping you motivated and offering insights into your own goals. In the beginning of this process, it can be helpful to ask friends, family, and colleagues about what you’re good at and where do they think you’re at your best. You may not always agree, but gathering perspectives from the people who have seen you work may make you look at things in a new way that you didn’t before. By keeping your friends and family informed as you move through this journey, they can also help you hold yourself accountable and keep on the path that you’ve set out on.

Regardless of why you decide to share in this journey with others, there are numerous benefits to having an accountability and support system present. These folks may know of great opportunities to learn, or have connections in their own network they can connect you with, or they may just be someone who asks, “How’s the plan for 2024 going?” The hope is that they help you stay on track and keep you motivated to achieve your goals.

Looking Forward to 2024

Whatever the next step is on your professional pathway, wanting to change and improve your career is a sign that you’re on the right track. Setting professional goals for 2024, even if you don’t end up achieving all of them by next December, will help you keep moving forward in your career for years to come.

Good luck as you start your 2024 journey on a positive note!