Football is a breeding ground for overachievers. Not only are there the ‘upset teams’ in cups beating teams several divisions above (as a Chelsea fan I’ve come to fear Bradford City) but also the amazing underdog stories. Leicester City spring to mind, this year going from favourites for relegation to Premier League champions. There are also the individual players who go on a great run of form and are suddenly thrust into the spotlight after being in relative obscurity.

Whilst we aren’t all lucky enough to get ahead in our careers through booting a ball into the back of a net over and over again, the belief, confidence and work rate that leads to good form and helps players step up to that next level certainly applies.

Focussed

Most people have an idea of where they would eventually like to be in their career but when you’re early on in your working life it can seem like you have a mountain to climb. Like most big objectives in life it helps to break down what you want into chunks, and then to pursue those smaller goals in a really focussed way.

Setting clear and specific goals shows you where to spend all your time and energy. Setting goals helps you to visualise the results you’re looking for and to channel your effort into achieving them.

When assessing your career and your work/life balance setting some realistic attainable goals can help you work out what is and is not important and where you might have been wasting your resources.

Achievable

If you don’t have a clear goal set, it’s very difficult to achieve and you can spend a lot of time running around and not really focussing on anything. It looks like you’re doing lots and keeping busy, but it’s not what you genuinely want to be doing.

Footballers earn incredible salaries obviously, and not everybody can aim to earn a comparable salary, but it’s still important to aim high so you can continually achieve the smaller goals you’ve set. These add together and will eventually get you to your vision of your future.

Logical

Setting personal goals just makes sense. We’ve all set resolutions before and everyone is guilty of breaking them, but if they’re reasonable and achievable then we feel responsible for doing the work and are disappointed when we fail. Good goal setting means you’re accountable to yourself and not anyone else, which also means that you’re staying true to what you personally want.

First steps to achievable goal setting

What are you wanting to achieve by this point next year? How about the next 5 or 10?

If you take the time to articulate what you want to achieve and stick to them, you can look back in a year and be impressed with just how much you have accomplished.

Talk to us today to see how one of our specialist Recruiters can help you to achieve your career goals.