Episode 03 - What Does Success Look Like For You? Goal Setting Series - Part 2
How can you set goals if you don’t know where you are going?
If you listened to episode 02 on Reflection, you have reflected on how far you’ve come and now you can start setting your vision and your intentions for the future.
Athletes like Michael Phelps are known for envisioning themselves being Olympians or making the game-winning 3-pointer.
What is that overarching vision for your life and your career that you can then set goals to help realize that?
Setting a vision can be really difficult. It can feel just really woo-woo or fuzzy especially if you haven’t seen examples of that vision in your life. And sometimes other people's assumptions get placed on you with how they think you should craft your life or career.
Our own lack of confidence or imposter syndrome can also hold us back from setting that big vision for ourselves.
Download the Upgraded Goal Setting Workbook here.
In this episode you’ll learn:
Why setting a vision can be challenging
Why setting a vision is important in goal setting
3 questions to ask yourself when setting a vision
How to think about an intention or a theme for the year
Follow Nicole on LinkedIn and on Instagram @nicolecasespeaks
Transcript:
E03
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Welcome back to the Upgraded Career Podcast. I am your host Nicole Case, and today we are continuing with part two of our goal setting series. The last episode, we set the stage and started with reflection. We thought about what worked, what didn't, what did we learn about ourselves and how did we help ourselves and how?
How do we help? Last year and we can't know where we wanna go or how to get there if we first don't reflect on what happened in the last year or six months or whatever timeframe you wanna use. So hopefully you're following along with me by using that upgraded goal setting worksheet I created for you.
If you haven't already downloaded it and printed it off, I've linked to it in the show notes at nicole k speaks.com/podcast/zero three, and you can get it there. So now that we have reflected [00:02:00] on how far we've come, we can start setting our vision and our intentions for the future. Again, I see a lot of people skipping this step and going straight into goal setting.
But how can you set goals if you don't know where you are going? What is that overarching vision for your life and your career that you are able to then set goals to help realize that? And setting your vision, I recognize can be really difficult. For one, it can feel just really woowoo, right? If you're not one that's into woowoo stuff, it can feel super fuzzy or squishy at.
But the closer you get to that vision, the clearer it will become. So sometimes, you know, that vision for ourselves that we have, like, we're just not quite sure what it is yet because we're just so far away from what that looks like. Right. So again, it's just, it feels just really fuzzy at first. And sometimes [00:03:00] other people's assumptions get kind of placed on you or other people's, other people's thoughts on how they believe you.
Craft your career or move about your career or your life, kind of get thrown onto us. Right. I remember an early time in my career, I was out in California at the headquarters of the tech company I was working at, and I was having lunch or dinner or drinks or something with, um, a few senior leaders in the hr, in the, in my, in my HR.
I remember very specifically, my VP at the time said something to the effect of, well, Nicole, it's really good that you already have your master's degrees, because when you are ready to become the head of HR somewhere, you know they're gonna expect probably by that time that you would have a master's degree.
That's, that's just the direction our industry and our field is heading in. That people were really [00:04:00] valuing master's degrees for people who were doing these heads of HR role, chief people, officer roles, those, those kinds of things. And I looked at her and I actually hadn't really thought about it a whole lot at that point, but I, as soon as she said that to me, I looked at her and I said, well, that sounds horrible.
I don't think I actually wanna be the head of HR somewhere. And it was just so interesting in that moment cuz she got this big smile on her face and she. You should get a coaching certification. And I was like, okay, great. And at that time I didn't, I didn't know what a coaching certification was, but flash forward like 10 years later, right here I am with a coaching certification and a whole business dedicated to, to coaching others.
But it was just interesting that she just assumed that that was the vision for my career, that that was a goal or something that I wanted to achieve and it, and it wasn't, and I could have. Her or let that influence me right now. I guess I [00:05:00] did let the fact that she said you should get a coaching certification influence me.
But honestly, I didn't know what it was at that time and it, and it didn't really click for me until several years later when I was like, ah, now I understand what Sherry was talking about. It also can be really hard to set a vision, especially if it's something. That you have not seen before. Like it's hard to conceive something you've never seen, which is why we say representation matters, right?
And so like Kamala Harris has this quote where she said that my mother had a saying, Kamala, you might be the first to do many things, but make sure you're not the last. And that just speaks on so many levels, so many different intersectionalities. You know, if you are someone who comes from a place that you just don't have these certain things or these certain careers or these certain lives, lifestyles, or achievements or milestones modeled for you, it's, it's kind of hard to conceive [00:06:00] what that could look like for you or some, or what something different could look like for you.
Right? Like if we look at the research on how many. High school seniors going into college or just high school kids end up choosing the same career path as their parents. Not because their parents necessarily told them that they had to, although I'm sure that happens, but it's not because their parents told them to do this career.
It's just that's just what was represented for for them. And so that's what. Could most easily envision for themselves. So it can be really hard if you're trying to envision something completely new that you've never done or seen yourself before. Right? You may also not be allowing yourself to dream that big and or you might come be coming from a place that's like, who am I to want that big thing?
Or who am I? Deserve, you know, [00:07:00] that particular job or that particular lifestyle, we might really be coming from this place of a lack of confidence or a lack of self-worth. So setting these big visions just might not come naturally to us. And, and as an extension, we might not believe that we have the capabilities to get there, right?
Because we recognize that these big dreams and these big. Require a certain level of capability. Right? And we just might not believe that we have that in us or in ourselves as of yet, at least. And we'll, we'll come to find out that, that we do have these, these capabilities. We might also be comparing ourselves to others, right?
We might be feeling like, ah, well, I'm. I'm behind. You know, I'm not where I thought I should be by now in my career, and I'm certainly guilty of this whole comparisonitis thing. In fact, just a few weeks ago I was guilty of this whole comparisonitis [00:08:00] thing, right? And, but you know, I'm definitely again, guilty of, of being this person, of having these thoughts around.
I'm behind. The response to myself and to any client that I'm talking with is, who are you racing? No one, you are wasting no one else but you because you are the only one on your track. So setting a vision can be really, really challenging, but it is such a critical step in this goal setting process. And you know, like there's lots of great research out there that shows that this vision, This visioning process or this visioning step really, really works, right?
I mean, if we look at athletes, the athletes are always envisioning themselves, dribbling the ball down the court and shooting that perfect three pointer, right? Um, Michael Phelps [00:09:00] is, is really well known. Uh, he has a really well known story out there that when he was a kid, he had written him. A letter or written in a journal that he was gonna be an Olympic Olympic athlete someday.
So like he vi envisioned that as a kid and he worked towards that. Right? He, like, everything that he worked towards then in his life was towards that broader vision. I know I certainly would do this when I was in, in high school in cheerleading. We definitely did this before competitions, we would just sometimes just lay on the mats, lay on the ground.
Would just walk through our routines just in our heads, or maybe we would say some things out loud. We definitely did this in theater as well. I was a huge theater nerd in school. Actually. My first, um, major out of high school and college was musical theater. Another story for another day. But I also would envision myself up on stage [00:10:00] in singing and performing and like delivering my lines in a really.
In a really great way. Like that's one of the ways I prepared for shows back when I was still doing, still doing theater. But by setting this vision, it really gives you something to work towards and really something to look towards, right? And it, it keeps you focused and helps you make. Better decisions because you know, we've got a lot of things coming at us, a lot of decisions that we have to make, and sometimes we can question, is this the right decision?
Is this not the right decision? It was just talking with two clients just in the last week alone who were both trying to decide between a couple of different job offers. Do I go in this direction, go in, do I go in that direction? Really, like we had to stop with both of them. I had to stop and, and think and, and ask them, what is your vision for your career?
And [00:11:00] is this particular decision correct directionally? Like, is it still gonna move you in that right direction? Not is, you know, is one decision a bad decision and the other decision is a right decision? There's no, sometimes there's no right or wrong decisions. They're just a decision. Take the red pill, take the blue pill, like, which one do you want?
There's no right or wrong here. It's just in order to kind of make those decisions, sometimes you have to just think, okay, which one is going to at least put me directionally correct to that vision that I have set for myself? Because if I get into this role or I get into this promotion and I find, you know what, this is just not the right thing that's working out.
Okay, great. You've made, you've figured that. And now you just move forward with the next decision. You. It's not about moving backwards. It's about how can I continue to move forward in a way that's still directionally correct to get me to that vision that [00:12:00] I have. And your vision is something that is going to help you define who you want to be, not just what you want to do
we spend so much time. Talking and thinking about what it is that we want to do, that sometimes we need to, we need to take a pause and think about who is it that I wanna be, who is, who is it that I wanna be and how do I wanna show up in this world? And that is a better way to then set the action steps or set the goals on and, and the things that you would actually do to support becoming that person you want to.
So when you're ready to set that vision, when you're ready to set your intentions, I want you to ask these questions. What does success look like for me? What does that look like for me? How do I define success in my life, in my career at this point in time and in the future? [00:13:00] What does, what does success look like?
What is it about that vision that's drawing me to it? What is so compelling about this vision for my future that I just, I'm just so excited that I'm just swarming to that. How will I know when I'm successful? How will you know? What are those markers? What are those milestones? What are those feelings that you're going to have that's gonna indicate that?
Are being successful in whatever it is that you're driving towards. Then I kind of want you to break this down by timeframe, right? Because what success looks like for you today may not exactly be what success looks like for you a few years from now, or it's not what success looked like for you a few years ago, and that's okay too.
I was just speaking with a client just literally just today, this afternoon, she was talking to me. Her 23 year [00:14:00] career at a big four consulting firm, and she's starting to feel like that's no longer the vision for her career, and she's thinking about what is that next step? I still desire to get to that next step to upgrade myself, but I don't know if it's, it's exactly doing the same type of consulting work that I'm doing today.
What does success look like for you in this season of life? What does it look like? A little bit more long-term, seasons of life. So break that down by timeframe if that, if that helps you
and you may not know your ultimate career goal. And that's okay. And, and again, it might change over time. My goodness. The job that you are going to do in the next five. May not exist today. So it's kind of hard sometimes to vision out in super, super great detail around job titles, companies, different things like that, which is why your vision is more about who it is that you want to be.[00:15:00]
And so if your near-term goal is to get promoted to a director or vp, what does that successful person look like? What is she wearing? What is she eating? Who is she surrounding herself with? What does her workspace look like? How is she showing up every day? How is she showing up in meetings? Is she leading the meetings?
Is she having somebody else lead the meetings? Is she just an observer? What, how is she showing up? What is she working on? What's that? What are those tasks or what does that day-to-day kind of look like? And what is that daily routine look like for her? What are those habits that are making her successful?
Like how is she feeling at the end of the day? At the end of. Really productive, effective day, doing whatever it is that you see yourself doing. How is she feeling at the end of that? How is she coming home and, and showing up for her family? Then at the end of the day, and my client today, when we were talking [00:16:00] about this, talking about this new vision for herself, she talked about how it's.
And its presence. And I just love that as a new vision for her as she is moving into this next upleveled version of herself. And that, and that peace and that, um, that peace and that presence doesn't mean that she's still not, you know, driving towards like a really cool place in her career. That she's still not achieving awesome things.
It's just she's coming at it from a different vision, which then informs how she's going to show up, which is just. An an evolved, upgraded version of her from what it has been for the last several years. So I want you to let that vision just really, really fill you up. Just let that just completely take over your body.
She's pretty awesome, right?
This new vision that you are setting for yourself, [00:17:00] whether it's for this year or for a couple of years from now, or just this overall vision for your career and your, for your life, that woman that you're visualizing. She is super awesome. Now, after I set my vision, the, the thing that I like to do after that is to also, An intention for the year.
So this is something that I can kind of boil down that vision to, like just a few words or maybe one word. I mean, some people like to, um, like to say that this is a word of the year for them, or this is a theme for them, you know, however you wanna look at it. I, again, I like to set these intentions, and again, we've already talked a lot.
What we have and what we want to achieve. And we'll, we'll definitely get into even more specifics around those things. But again, we can get so caught up in the doings that I don't think we think about how we want to [00:18:00] be. After all, we are human beings, not human doings. Um, I think that's usually attributed to the Dalai Lama, so I don't wanna take credit for that.
But I just really love that quote because I have this stack of sticky notes on my desk that says my two B list for the day instead of my to-do list for the day.
And I got them when I was going through my authentic leadership coaching certification and it's just a great reminder. To first start with who we want to be. Who is this person that I want to be, and how do I wanna show up every day? How do I wanna show up in this world? And again, you can set an intention or a theme or a word of the year so that when things get tough or you get discouraged or off track or whatever, you can come back to this intention or word to just really reground yourself in again, this person that you want to be.
And then that can help inform you on. What you want to do in order to move forward in that moment. So [00:19:00] last year, my word and intention was strength. And strength For me last year meant physically and mentally strong. And it meant being strong in my trust in myself to know how to run my business and how to achieve the things that I wanted to achieve and to do it in the way that I wanted to achieve them.
That I in, in the way that I knew that it was right for. It was a reminder just basically to drown out all the noise cuz there's, again, noise coming from all over the place. There's expectations coming from, you know, our partners, our spouses, our kids, our bosses, our friends. Like there's these expectations that are just coming from at, from us all over the place.
And so sometimes we can get lost in the shoulds and in the noises, and even in podcast episodes where people are telling me what to do. , so what I found was that I just needed to feel strong in the fact that I wanted to [00:20:00] shut out all the noise and just remind myself that I know where I'm going.
I know how, how I wanna get there, and how I wanna achieve these different things. And it just really just enables me to, to move forward, even if I mess up or I fall off my goals or whatever. Just coming back to this intention again, could just really ground. Ground myself, and I truly feel like I lived that intention last year, and my intention this year is to be present again.
I'm, I'm such a forward thinker, so this visioning thing is a lot of fun for me, but I'm, I'm such a, a forward thinker, actually. My number one strength in Clifton Strength Finders, if you're familiar with that assessment. I use it with my clients a lot, and I've used it since college and, and I've taken it to every company that I've ever worked at.
And I absolutely love using StrengthsFinder. I love using that assessment. And again, my number one strength in that assessment is futuristic. So sometimes I can just get so far on [00:21:00] to the next thing that, you know, I really miss celebrating things as they happen, or just recognize when I have achieved certain things or I.
Realized this vision that maybe I've set for myself a while ago, and this was really become clear, clear to me, um, a couple months ago when I was in my car and I was driving to a speaking engagement and I was, you know, like in the car driving for a couple of hours on the highway and it was just a beautiful day out and I just realized that I was.
Living in this moment that I had been visioning and planning for so long, and it was now like right here, right before me. And it was just so powerful and so wonderful to, to really recognize that. And I realized that I'm just, I'm not always present to what's really happening and just really soaking.
That up. And so this year I wanna be super intentional about that [00:22:00] and I think this intention is really gonna help me actually go with the flow and lean into what it is that I'm driving towards. Again, in a way that feels really good, re feels really genuine to me without me getting stressed out or getting burn out or pulling my hair out.
Like it just feels like having this intention and this reminder of present. Is really actually gonna help me achieve the things that I wanna achieve. Actually, I know it feels like a contradiction there, but I think two things can be true at at the same time, right? Like I think we can have this vision and like wanna drive towards that vision while also being present in what's happening in this current moment.
And I don't think those things need to need to be in competition with each other. I think we can pull that together and actually use it to. To continue to move forward. And honestly like it just feels like by having this intention, I'll be able to actually be [00:23:00] sustainable and have some calm while also driving towards some really big goals that I have for myself this year instead of feeding into this chaos that often occupies my mind.
So now that you have set your vision and your in. Think about how you can start showing up in that vision and in those intentions right now, you do not have to wait on a certain achievement or job title or body weight or anything in order to start becoming that person you want to become. In fact, that is the only way it will happen.
Actually, when I was working in HR a lot, I would say, To people again, who are trying to get to that next level, trying to get to get the promotion is that you need to be operating at that next level now before you get the promotion. And that's not to say that you need to be like working, like actually doing the tasks and working in that job and not being compensated for it.
It's not that at all. It's about, [00:24:00] it's about a behavior and a mindset. that then people look at you and they're like, oh, you're ac you're not a senior director today. Oh, I thought you already were. And again, not because you've achieved certain things or because you've been been doing certain things, it's because you are being a certain way and behaving in a certain way.
So what are those behaviors and mindset shifts do you need to make in order to realize that vision for yourself? And how can you start showing up as that upgraded? Right now. So that was setting the vision and intentions, and I want you to hold onto all that because in the next episode, part three of the goal setting series, we're actually going to start getting into the meat and potatoes of actually setting our goals.
So again, I'll put a link in the show notes, so that goal setting worksheet that you can. And follow along at nicole k [00:25:00] speaks.com/podcast/zero three and make sure you subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening so you can get notified when those next episodes go live. So happy visioning and intention setting and remember, your career deserves an upgrade.
