How do you set a professional development goal for yourself? What tip can you offer others who are looking to set goals for themselves?

To help those looking to set professional development goals for themselves, we asked business leaders and entrepreneurs this question for their best tips. From action planning to SMART goals, there are several tips that may help you set your professional development goals for the future. 

Here are 13 great tips for setting professional development goals: 

• Daily, Weekly, Quarterly, and Yearly Goals
• Start With the End in Mind
• Find Your “Right-Hand” Employees
• Use Your Blindspots As a Catalyst
• Action Planning
• Define Success
• Explore Skills You Are Curious About
• Monitor Industry Trends 
• SMART Goals
• Know Your Line of Business
• Do Whatever It Takes
• Make A Timeline
• Don’t Forget Your Values

Daily, Weekly, Quarterly, and Yearly Goals

For me, setting goals is something I look at in chunks. I have my goals for the year which I set up every December for the following year. I have quarterly goals and daily goals as well. By breaking goals into manageable pieces I feel less overwhelmed and do much better in achieving and succeeding in accomplishing them!

Jodi Low, U & Improved

Start With the End in Mind

If your goal is to get to “x” revenue or “y” new clients, think deeper as to why that metric gets you to the goal you want to obtain. For example, if your goal is to grow your company revenue by 20% in 2021 answer the question, “what do I want that growth to translate to?” Do I want $25k in additional personal income or will that number allow me to hire another salesperson? Be specific! 

Landon Mance, YourFuture Planning Partners

Find Your “Right-Hand” Employees

I recently plastered every window in my home with giant post-it notes. I strategized the remaining 2020 and early 2021 goals. In doing so, I realized, I can no longer rely only on my “execution” skills. Thus my goal in 2021 is to utilize a “right-hand” woman approach to hiring my first employee. This is big, and I’m looking forward to being able to focus my thoughts on other important business details.

Karen Loomis, No Moss Brands

Use Your Blind Spots As a Catalyst

I have established core values for my business and for myself professionally. A few times a year, I ask my team and a few trusted clients to give me feedback on my performance as it relates to those values. I listen for blind spots and opportunities to grow and the areas identified then become the catalyst for my next set of goals. Having core values established prior to setting goals helps to clarify what’s most important to me and my business and keeps my professional development goals tangible, meaningful and obtainable.

Karen Nowicki, Business Radio X

Action Planning

I am a big believer in action planning! Often, professional development goals are lofty, so it is important to break them up into smaller, more manageable goals you can tackle over a longer period. There are tons of templates online for action planning, so just find the one that works for you.

Jeanne Kolpek, Cadence Education

Define Success

Imagine your most ambitious dreams. Do you want to be CEO one day? Or perhaps you’d like to start your own company? What do you need to do to get there? Start small and move upward as you progress. Whether it be gaining new certifications or shadowing someone, identifying your steps to success begins with defining what your success means to you.

Rex Murphy, American Pipeline Solutions

Explore Skills You Are Curious About

Regardless of your career or professional experience, think about what skills you’d like to learn or topics you’d like to become knowledgeable about. Seek out opportunities you normally wouldn’t have and expand your skills. Professional development is often found in the experiences you didn’t think would ever relate to what you already know.

Vanessa Molica, The Lash Professional

Monitor Industry Trends 

Look ahead and monitor growing trends in your industry. Is there a new tool or software emerging that will improve your work? Make it a goal to get ahead of the curve and learn it. Finding opportunities to be on the cutting edge of technology will become an asset to your professional life. It will also show employers your dedication to improving yourself and reflect positively on your work ethic.

Henry Babich, Stomadent Dental Lab 

SMART Goals

When setting goals for yourself, it is important to ensure that those goals are SMART. In other words, is your goal specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely? If your goal meets these criteria, then you have set yourself up for success. If not, you may need to go back to the drawing board and think through the details a little more!

Nikitha Lokareddy, Markitors

Know Your Line of Business

You have to know your business. You need to know your numbers, your past, your future projections and set goals based on attainable outcomes. If you have business partners like I do, get their perspective on things too. They may be able to see opportunities you missed!

Matthew D. Hammond, Carrot Eye Center

Do Whatever It Takes

Goals can be difficult to pin down sometimes because you’ve never done it before or you simply don’t know what to expect. If you haven’t done it before, I suggest making the goal and forcing yourself to get the results no matter what. Stay late, eat junk food while pulling all-nighters, and work weekends to make the goal happen. If you don’t know what to expect from your efforts you probably aren’t doing something right. There are ways to develop an action plan with tactics to achieve your goal (Google usually can give you some clues at least where to start), and then you can go from there.

Ben Walker, Ditto Transcripts

Make A Timeline

A goal can not be accomplished without a plan in place to achieve it. When setting a professional goal, develop a detailed plan with a timeline. Break up this plan into small, manageable steps so you don’t overwhelm yourself. Regularly analyze your progress and adjust your plan as needed to get to your overall goal! 

Michael Staton, Lyon Shield Security 

Don’t Forget Your Values

Align professional development goals with values. These values can be personal values, the core values of your company, or both. For example, one of the values at our denture center is “Trusted Expert Advice.” With the clarity of that value, setting professional development goals becomes much easier because the goal should support the ability to offer expert advice (such as certifications, training, and experiences). Identify the values first, and then create the goals. 

Peter Babichenko, DD, European Denture Center

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We’d all like to have just a little more time in the day to accomplish the tasks on our to-do list. 

Since adding more time isn’t the day, how can you save more time to be more productive?

To answer this question, we asked 10 small business owners for their best time-saving tips. From pre-planning to delegating, here are some of the best ways to save time for busy small business owners. 

Pre-Plan

The secret lies in pre-planning. Every Sunday I look at my week ahead so I am aware of, and on top of, what lies ahead. I repeat this same process every evening before winding down my workday. What does tomorrow look like: what do I need to plan for, what meetings do I have and what items do I need to bring for those, where do the kids need to be and when, etc. Simple pre-planning forces me to create a plan so I can better handle any unexpected things that come up.

Jodi Low, U & Improved

Brain Dump Software

Use a “brain dump” application or software to record those golden ideas that come to you in random places. I prefer Evernote which is available on all mobile devices and desktops across both Mac and PC. All my client intel is stored in Evernote. That’s over 140 Notebooks with 20-150 notes in each. This is what keeps my business mobile!

Karen Loomis, No Moss Brands

Time Blocking

It’s easy to get pulled in a hundred different directions when trying to get things done, and we definitely experience this with startups. I recommend practicing “time blocking” which is a time management technique in which you designate a specific segment of the day to a certain type of task. As a morning person, I find it highly productive to tackle detailed analytical work in the morning and I block-off time to complete what is required. It’s easy to get distracted by the immediate but incredibly important to allow time for the important strategic projects. If we don’t allow time for these activities they get pushed off to a later date, allocating the time today can make tomorrow easier.

Carol Bramson, Side by Side

Delegate

Delegate, delegate, delegate. In the workplace, focus on the things that you’re really good at and passionate about. And for everything else, pass it off to others that will (hopefully) enjoy it…and probably do a better job than you would anyway!

Landon Mance, YourFuture Planning Partners

Use an Automated Scheduler

My work schedule is jam packed, and using an automated scheduler frees me up from the hassle of back and forth emails when planning meetings. Having preset meeting categories available at varying times makes it simple to send a link to participants. This allows them the opportunity to choose a convenient time for them based on my availability. Additionally, reminders and follow-up emails are automatically generated.

Karen Nowicki, Business Radio X

Designate Time for Emails

As a client communications manager for a small SEO company, it is easy to get sucked into every email I get from a client, letting it trump whatever task that I am working on at the moment. This makes my everyday tasks take so much longer to get done when I am constantly checking my email and going back and forth between clients and tasks. I have set certain times for myself to check my emails and do nothing else. I set a timer and reply to emails for usually 45 minutes at a time, so I am focusing completely and responding to everyone’s needs. This allows me to focus more fully when completing other tasks and discourages distractions. I have been so much more productive and have so much time throughout my workday. 

Kayla Centeno, Markitors 

Silence Your Phone

Silence your phone and put it in another room so you aren’t tempted to check it. Your brain is being hi-jacked with every beep, chirp, or buzz of your phone. Yes, your attention and awareness are being stolen from the present moment each time you check for the next message. If you need to regularly check your cell, set a time at the top of the hour to check-in. By silencing your phone you can block time to do deep work. Deep work requires attention and focus. Blocking off time helps you discover deeper issues to “surface-level problems.” This results in developing long term sustainable solutions.

Mark Jamnik, Enjoy Life Daily

Shrink Your To-Do List

I always like to tackle smaller tasks head on before diving into more intricate ones. It feels good to see a to-do list shrink as you cross off those tasks you completed. This gives you more time to focus on those that require more concentration.

LT Ladino Bryson, vCandidates

Allocate More Time Than You Might Need For Each Task

Saving time is an important part of every day, and one of the best ways to do so is to streamline your processes. If you are working with multiple clients, handle related tasks across the board and schedule a little more time than you might think you need for each task. You may be surprised to find out how much time you spend trying to squeeze more into a task that takes longer than you anticipated. That additional time that you may save can easily turn into completing a project ahead of time, or with more targeted results.

Greg Gillman, MuteSix

Learn When You Do Different Kinds of Work Best

I work in content marketing, which means a lot of writing and editing, as well as analytics and keyword research. These are very different kinds of work, and switching back and forth always costs too much time. I’ve found that I’m better at writing and editing first thing in the morning or the end of the day, and I do better keyword research and SEO optimizations in the middle of my workday, before and after lunch. So I schedule that. If I need to write an email or a blog post, I do it first thing. If I have to edit a whitepaper, I do it before signing off at the end of the day. And whenever I need keywords or to optimize blog posts, I plan on tackling that in the middle. Once you learn when you work best, you can schedule accordingly—and make even better use of your time.

Ceillie Clark-Keane, Unstack

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