Start with memories to reach your goals

In my heart of hearts, I know why. It isn’t because I don’t know how to reach a goal — surely by now we’ve all learned that a goal needs to be achievable, specific and broken into steps. No, I think the reason I haven’t been hitting these objectives is because I don’t really care about them. I just think I should care, so on the list they go.

I bring this up for two reasons. One, because it’s a new year and that’s a good a time to talk about goals. But, more importantly, I want to challenge you to think about goals in your career that aren’t happening. Do you want a new job? Have you been stuck with a bad work schedule? Perhaps you yearn for a degree or to relocate. Whatever the goal is, ask yourself:

How long have I had this goal?

What’s been holding me back?

Why have I let that hold me back?

Do I really want this, or do I just think I should want it?

If you’re struggling with unemployment, these can be cruel questions. There’s a blaming-the-victim subtext when you ask someone why they don’t have a job. But no one likes being called a victim, including you. So an honest assessment based on those questions is worth doing.

One place to take encouragement is from your younger self. When did you reach a goal that looked impossible? How did you do it? In my own life, two instances stand as my guides when I need inspiration. One involved buying a house and the second involved writing a set of books.

In the homebuying situation, I was 20-something and single, with no savings and no family loans or co-signers. And yet I thought I was good homebuyer material. Not surprisingly, banks did not. In particular, they were not impressed by my three years of self-employment.

In the end, I decided to attack all parts of the problem: I chose a lower-priced neighborhood troubled by drug crimes, I took a paper route to build savings, I found a city-backed loan program, and I gathered more than two dozen letters of recommendation from past employers, contract clients, landlords, accountants and others attesting to my ability to carry a mortgage.

There were more twists in the story, but the short version is this: After two years of delivering newspapers, I got that mortgage. In the 20 years since, the drug dealers are gone, better neighbors have moved in, and we are blessedly not underwater on our mortgage.

When I set the goal to write the books, I was in more of a hurry. I wanted to write, edit, design, lay out and print six titles in time for a national book show in Chicago — six months from the day I started. When I decided to do this, a colleague suggested that we support each other, as she was also writing a book. To which I said, well, OK, but I’m going to be moving quickly — I can’t schedule meetings if they take away from the writing.

I did meet my goal, and she did, too, but there was a 12-year gap between our publication dates — which let me sell a lot of books while she was finishing hers.

These two stories aren’t meant to elevate me and my goal-reaching powers. Rather, they stand as examples to me of my better self — the person who can be decisive, focused and achieving. I like that person better than the lumpy self who thinks about goals but doesn’t reach them.

You have a goal-reaching self in your background as well. Where is that person, and what could he or she teach you now? When it comes to career goals in particular, remember this: The sooner you reach that goal, the more years you will have to enjoy its fruits. Now is the time to get started.

Amy Lindgren owns Prototype Career Service, a career consulting firm in St. Paul, Minn. She can be reached at alindgren@ prototypecareerservice.com, or at 626 Armstrong Ave., St. Paul, MN 55102.