I’ve been at my new job for about 6 weeks now, and I’m starting to feel more like I’m settling into my new routine. I also feel more like I know what I’m doing, although to a lesser degree – there’s definitely been a learning curve. All of this transition combined with my upcoming (abbreviated) annual review at the end of September has me thinking about goals.

Here’s the thing about me – I love setting goals but I’m not always so good at following through. I’ll spend hours brainstorming things I want to accomplish and how I could achieve these goals, and I’ll write them out in pretty colors in my journal. I’ll even stick to the plan for a week or two. And then I look at the journal less and less until several months have passed before I remember I was supposed to be working towards something.

I know this isn’t unusual (every December and January, I read article after article about how very common this experience is), but it’s still a bit disheartening. It sucks to start preparing for an annual review and realizing you’ve only met half of the goals you set for yourself during your last review. So I try to balance being ambitious with being realistic.

Here are a couple things I keep in mind when setting professional goals for myself:

• Something that helps is looking at my calendar. If I see a conference coming up during the upcoming year, I’ll add “Attend a conference in my field” to my list of goals; if I’m feeling particularly confident, I’ll change that to “Present at a conference in my field”.
• Based on past experience, I know I’m good for about one paper a year, so “Publish an article in a peer-reviewed journal” usually makes the list, too.
• If I’ve just started working on a project, or am in the middle of one, I’ll usually make it a goal to finish that project before my next review. That typically adds two or three goals to my list.

I realize this sounds a lot like I’m setting myself up to succeed without actually challenging myself, but I view this approach as me being aware of what’s coming my way and mentally preparing to meet it; it’s like a roadmap for my upcoming year. However, I do insist on including one stretch goal, something that I might not actually be able to achieve, but that will be beneficial to work towards all the same.

This is what I’ve (tentatively) come up with for my upcoming review:

• Attend and present at PNC/MLA in Boise in October
• Attend and present at MLA’20 in Portland in May
• Publish a case report on my book club project
• Achieve Cochrane membership by December 2019
• Be fully integrated into a rapid review report and be listed as an author on a final report
• Work from home 1 day a week by December 2019, followed by 2 days per week by April 2019

Here’s to a successful year at my new job!