You have short-term goals, like finishing “this report” or “this function” in the next day/week.
It’s likely you have medium-term goals, like “finish this project” or “ship this feature.”
Do you have a long-term goal for yourself? Where you want to be, what you want to be doing, who you’ve become?
And have you done something today that takes you closer to your long-term goal?
Connection
Short-term goals divorce from why – they become “just do them.” Little connection to anything but a medium-term focus, like shipping a feature or reaching a quarterly sales target.
It’s the leading cause of “factory-itis,” where the days blur together. Every day is another day of making widgets.
Medium-term goals offer some hope of an antidote. But all too often, medium-term goals don’t mean anything to you except continuing to get a paycheck. Somewhere down the road will be another annual review, where you will “meet expectations” and not get a raise.
So it’s up to you – how are you connecting your short- and medium-term goals to what you want in the long term?
Intention, Awareness, and Action
If you want to be at the same company, in a “bigger” role, then your connection work is more straightforward.
Check in with your medium-range goal weekly, and draw the connection between how succeeding at that goal is helping you reach your long term goal. What action today to make progress on your medium goal advances your long-term plan?
Then, you carry that Intention and Awareness into your short-term actions. You might go a little deeper into understanding how the work you’re doing fits into the big picture. Or you identify an area you need to learn more about, up-skill.
If you want to be somewhere else, it’s going to look different. Your medium and short-term goals do exist in order to provide you a paycheck and stability, if that’s what you need to work on the long term.
But every day, what are you doing to reach that long-term future? Is it research on other job roles, other companies, other places in the world? Do you need to be seeking out opportunities to practice different skills to prepare for a move? Networking to find your dream gig?
That long-term Intention requires daily Awareness and Action to happen.
What have you done today to help your future self win?
You can do this. I can help.