Set Goals! … Include Others!

I snuck away one night during HIMSS in Atlanta to have dinner with two new friends that I had met through Social Media and because we are all career minded we were discussing our goals.  If you follow Social Media in Atlanta, you will probably be very familiar with my new friends, whom I now count as old and trusted friends.  Stephanie Lloyd is in my top 2 most entertaining recruiting bloggers, she is extremely insightful and totally hilarious! (BTW- Gwen Darling is the other one of the top 2) Todd Schnick has many blogs where he shares how to “Live Intrepid” in Marketing, Careers and Life in general.  I learn at least 3 new things from Todd every week!  My favorite inspiration from Todd this year is the value in documenting goals via a Bucket List.

Throughout dinner that night, we brainstormed about how we could each take our careers to the next level in 2010 and I have to admit it was one of the best mentoring sessions that I have ever had.   As Todd and Stephanie gave me ideas how to meet my goals, we identified that we each shared a love for running and a goal for running half and full marathons (as Todd has documented on his bucket list).  I was also very interested in the success that Todd and Stephanie have had stimulating the local Social Media community in Atlanta, where they are well-known thought leaders because they regular organize events like this.  My question to them was, “how can we take it on the road?”  One of the places that is mutually interesting to all of us is San Antonio where we have several Social Media friends that we were looking forward to turning into IRL (in real life) friends.  Then I threw it out there, “why don’t we run the Rock And Roll Half Marathon in San Antonio and get together with our friends.”  PERFECT! No thinking was required.  Todd, done. Stephanie, done.

Well, we did it!  We each set our individual goals in terms of completing the marathon.  We each followed our own training schedule and we each met our goals in the half marathon.  This was Todd’s and Stephanie’s 2^nd half marathon this year and they cut 13 minutes off their time from the first.  I had several goals:

• Get back in shape after returning to a travel each week lifestyle
• Create a new lifestyle whereby I would not gain weight shortly after the training was complete
• Finish under 2 hours.

I won’t bore you with the obstacles that we each faced, I will just tell you that the process of setting and achieving a mutual goal gives me tremendous satisfaction.  I could not be more proud of Todd and Stephanie.  And I could not be more grateful for the increased incentive that I had to commit to my training that came with setting a mutual goal.

Enough about me, how can you apply setting mutual goals to your career?  There are many ways and as in our case, the goals don’t have to be entirely professional for your career to benefit.  Access to other successful people will undoubtedly rub off on you in a good way.  Looking back, it was easy to do.  I simply made time to sneak way from HIMSS and the rewards were tremendous.

So, start now.  As you start to put together your plan for networking for 2011, make sure that you ask questions to see if you share mutual goals.  The goals can be inside or outside your profession.  You will benefit either way!

Need help getting started?  I can help you there.  Feel free to contact me!  Good luck!