How To Set (and Meet) Your Career Resolutions

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With a New Year and a new decade, you might already be overwhelmed with the idea of setting goals for the year. Many times we focus on setting our personal resolutions, but don’t always focus on setting actionable resolutions for our careers. Our career goals usually center around moving on to a new position–which is a great goal to have–but you should also be focusing on other ways that you can create growth goals in your current position.

I launched my company, Be Digable, as a side hustle to help more female professionals and executives build their personal brands to position themselves as thought leaders to raise their visibility. Personal branding can feel pretentious, which is why it is more about you telling your stories to achieve their career goals by being more intentional with your social media presence. 

carer goals new years resolutions 2020 girlboss

Being more intentional about how you share your story and your area of expertise is the way for you to establish your distinct personal brand. Your story and who you are IS your personal brand. 

Here is how to identify, set, and meet your career goals in 2020:

  • Where do you want to be this time next year? This is the hardest question to answer. I have hit roadblocks in my career where I was frustrated and anxious about what I was doing in my career. This was a result of me not knowing where I wanted to go. You need to really set time and space for yourself to think about one year from now and where you want to be. Five years is too far ahead, one year is more tangible and achievable.

  • What are three actionable steps you can take to achieve those goals? Once you have answered the first question, you then need to break it down into three actionable steps. For example, if you want to switch jobs, if you want to be a better public speaker, you want to get a promotion, you would like to lead a team, you want to be a better project manager -- write your goal out, then write what you would need to do to achieve those goals. For example:

    • Become a Better Public Speaker

      • Speak up more in meetings

      • Ask your boss to invest in training or resources for you to improve

      • Lead your quarterly review presentations for your team

    • You Would Like To Gain Experience to Lead a Team

      • Volunteer to manage your department’s intern(s)

      • Ask your boss to be lead on a project, where you can work with multiple stakeholders

      • Read a book(s) on the topic of leadership 

  • Be more intentional with how you share your career journey online. In order to share your story and gain visibility in your area of expertise, it is important that you are more intentional about your online presence. We all mindlessly engage on social media and share our lives in various ways. When I speak with clients, they all agree that networking is key to their growth in their careers. I teach them that in person networking and how you engage online should be equally important. We tend to be scared away by the overwhelming inauthenticity from “influencers” that we try and distance ourselves from that online. However, there are many genuine connections that can be made through being intentional with how you engage around the topics and industries that are important to you. Identify 3-4 communities that you can engage with regularly.

  • What are three topics or trends in your industry/job that you need to be an expert in? It is important that you deliberately and authentically engage around the key topics that are timely in your industry. To position yourself as a thought leader, share your views and your thoughts consistently to be at the forefront of people’s minds. For example, if you are wanting to be a better public speaker, then share articles about public speaking tips on your LinkedIn as well as ask others for advice.

  • Monthly Check-Ins on your progress are essential to achievement. As you progress throughout the year, keep your goals nearby and check-in on them every month. Be honest with yourself at where your at–and also give yourself some grace if you are not as far along. If you are aware and continuing to push for growth, you are on the right path.


For more personal branding tips, you can follow Be Digable on Instagram as well as check out the blog for more resources and information.







Lindsay Williams is the Founder of Be Digable, a personal brand strategy firm dedicated to inspiring female executives to discover and be confident with their voice in order to authentically share their personal narrative. Lindsay is committed to motivating professionals to step into their own greatness, helping clients position themselves as thought leaders in their field, network within and out of their industries, and share their unique story to leverage greater opportunities.