Goal setting is crucial for navigating your career path and achieving long-term success. Yet, many professionals struggle with effectively setting and achieving their career goals. Are you actively shaping your career, or does it feel like you’re just reacting to circumstances?
In today’s episode of our podcast, our host and CEO, Porschia, is joined by Kathy Oneto, a renowned strategy executive and life-work coach, to explore the power of goal setting in your career. They delve into how intentional goal setting is essential for professional growth and fulfillment!
You’ll learn practical strategies for establishing clear, actionable goals that align with your personal and professional aspirations. The discussion also covers the importance of adapting your goals as your career progresses and how to handle transitions and unexpected changes.
Kathy shares insights from her extensive experience in coaching professionals across various industries, offering valuable advice on how to take ownership of your career through proactive goal setting.
Kathy Oneto is a strategy executive and life-work coach who is passionate about helping people succeed on their terms at work and in life. She is the founder of Sustainable Ambition, host of The Sustainable Ambition Podcast, and author of a forthcoming book on the topic. Kathy champions being consciously ambitious and crafting fulfilling work from decade to decade without sacrificing your life or yourself.
What you’ll learn:
- Significance of intentional goal setting for career advancement and personal fulfillment
- Strategies for establishing and adapting career goals that align with personal growth and professional shifts
- How to use goal setting as a proactive tool to prepare for and navigate potential career changes
- Tips for incorporating personal values and motivations into your career goals to ensure long-term satisfaction and success
- What sustainable ambition is and techniques for breaking down overarching career goals into manageable, actionable steps to avoid feeling overwhelmed
As a thank you for listening to this episode of the Career 101 Podcast, we are sharing our FREE master class – Career 911: Solving the Top 5 Challenges Executives and Professionals Have! It’s a training based on solving the common problems our clients have experienced to reach their goals. You can get access to the master class here!
Resources:
- Episode Transcript
Porschia: [00:00:00] Today, we are talking about goal setting for your career with Kathy Oneto. Kathy Oneto is a strategy executive and life work coach who is passionate about helping people succeed on their terms at work and in life. She’s the founder of Sustainable Ambition, host of the Sustainable Ambition podcast, and author of a forthcoming book on the topic.
Kathy champions being consciously ambitious and crafting fulfilling work from decade to [00:01:00] decade without sacrificing your life or yourself. Hi, Kathy. How are you today? Hi, Portia. I’m good. Thanks. Thanks for having me. We are thrilled to have you with us to discuss goal setting for your career. But first, we want to know a little more about you.
So tell me about seven year old Kathy.
Kathy: When I think of myself back at that age, I’ve actually been thinking about this a little bit recently in that I don’t know about others, but I can see a lot of my seven year old self and who I am today. And sometimes I find that a little shocking, but one of the core things that is central to who I am that I think was present in myself as a seven year old child.
is being really curious and also being somebody who loves to learn. And so you would find me reading a lot [00:02:00] or needing a lot of time to myself too, to process things and interact with the world. And yet I was also quite active in the world too, both in terms of wanting different experiences, but also in that I was athletic and And also had a creative side.
And I see those different sides of myself in what I do today as well. So what did you want to be when you grew up? This is funny to me because this goes to that curiosity and that side of me that likes to learn. I was the youngest of five kids and I was always wanting to catch up to them. And trying to learn what they were learning.
My mom was also a school teacher before she had her children. And so there were a lot of books around all the time. And I happened to pick up this mathematics book that had all these shorthands [00:03:00] for learning math. And At that age, I actually was pretty good at math. Obviously, I wasn’t doing advanced math when I was young.
For whatever reason, I put those two things together, reading this book, having some fun with it, and feeling like I was quite competent in math and thought that I was going to be a mathematician. Alas, that did not happen.
Porschia: I love it. So we have some similarities, Kathy. I’m also a teacher’s kid. My mom is a retired teacher and I loved reading as well.
I’m such a nerd. I still love reading when I can. So, what was your first job?
Kathy: I hopped and hopped to different jobs, I would say. In some respects, like many people at that age or at a young age, my types of early jobs were things like babysitting, being a lifeguard, teaching swimming. And honestly, a lot of those that I just listed, I didn’t love.
But I at least was aware of that, and I moved on. And [00:04:00] so, I also did jobs early on that were what one might expect, like retail type jobs, like working in a restaurant, or I worked at The Gap.
Porschia: I worked at the Gap too. All right. Oh, we’re, we’ve got a lot going on that’s similar. Yes. So tell us about some highlights or pivotal moments in your career before you started the business that you have now.
Kathy: So when I was in business school, I had an entrepreneurial bug. I took an entrepreneurial course. I was looking at different potential entrepreneurial jobs, either with a startup or Potentially starting a company with other students. And yet I had this sense that I really wanted to get business fundamentals down.
I really wanted to get that fundamental training in my bones before I moved on to an entrepreneurial role. And so that’s what I did. I ended up going, [00:05:00] leaving business school, ended up spending about six and a half years at Clorox in brand management, and it was great training. And then I jumped from there to an incubator where I ended up being the first employee of a company.
So it was an incubator. So there were still resources around me, but I was literally the only employee working on this company and helping to. Take a product that had been developed, but really define what the brand was going to be, define the business plan and get that launched into the world. And so I mentioned it as a pivotal moment because for me, oftentimes people will ask me about that experience of being able to go from a very structured environment and an environment with a lot of resources to going into something.
That where that’s not the case. And they always ask and wonder, like, how did you do that? And honestly, there’s a part of me that’s, I don’t know. I just did it. And partly [00:06:00] because I’m somebody who doesn’t mind getting my hands dirty, likes to be in the work and is also naturally a hard worker. And so. I, I just dug in and yet I still think it’s a pivotal thing because it’s a, it calls on different sides of yourself to operate within a large company, to move to a smaller company.
But it was also pivotal because it helped me to continue to learn about who I was, what I really enjoyed in my work and continue to inform where I was going to move on from there.
Porschia: You made a lot of great points, Kathy, and. One that I’ll zero in on is that whole, um, dichotomy between being an employee at a large organization and then being, uh, an employee at a small organization and definitely the first employee at a startup.
Uh, sometimes we work with clients and they have very strong opinions about one or the other in [00:07:00] terms of their ideal work environment, though, it definitely speaks to you being adaptable to just jump in and get your hands dirty. I would guess that being that first employee and working in the incubator set you up perhaps for entrepreneurship and starting your own thing.
Kathy: For sure. Having that experience of what does it take or what is it like to go from, again, something Where I talked about at Clorox, it’s really as a type of organization where you can plop a new BNBA in the stream of work and the system will take you. And that’s because you’re surrounded by a bunch of other individuals who bring a ton of expertise from all these different functions who help you learn what your job is.
And so in some respects, and I say that somewhat tugging cheek, but. Yes, but you have this system that kind of supports you. But yeah, so going to the startup [00:08:00] where now I have to figure out what systems do I want to create? How do I build a business from the ground up certainly gave me more insight into what that world was like as I then stepped out on my own.
So what motivated you to become a coach? One of the reasons I became a coach is frankly because I always loved working with coaches throughout my career. So I, perhaps I’m an unusual individual, I don’t know about this, but I actually worked with a coach even one year out of undergrad. So I took a step out of undergrad, started a job and was like, I’m not a hundred percent sure if this will be my path.
And I reached out to a coach and started to work with her to start to explore other paths that I might be interested in. And I have always found working with coaches over the course of my career to be very helpful. Especially we’re talking about pivotal moments in those pivotal moments, or in those moments where I feel like I’m at an inflection point and [00:09:00] I, I So I value coaching.
And I really value this type of engagement and working with individuals and helping them to find what’s next on their own path. And that’s really, it’s just, I’m very interested in this work. And I, just as you introduced me, this is something that is part of my purpose is helping feed people along their own paths, especially when they’re standing at those life and work inflection points.
Porschia: Life and work inflection points. I love that. so much. So back in episode 53, we discussed career planning and how to develop a career plan. What are your thoughts on career planning?
Kathy: So a core tenet that I think about around career planning is first off that you own it as an employee or you own it as an individual, that it really is not [00:10:00] something that is the responsibility of your company.
Yes, your company has a role, yes, they should support you, but you are in charge of your career plan. And honestly, in my opinion, and this is what makes it sustainable, that’s where it should reside. And so that’s one core tenant that I really think about is you being in charge of that career plan. And then the second part of it is to also be really diligent and thoughtful and always be paying attention to your career plan as well.
Overly so where it’s causes consternation or a lot of stress, but what I often hear about or see happen is that, and there’s reasons why this happens, but what I see is that people, it’s not uncommon for people to come to a point in their career. Well, they might say, I’ve lost myself, or again, part of the reason they get to these inflection points is they [00:11:00] start to realize, Oh, I’ve been on a trajectory.
Yeah. Something has shifted for me, and now I’m sensing that I want something different. And if we’re not paying attention to those times, they can feel really uncomfortable. They’re probably still going to feel uncomfortable. They are tricky times to get through, but it’s doable. It’s not uncommon for people to end up being surprised if they’re not paying attention.
Porschia: So one thing that you’ve mentioned in the past is that you think it’s important to those times. For people to think about career transitions before they happened. Why do you say that?
Kathy: I say that because career transitions take time. And we, what often happens when people get to a point where they realize, Oh, I’m unhappy with my work or I’m just not satisfied anymore.
I’m not as fulfilled or I’m looking for what’s next. What often happens is they have that feeling. And then the very next thing they do is they get on [00:12:00] LinkedIn and they start looking for jobs. I’m And the step they miss, there’s probably three steps they miss before they should get there, right? Which is, do you even understand what’s important to you?
Do you understand what motivates you? Do you know what good looks like? So that when you start to look, you actually know what you’re evaluating against. And so the other thing is, depending on the level of change you’re wanting to make, it can take time to start to plant those seeds, to set you up for that change, but even more importantly.
It often takes us learning about ourselves to often identify what is that right next step for me. And so that’s why I say it’s helpful to start planning for these transitions sooner than you think. Peter Drucker talked about this. He has a quote around this that I’m borrowing from around this. And he was talking about mid career at that time.
And when you’re starting to talk, think about your second act, you need to start planning for it sooner than you think. Um, I think you need to do that [00:13:00] always and always be thinking about it because again, you can help facilitate some of these transitions and help them go more smoothly if you’re engaged in your planting seeds along the way.
Porschia: I completely agree. Being proactive is so important, especially when it comes to career exploration, because to your earlier point about inflection points. Sometimes people haven’t done that or they put it off. And then I’m sure you’ve seen this too. We’ve had clients that we talked to and they come back six months, a year, two years later, and they’ve been laid off or some other life event has happened.
And then they just feel a lot of pressure and maybe anxiety. So definitely agree. In my years as a coach working with, I would definitely say hundreds of clients now. I’ve seen many different approaches to goal setting. Can you describe what you think are some essential of goal setting? [00:14:00] I think, and I use the term ambition, actually, and goals interchangeably, and I believe that a sustainable ambition, one of the core elements of it is being able to root your goals in what’s motivating to you. And so the four areas that I look at around goal setting and ensuring that an ambition or a goal is [00:15:00] motivating to you is to see if it aligns to one of four areas.
Kathy: And it might align to more than one of those. It’s around, how does it align to a vision that you might have for your life or for your work? How does it align to how you like to contribute or give? Another way to think about that is your purpose. I like to use give and contribute because I think it’s a more accessible way of thinking about purpose.
How does it align with what you value? And then how does it align perhaps with something you love and what you do? And so I think what’s important around setting goals is to make them meaningful and motivating to you. So rather, especially around career. So rather than thinking that, Oh, I need to go after what my company is saying is the next rung on the ladder.
And that’s not always a bad thing, right? Take that into [00:16:00] consideration, but it’s going to be, you’re going to want to put in the effort. Okay. to go after that aspiration if you can align it to something that’s motivating to you. So that’s one of the core areas that I point people towards. The other area, there are three S’s I say that I like also point people towards.
And maybe before I go into these Portia, I’ll pause, but I’ll just say like the three are, think about as you’re from a career planning perspective too, like how are, what’s satisfying to you right now about your work? And are there things that are trending up or trending down for you? And then the second S is stretch.
How do you want to grow next around your career? And the final one is strive, which is, what’s your next ambition? What’s your next aspiration? Now that you’ve had some success, had some growth already, like what might you want to strive for next? Wow. I [00:17:00] loved
Porschia: the four aspects to make sure that a goal is in alignment with what you want.
And then also the three S’s, so definitely tell us more about the three S’s and how they might impact someone when it comes to goal setting.
Kathy: Sure, a couple things around this. One is, especially when one thinks about career planning, that there, so one thing I really want to normalize is that we as adults continue to develop over time.
Sure. We don’t always talk about this, but there are theories of adult stages of development. And also, it’s not uncommon for us, one of these stages in adult development is that we operate from what’s more of a socialized mind. Meaning, we’re looking out into the world, we’re looking at society and saying, What are the ways that I’m supposed to fit in here?
It’s a very normal human thing to do. And then it’s not uncommon for some adults at some point to say, Hey, I want [00:18:00] to grow from that. And I actually want to step into being a little bit more self authored. Who am I? What do I want? How do I bring that lens into things? And so what’s not uncommon is to make that leap between those two and then to sense.
And this is why I think it’s important to kind of sense like, okay, what was satisfying to me and to check in on that. But the other thing that can happen is we change, the world around us changes. We can start to something that used to satisfy us can start to, we can start to get bored or as I mentioned, in terms of the startup experience, we learn along the way that, Oh, you know what?
I’m really. interested in or what really satisfies me about my job is this. And so what’s often happening too, is we need to be looking for something that’s called match quality. We want to be looking for, where are we switching now? There is this technical term called match quality, which essentially means aligning [00:19:00] our skills, experiences, and interests.
With the job that we’re taking and how do we find that congruence? And I think that match quality changes over time as our satisfaction changes, right? So finding the next match quality is really what we’re going for. And so I know I said a lot there, but essentially that’s why I point towards, okay, what’s satisfying now for you?
What might be trending up or trending down? What’s that next match quality that you might be looking for? And then the stretch is because I think that we. Do you enjoy learning and growing? I also think this is critical for managing a career over time and being successful is continually investing in our own growth.
And so understanding how do I want to stretch myself next? And then as I talked about with striving, just understanding what is that next ambition that’s calling you? What do you want to aspire to next? What is going to. motivate you [00:20:00] and have you be encouraged to put in the hard work if that’s what you want to do?
And what are you going to have the energy for?
Porschia: Thank you for those descriptions. And when you were talking about striving specifically, you made me think about a question I’ve gotten from a lot of clients. So I want to ask you, when they’re thinking about striving, And they want to know, is this goal realistic?
How can someone go about contemplating that? That’s a
Kathy: great question. I, so, there’s a few points that I’ll make and I’m going to borrow from some of my teachers around this. So, one is to, in that, is to do an honest assessment of yourself and where you stand today. And, combined [00:21:00] with, doing research around.
What does it take to get to that goal or to that ambition that you’re aspiring to? And so Dori Clark talks about this a lot where she will say, she says this, do the research to understand, again, is somebody who’s at that spot that you’re looking at now, what did it take for them to get there? As well as how long did it take for them to get there?
And I think what’s important about that is then looking at standing where you are today to then be, is it realistic or how do I set my goals in a realistic way such that I understand both the timing or the steps. And then to build on that, the other really important thing in having that information, one of the things that I also think is really important is that it can be actually stressful.
Um, If we look at some, at a [00:22:00] goal or an ambition where we’re striving and we see it so off, far off in the distance, that can cause undue stress as opposed to pulling it closer in and saying, what’s the next ambition that’s closer in where I can build my self efficacy and build my confidence and allow your ambition and your aspirations to grow over time.
I think that making it realistic is like having information is really helpful and then choosing the kind of what’s the next step out that’s going to keep me perhaps in alignment with that goal that I have overall, but also allowing yourself to learn along the way and have your ambition grow over time.
Porschia: Yeah.
Kathy: I love that. I think I’ve
Porschia: heard some people phrase it as like having a sub goal or a mini goal that kind of. is in alignment with the bigger [00:23:00] picture goal that they have. You started talking about sustainable ambition already. I really love that concept. Can you explain to us a little bit more about what sustainable ambition is and how it could affect goal setting?
Kathy: Sure. Sustainable ambition has two different sides to it. One is how do I sustain my ambition over time? And how do I sustain that over life stages as well? And how do I think about that with a lens of looking at it through both life and work? And then the second part of it is, okay, then how do I sustain myself for that journey?
How do I pursue my ambitions in a way where it actually can be sustainable and I’m, and I don’t get into an, Oh, I’m over stretching myself and I’m getting myself into over exhaustion all the time, or I’m always feeling like I’m bordering, bordering on burnout. [00:24:00] And so that’s how I think about sustainable ambition.
Porschia: Love that. I love all of that. We’ve talked about burnout a bit on the podcast before, and. I’ve personally had my own childhood burnout, so I think this whole sustainable ambition concept is amazing. So, I’ve heard some people say that they think setting goals is too restrictive and it could prevent them from going with the flow in their career.
What would you say to someone who feels that
Kathy: way? What I would say about that is that, So I’ll share an analogy to answer this. So there’s been research where people, uh, follow people who have been dropped in the woods, who don’t have any horizon and they don’t have a map or a compass. And what they find is that people walk around in a circle because they [00:25:00] don’t have a horizon or something off on the distance to guide them.
The other thing that I’ll say is that when we set goals They actually help pull us and motivate us, and I have to reference Dr. Ayelet Fishbach for this, for her research on motivation, and when I interviewed her, she talked about this, and she talks about it in her book, this idea that when we set goals, they help pull you.
And motivation, she talks about it as motivation isn’t out there. It’s, it’s something you actually have to cultivate. And I don’t think, so I, I think having a goal around your career is really important to help guide you where you want to go, but that doesn’t mean. You shouldn’t be agile and adaptable as we were talking about, or you pulled out from one of my stories earlier, right?
And being able to be. Adaptable to those opportunities that may come up for you. And honestly, by [00:26:00] focusing on goal setting, it actually positions you better for those potential opportunities that might arise. I
Porschia: agree, and I love that analogy of walking around in a circle because, to your point, I have seen so many clients, by the time they reach out for help, they’ve made that, they’ve decided and really figured out, I should say, that they are walking around in a circle, and then that is their motivation for reaching out to getting some help.
Great point there. What are some of the biggest mistakes you’ve seen professionals and executives make when it comes to goal setting? Great point.
Kathy: One I’ve alluded to before, which is to always be looking externally as opposed to internally. So in this, again, relates to some degree to us being human, us looking to those societal cues, looking to others to help guide us.
It’s a very [00:27:00] natural thing for us to do. And yet what can sometimes happen at some point is people start to wonder, Oh my gosh, this doesn’t align to me. So if you’re always looking externally and you’re never taking the time to find the congruence between those external opportunities that are being presented to you and how you as an individual connect to them and how they motivate you.
You’re at some point likely going to experience some friction. And so this does happen to a lot of people. And again, it’s partly because we learn about ourselves over time. It’s also many of us are in societies where we, it really is more about like fitting into society, fitting into those norms. And honestly, it’s also really easier to just go to a company and say, this is the path they’re telling me I’m supposed to take.
As opposed to taking some ownership and doing the work to learn about yourself and to [00:28:00] navigate for yourself so that you create your own career fulfillment.
Porschia: Yeah. Not thinking about your own self reflection and exploring what you want to do. And. I don’t know if you see this, but to your point about only looking externally at a company, I see a lot of people just focused on what others are doing on LinkedIn.
One of the most common things I hear from people is, I don’t feel like I’m doing enough because they’re looking at all of their LinkedIn connections and colleagues and people from college and all of that. And to your point, it’s all external. So what are some additional tips that you can share to help people with goal setting for their careers?
Kathy: I’m going to give you two lenses, Portia, one, I could, because I didn’t answer your question fully when you asked me about sustainable ambition and how does it align to goal setting. And really one of the core methods [00:29:00] that I think about with sustainable ambition is this idea of aligning the right ambitions at the right time with the right effort.
And it’s really at the intersection of those three that one can find sustainable ambition. So. Are you aligning to self defined, meaningful, motivating goals for yourself? Are you aligning those to this period of time where you’re really thinking about what really matters to me? What’s most important in my, across my life and work now, and am I choosing those goals and aligning them in a way that will support sustainability?
And then am I thinking about also aligning my effort around this? Like both knowing where should I be putting in the effort against certain goals? And then also, how do I importantly create a sustaining plan for myself so that I am supporting myself and can be resilient to be able to pursue these goals?
And again, not sacrifice my life or [00:30:00] myself along the way. So that’s one way that I think about supporting myself or other ideas around goal setting. The other one that I share and the other model that I use that there’s some overlap here, but is to really think about you, your life, and then your work.
And so the you is really making sure that you’re attuning to yourself again, that you’re getting to know yourself so that you can align your motivations to your goals. Importantly, thinking about your life and your life stage and what’s important as you’re thinking about then. What are the ambitions I’m setting for my career and my job at this stage in my life so that I can keep make it sustainable and then thinking about your work within that context, how do you bring it all together such that you keep your work fulfilling for you and satisfying for you along the way.
So those are just a few models or lenses that I bring to gold setting [00:31:00] that might apply as well.
Porschia: Yeah, I think both of those lenses are really helpful. So tell us more about your business, sustainable ambition.
Kathy: Yes, I do both coaching and facilitating as well as some speaking around sustainable ambition.
And I work with both individuals and organizations on helping them take sustainable action. So we’ll be
Porschia: providing a link to your website and social channels in our show notes so people can find you online. But what is the best way for someone to get in touch with you?
Kathy: They can get in touch with me on my website at sustainableambition.
com or find me on LinkedIn as well at Kathy Oneto. So
Porschia: now, Kathy, I want to ask you our final question that we ask all of our guests. How do you think executives or professionals can get a positive edge in [00:32:00] their career?
Kathy: I’m going to go back to some of what I’ve already shared, but I would say first pay attention to how you’re feeling about your work and about your career.
Bye bye. So keep your eyes on it and be engaged with it, and then also foster possibility and potential. One of the things I’ve learned in researching, doing research where I’ve interviewed people who have navigated career changes, as well as doing over a hundred interviews on my podcast as well, is that what I’ve learned is that I think it really benefits us if we are always learning and we’re always We’re always experimenting and always taking good risk.
I don’t think risk taking is just for the young. I think we should always be taking good risk, but it needs to be that qualifier of good risk is important.
Porschia: Kathy, you have shared [00:33:00] a lot of insights with us today. I agree with the good risks that we should be taking. I’m sure that our listeners can use it to be more confident in their careers and with their goal setting.
We appreciate you being with us.
Kathy: Thank you for having me, Portia. It’s been fun. [00:34:00]
