This year, think twice when it comes to setting career goals

The start of a new year is a popular time to set in motion new career resolutions and goals. It is also a time to reflect on the great Australian tradition of falling over. So I have been reflecting on falling over and how it relates to careers advice.

It stands to reason that there is a relationship between falling down and suffering an injury. It is also not contentious that, as a general rule, the greater the height from which we fall, the greater the risk of serious injury. All other things being equal, if we fall down when we are on the ground, we will suffer relatively minor cuts and bruises, whereas if we fall off a 20-storey building, we are likely to die.

Walking the right path career-wise can involve some stumbles and falls.Credit: iStock

That phrase “all other things being equal” is a trap because it seems so obvious. However, all other things are rarely equal – circumstances differ and do matter.

We have all experienced falling over. We have all read about people falling from great heights to their death. We have little difficulty in accepting that height played a part in (i.e. caused) the hapless person’s death.

If we take the example above and substitute the number of Disney movies released between 2000 and 2021 for height, and the number of motor thefts in the USA for severity of injury, we find an equally compelling correlation. The more Disney movies released in a year, the more motor vehicle thefts.

However, nobody would seriously suggest that Disney movie releases caused motor vehicle thefts. Correlation does not mean causation. This matters because all too frequently, correlational data is presented with the implication that two things being measured are causally related.

Ultimately, we can never be sure that we are on the “right path”, or even whether a right path exists in advance of walking it.

Take, for example, happiness and career success. So much of what is presented in the career self-help blogs, books and podcasts is predicated on the notion that career success will lead to happiness. Rarely is it considered that being happy might be a pre-condition for career success.

Julia Boehm and Sonja Lyubomirsky published a paper in the Journal of Career Assessment in 2008 providing evidence that career success does not lead to happiness; rather, it is the other way around: happiness promotes career success.

Sometimes, two separate things appear to be correlated because, in fact, the two separate things are not separate at all. Take, for example, the relationship between goal progress and subjective well-being.

Hannah Klug and Gunter Maier published a meta-analysis of 85 studies looking at this relationship in the Journal of Happiness Studies. Unsurprisingly, they found that goal progression was correlated to subjective well-being. However, the authors concede that, frequently, subjective well-being is measured in part by the degree to which people report they have achieved their goals.

It is a bit like saying that the degree to which a person is hurt in a fall is related to the degree to which they have suffered an injury. Well, duh.

There is another problem with the relationship between goal-setting, careers and happiness. Even the best controlled studies that promote goal-setting show that many other things apart from goal setting account for the claimed relationship to subjective well-being or career success.

Frequently that appears to be related to doing things that make you happy, or things that increase your subjective well-being, and in turn these can be related to more profound considerations of what really matters and is truly meaningful for you.

When we begin to consider meaning and mattering, this often leads to discussions about belonging, contribution, community, family, friendships and relationships – in fact, the kind of things that make it into epitaphs and obituaries. They are like the arts: they are some of the most important things that make life worth living.

The problem from a careers perspective is that people see the headlines from research on goals and subjective well-being, or career success and happiness, and conclude that the most useful thing they can do is set many goals or, worse, advise others to do the same.

However, this disregards the possibility that one may need to have a degree of happiness and/or success to allow one to get the most out of this approach.

It also disregards that circumstances are continually changing – sometimes with glacial speed, at other times the change is sudden, unexpected and turns our worlds upside down. The truth is that none of us can say with any certainty where we will be at the end of 2025.

Things will change for all of us, and for most there will be some for the worse and some for the better. The changes may be incremental or incredible, but changes there will be. Certainly, envision a preferred place to be at the end of 2025, but do not make the mistake of thinking that setting a goal is going to do all the heavy lifting to get you there.

This is not to decry the value of goal-setting per se, but rather it is a warning that, in the rush to set goals, we might be overlooking more valuable approaches that are ultimately likely to be more useful to us.

Fostering or even forcing curiosity, and continual exploration of where we find ourselves, helps to unearth unforeseen possibilities, new relationships between both people and things, and new pathways.

Engaging in new activities and finding surprise and delight in them can, with reflection, lead to new perspectives on direction or meaning.

Instead of limiting oneself to questions of where you want to be by the end of the year, try to devote more time to exploring where you are right now and pursuing whatever paths are open to you, at least a little bit.

Trying pushing a little harder on the door that appears closed, or devote time to finding the keys to the door, or other entrances, avenues and destinations that are open right now. The point is to keep on trying and expect some of the efforts to lead to dead ends, and some strategies to fail.

The best way to have a career idea is to have many career ideas. Curiosity, open-mindedness, persistence and continual exploration are good ways to achieve this.

Because, ultimately, we can never be sure that we are on the “right path”, or even whether a right path exists in advance of walking it. But may your inevitable stumbles along these paths not be from a great height.

Dr Jim Bright, FAPS, is a director at IWCA Pty Ltd and director of Evidence & Impact at BECOME Education. [e-mail] or follow him on Blue Sky @DrJimBright.bsky.social

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