Setting Career Goals When the Future is in Flux

Over the last five years, we have lived through pandemic tumult, political stratifications, and an AI explosion. The magnitude of these upheavals—and their impact on libraries—has been immense. Amidst these shifts, librarians continue to navigate their professional lives, balancing the familiar with the unknown.

It might be tempting to avoid identifying career aims when circumstances are unpredictable, yet goal setting offers both agency and guidance. It can help individuals stay motivated and focused, which may be particularly useful during times of uncertainty.

In this article, I’ll explore perspectives, strategies, and tools to help librarians create purposeful, relevant, and attainable career goals in today’s quickly evolving landscape.

Why Set Personal Career Goals?

Many of us have experience setting strategic and performance goals, perhaps tied to the annual planning cycle. Setting personal career goals allows us to reflect on what truly matters in our professional lives and to develop pathways for what we define as success. Personal career goals provide direction, clarity, and motivation and can elevate daily responsibilities and practices into steps toward larger achievements.

Even amidst chaos, we can benefit from both setting and pursuing our own career goals. The social psychologist Heidi Grant (2022) writes, “Setting goals in times of uncertainty and burnout can feel pointless, but it isn’t.” She goes on to explain that goals increase our “motivational systems,” direct us to taking appropriate actions, and enable us to rise to the occasion when we have the opportunity.

Applying Futures Thinking

By grounding goals in the present context and maintaining flexibility, we can navigate uncertainty with purpose and resilience.

Futures thinking—which involves scenario planning, envisioning diverse outcomes, and preparing for various possibilities—can be a powerful tool for goal setting during turbulent times. As part of this approach, it is important to set goals that are adaptable. For instance, instead of committing to securing a specific position, such as head of library instruction and research services, consider what type of work responsibilities you aspire to—for example, you may wish to collaborate closely with faculty and manage projects—then focus on building relevant skills. Pursuing goals that emphasize improvement and processes rather than rigid outcomes will help equip you for various opportunities; you’ll be prepared when the right one arises.

Multiple Aims

Alongside recognizing that there are many different versions of the future, it’s also helpful to identify a range of career goals. In a 2016 paper on career resilience, Scott Seibert, Maria Kraimer, and Peter Heslin propose that “a robust path to experiencing career success, as well as resilience to shocks that could divert you from that path, is likely to stem from discerning and attending to multiple career outcomes at any point in time” (p. 251).

The library landscape is constantly evolving, with new technologies, shifts in user behavior, and changes in scholarly communication, for example. Meanwhile, our priorities change too: early-career librarians might focus on professional development to boost employment prospects, and later they may prioritize conducting and sharing research. By strategically identifying a range of flexible goals that represent success, however we each define it, we not only allow ourselves multiple opportunities for achievement, but also allow for adjustments to unpredictable circumstances.

Growth Mindset

Another key approach to defining career goals during unpredictable times is to embrace a growth mindset. A growth mindset sees knowledge and skills as traits that can be cultivated through learning and experience, and these qualities are core. As Grant writes, “A growth mindset is about believing that developing and making progress is the point of what you’re doing” (2022).

Goals informed by a growth mindset allow for agency, evolution, and adaptability. They emphasize what you can control—the process—over external outcomes that may unexpectedly be disrupted.

When crafting goals, Grant (2022) suggests using growth-mindset trigger words, like “improve,” “develop,” “over time,” “progress,” and “grow.”

But what if you have specific, outcome-based aspirations that drive and inspire you? When possible, explore ways in which those goals may be reframed from a growth mindset perspective. For example, rather than focusing on “becoming the next library director at my library,” consider goals like “developing leadership skills” and “improving presentation skills.” If you discover that you need to attach a specific result to your goal for it to be worthwhile, see how elastic you can make it. Perhaps “become the next library director at my library” becomes “over time, obtain progressively responsible leadership positions.”

A Personal Note about Mentors

Mentors can provide vital advice and guidance on personal goal setting. Of course, supervisors can also provide support; but a mentor’s perspective is broader, and their focus is on the mentee’s success. Mentors can ask the right questions to help define and refine your goals and provide strategies and pathways for achieving them.

My first formal mentor, whom I was paired with through the Southwest Florida Library Network (SWFLN) when I was a fresh reference librarian at a public library, encouraged me to thoughtfully reflect on, and then create, my personal career goals. At the time, I was simply excited about starting my career as a librarian and uncertain about many things—what role to work toward, what specific milestones I would like to accomplish, and even the types of initiatives that I might one day want to lead. I did know, however, that I wanted to work with underrepresented communities and, eventually, internationally.

My mentor helped me establish several related goals: honing expertise in a specific area, developing leadership capabilities, and building cultural competencies. She provided insight into plans and pathways to achieve these goals, suggesting strategies and actions that I would never have thought of on my own. Thanks to her generosity of time, sharing of valuable experience, and keen understanding of the library landscape, I was able to take up opportunities in pursuit of my broad goal as they arose. The impact of a mentor is found not only in their advice, but also in their ability to inspire a vision of what is possible.

Conclusion

There are challenges and limitations to applying these techniques when establishing personal career goals. One challenge relating to futures thinking is envisioning career goals, even developmental ones, that connect to library services that have not yet been introduced—how could anyone have anticipated, for instance, skills for developing digital scholarship services when digital scholarship didn’t exist? Another may be transitioning to goals framed by growth-mindset language, which could seem more abstract than goals that highlight a specific position or salary (though goals stated using growth-mindset vocabulary will enable you to seize those concrete opportunities when they arise). Finally, while these techniques are meant to help position you to establish goals that allow for flexibility, it is still challenging to ensure that goals remain relevant amidst rapidly evolving technological and political landscapes.

But in uncertain times, career goals provide direction and motivation and promote resilience. By applying futures thinking, establishing multiple marks of achievement, embracing a growth mindset, and maintaining flexibility, librarians can create meaningful goals that prepare them for the future while fostering growth in the present. With the support of mentors, we can navigate turbulent times and shape fulfilling careers that align with our aspirations and values.

Despite the unpredictability of the futures that await, the time to reflect, adjust, and set your own markers for success is now.

References

Forchheimer, S. (2022, June 28). What exactly is futures thinking?. Insight, IFTF. https://www.iftf.org/insights/what-exactly-is-futures-thinking/

Grant, H. (2022, September 30). Setting career goals when you feel overwhelmed. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2022/09/setting-career-goals-when-you-feel-overwhelmed

Ge, X., Yu, H., Zhang, Q., Song, S., & Liu, S. (2023). Self-goal setting as a way to career sustainability: Exploring the roles of career crafting and perceived organizational goal clarity. Career Development International, 28(6/7), 756-771. https://doi.org/10.1108/CDI-05-2023-0154

Seibert, S. E., Kraimer, M. L., & Heslin, P. A. (2016). Developing career resilience and adaptability. Organizational Dynamics, 45(3), 245-257. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orgdyn.2016.07.009