Goal Setting

Meaningfully define your goals to set you up for success

Happy new year, everyone! I hope you all had a great holiday break, and returned feeling refreshed and pumped up for what’s in shop in 2023.

This is typically also that time of the year when you are, if you haven’t already, setting your goals and new year resolutions. Professionally and personally. How has it been going for you? What are your top goals to accomplish in 2023? What are your product management related goals? Such as:

• Land a new role / get into company X or industry Y

• Get promoted

• Launch XYZ product/features

• Learn YYY / get better at ZZZ

I’d love to hear about them, especially if I can help! (drop me notes at johnny@introvertinproduct.com)

For me: First of all, honestly, I’m not too crazy about new year resolutions. I believe in continuous goal setting, execution and reflections. Having that said, I do think end of / beginning of the year is one of the most meaningful marks in time that prompts us to take a step back and evaluate where things are and what the next steps should be. This evaluation process, could be called annual retrospective and goal setting, past year reflection and new year resolutions, or anything else you prefer. So I did have a good reflection and know a few themes that I’d like to focus on in 2023: it’s across career, personal growth, well-being, family, and connections.

But my goals might not be as specific as you thoughts. In this post, I’m going to briefly share my latest theories behind goal settings. These are mine. Some might resonate with you, others might not. Feel free to take it with a grain of salt, and see for yourself how it might help you with your unique goal setting process.

—

Before I move on, I’d like to mention that one of my goals is to be even more helpful to the product community via Introvert In Product - be it to continue writing useful content, to directly engage my audience (you!) more, or other ways to give back. This includes providing free suggestions, Q&As, or consultations via asycn or live channels. So again, if you believe I can help with your product goals or if you have ideas how I can be more helpful, don’t hesitate to reach out to me at johnny@introvertinproduct.com.

My Theories Behind Goal Settings

I used to believe that all goals, including professional and personal goals, require to have crisply specific, clearly measurable outcome and metrics. I’m sure many of you heard of “SMART” Goals:

• Specific

• Measurable

• Achievable

• Realistic

• Time-Bound

I’m not here to play a contrarian against this framework. It is a great framework and I think most of the principles do apply well. I want to however share some of the principles, arguably quite different from the framework, that I find increasingly helpful for me to define goals that actually do keep me up progressing toward what I really wanted to accomplish, more consistently in the long run with less disappointments.

So here they are.

1. Focus less on the outcome, more on the process you have in control

I’m sure we all had goals like some of the following:

• Get an job offer from <fancy company A>, and 3 more job offers by June 10th.

• Get a exceed expectation performance rating or above, and get a 10% or above raise at year end

• Get promoted to Sr. Product Manager by H2 2023

• Etc.

These are good and important outcomes we actually want to get, and there’s nothing wrong about them. They might all be “SMART” too! Except that, they could set you up for disappointment and self doubt even if you will have done all your best.

The key problem with outcome-driven goals is that you’re only at best partially in control. In fact, most of the outcomes might be out of your control.

I’ve written a lot about job interviews and I believe I mentioned numerous times that there are many out of your control reasons why you don’t get the job offers. Performance rating largely depends on your company’s defined distribution curve that year, your manager’s subjectivity, and how calibration across teams work. Promotion sometimes even depends on whether there’s “opening” in that higher level role you’re aiming to land. Imagine at year end reflection you see that you failed to accomplish this goal. What would you think? How do you differentiate the lack of effort or right-doing from yourself vs external factors? If you can’t tell, how would determine the best next steps to course correct and help you back on track toward the goals?

So my suggestion, is instead to focus your goals on what you have in control. Instead of the outcome (which usually is out of your control), focus on the process. Think backward from the outcome, what you can do to drive toward that outcome. For instance to land a job offer, I’d:

• Think about and write down the specific product roles that I want to land and why, by Feb 15th.

• Study about core product skills required to succeed in interviews, at least for an hour daily, Monday through Friday, starting Jan 15th

• Look at job boards and apply to ones that fits my interest and qualification, at least once a week starting Feb 15th.

• Reach out to at least 3 connections of mine who might be able to help me with the process, by March 15th.

• Hire a interview coach to help me with skills sharpening and mock interviews by April 1st. Complete at least 10 mock interviews before the actual interviews that I want to succeed at.

• Etc.

These process/action-centric goals will make it clearer to you whether you’ve done the right things and how you can improve. It also prevents you to beat yourself up if the outcome isn’t in your favor (yet). Because remember, if you consistently do the right thing, you will eventually get the outcome when opportunity/timing aligns.

2. Make goals uniquely yours

Bandwagon effect happens a lot in goal setting. You might be tempted to have a goal to make more money, to lose weight, to buy a large house or a fancy car, etc. if many around you have such goals. In product, you feel compelled to break into MAANG or a shiny new tech industry just because everyone on Linkedin is talking about it. Or you believe you should make at least a certain amount of salary by now because you seem 30% underpaid compared to the numbers shared on Blind.

But how much do they really matter to you?

Will you be much happier if you get it? how much does it align with your personal value and long term vision for your life?

Don’t lose sight of these things that actually do matter to you. Others’ goals are not yours. Keeping up with the Jonas’s isn’t the best thing to do in goal setting.

3. Be flexible and mentally ready for change

Goals should not be set in stone. Just because you write it on the wall at the beginning of the year, doesn’t mean you should absolutely stick with it at all cost, in all circumstances.

I’m sure we probably all learned by now, through the pandemic era especially, that the world and our lives in it are really really hard to predict. I believe it’s probably better to not have goals, if your goals are meant to be rigid.

Having goals are important, as always. They guide your actions and remind you what’s important. But things do change, so should your goals. So when you define your goals, preserve a healthy dose of flexibility in it. Carefully balance accountability and flexibility is the new SMARTest thing to do. (Accountability so that you don’t go the other extreme to make your goal always a moving target).

4. Focus most on the immediate next actions

Instead of focusing on the last step before the desired outcome, focus on the first step. That is, what are you immediately going to do next toward this goal?

Why? Because it is the most, or the only actionable thing you have in control today, and all the rest of the process and eventually the desired outcome, depends on it.

Take another non-product example: Say if you want to develop a ripped physique of your dream (10% body fat with defined muscular look). Some might define a goal like “lift like a beast: for 2 hours, 5 days a week in a gym. Bench 1.5x body weight and squat 300 lbs for 10 reps…”. Well, what if you at this point is only a novice in fitness and you barely do 3 body weight push ups. That goal sounds like the “last step” you’d take and if you can do that, you probably already almost have your dream physique. But what can you do today to get you started? What about start going for a walk for 30 minutes if you’re relatively sedentary. What about start eating a bit healthier by eating less of the potato chips in the evening while you watch TV?

If you don’t get started, you will never accomplish your goals. So when you write down your goal, focus first and foremost on getting started - what are you going to do now/today/tomorrow? And remember, the rest of the process could change as you go. You will know only once you start.

—

Alright, the above wraps this brief post! Once again, I’m here to help. I know we’re still in a difficult time in tech where layoffs / hiring freeze / cost downs are everywhere, and this trend could continue well into later this year. Just like how I believe I’ll need help at some point, I imagine some of you are in need now.

Reach out at johnny@introvertinproduct.com.

Have a great 2023 that’s uniquely yours, everyone!