A career goal is a statement defining the ultimate role you’re aspiring for throughout the course of your working life. Provided it’s specific, measurable, and realistic, it allows you to prepare an action or development plan for moving towards the accomplishment of your ambitions.

Whether you’re aiming to be an administrative assistant for a multinational corporation or a home-based day shift non voice role, planning is important for achieving success and satisfaction in your chosen profession. This is a basic yet key principle used by high-performing professionals today.

Career goal planning for remote workers – why?

Goal setting isn’t anything new even for home-based professions. It provides you with a clear path for improving your career and reaching certain milestones. You may use it when you want to advance in your personal life or when handling specific projects and tasks.

Let’s take a look at why it’s important for employees to set goals, be it towards education, creativity, promotion, or any other aspect in their personal and professional lives.

It gives you motivation

When there’s something to work toward, you’re inspired to be more productive or perform better. Individual assignments contribute towards something more meaningful, which make them easier to do. By achieving a smaller objective, you’re given a sense of pride, encouraging you to continue setting and achieving goals.

It provides you focus

Having goals is an excellent means of focusing on what’s important to you. With clear objectives in mind, you’re less prone to getting distracted, especially when you’re aiming for the best remote assistant jobs. All of your hard work goes toward achieving your tasks, which help you reach your goals quickly.

It displays your ambition

A common question asked during interviews or evaluations is ‘where do you see yourself five years from now?’ By answering with clear goals, you gain support from your supervisor or manager for accomplishing them. It also tells them about your motivations for pursuing the best work from home jobs they have.

It aligns your actions

In setting goals, you are also checking if your daily activities and habits are helpful for your aspirations. At the same time, it enables you to make informed decisions when your supervisor asks you what kind of training you prefer to undergo for internal virtual assistant hiring.

It boosts work/life balance

Not knowing what actions to take or where to go next makes you feel stuck and adds pressure to your job. By having goals, you’re able to plan what to do to move forward in your profession. It also ensures that you’re selecting the right remote VA jobs for work-life balance.

Career goal planning for remote workers – how?

One of the best career advancement tips while working from home is having a vision and establishing goals. Even if you’ve done it while you were based in an office, it’s going to look different now that you’re virtual—from the kind of objectives to the resources available.

Go for measurable goals

Since you’re doing home-based work, many of the choices you make are data-driven. This means there are plenty of opportunities to set goals that may be measured in numbers. Tying objectives with quantitative milestones makes clear what is required for a successful result.

The goal may be a set number of design changes, created reports, reviewed points, contacted customers, and published articles within a certain duration or before a set deadline. Either way, setting a concrete metric gives you direction and a clear path for moving forward.

Put it down in writing

Write down the goals you wish to achieve, be it the top VA jobs or working schedule you prefer, so you’ll have a visual reminder. This also makes them feel more real rather than just a thought in your head. Instead, they’re before you on the paper and sometimes even with pictures.

Science confirms that you are 42% more likely to reach your dreams when you write them down on a regular basis. Compared to the Notes application on your phone, it’s better to jot them down with a real pen and paper so they appear more important.

Mind your negative lens

According to data gathered by the Harvard Business Review, a little criticism goes a long way as it takes more than five positive comments to offset a single criticism. This shows that people are more likely to remember the negative comments they’ve received than the positive ones.

It’s easier to develop a pessimistic point of view than an optimistic one, so you tend to notice the tiny inconveniences or offences over the good things. You must learn to override this so you don’t miss out on opportunities because you misinterpreted a single action by your boss or colleague.

Break it down to chunks

It’s easier to measure and manage progress when you break a larger goal into smaller tasks. This breakdown process is called the making of key performance indicators. KPIs are defined as measurable milestones tracked through small jobs that show you’re on the path towards the final objective.

Through this method, managers and team leaders will know clearly if a goal is going to be met on time or not. This also tells them if employees are struggling with meeting the metrics or if the indicators need reevaluation or adjustment.

Identify sources of support

Deviating from the path is a common problem, especially when you’re applying for virtual assistant jobs online. Accountability partners, digital tools, and other support systems are necessary to prevent you from going off course. Preparing these resources, including gaining access, is a crucial part of goal setting.

This is trickier when you’re hired for home-based job hiring since environmental cues are fewer. There are less opportunities to approach colleagues casually or ask managers for mentoring. You’ll have to take the initiative in finding an accountability partner with similar objectives.

Cultivate a winning mindset

Since we’re still in the second month of 2023, it’s not too late to make this your best year yet as a virtual assistant. One of the best career strategies or tips while working remotely is stacking your positivity deck, starting with focusing on the upside of a problematic situation.

Next, determine what you might learn from the incident and seek growth in your profession. Expand your outlook or see the bigger picture by thinking about all that you’re grateful for. Also, be willing to take small risks and practice speaking positive affirmations towards yourself.

Take time for reflection

Reviewing your tasks and progress regularly is crucial for staying on track towards your final goal. Additionally, it’s vital for determining when an activity or assignment might not be on a trajectory towards meeting deadlines. Hence, reevaluate your objectives on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis with your partner.

Make sure to include light-hearted milestones within your development or action plan. This might be finishing two plates of vegetable salad for lunch or drawing dogs every day for a week. These tiny objectives that are easy to accomplish will motivate you on days when your long-term goal feels too far away.

Finding home-based online jobs in the Philippines

Perhaps one of the short-term objectives you have is finding good virtual assistant jobs in the Philippines. While that sounds relatively simple compared to being an operations manager by June, it’s not so easy to get hired by reputable companies especially in this digital era.

One way to give you an edge over the competition and increase your chances of being chosen for home-based job hiring is to work with Remote Workmate. We’re connected to a large number of global employers who’re looking for skilled and qualified online professionals.

Besides that, we are more than willing to help you achieve your career goals. We regularly update our blog with career advancement tips while working from home and we provide training on how to become a better VA. To know more, see our success stories of our Workmates like how Meg wows her client with her skills and work ethic.