Have your career goals changed, and what have you done about it?

In only 15 years of post-college work, I've already had three careers. Not coincidentally, my career goals and objectives have changed.

When I graduated from grad school at Georgia Tech in 2001 (yeah, I'm old), I was very focused on money.

My goal was to score a high salary and my objective was to make over $100,000 by the age of 30. If I didn't achieve that, I would have considered myself a failure.

I was well on my way. At 26, I was a consultant getting paid $90,000.

Then I got bored of that shit and took a complete salary U-turn.

I took off for business school to get into the sports business industry. I made almost nothing for the two years I was in school (my internships were either for no or little pay), then landed a sports marketing job that paid a little more than half of what I was making as a consultant.

I was cool with working for less money. At this point, my goal was recognition. My objective was to make the SportsBusiness Journal's 40 Under 40 list.

Whether I was on my way to that award was debatable, but I was doing pretty well in my gig at the Washington Capitals.

After 4.5 years, that job ran its course, and then I became an entrepreneur.

My objective isn't quite as clear, and I do need to work on that. But my goal now is to build and grow a company.

Things have been ebbing and flowing over the last four years, and I've gone through the ups and downs of the startup and entrepreneurial life. But it's where I want to be right now, and that goal still endures.

While I hate not achieving goals and objectives that I set for myself, I'm not upset that I didn't achieve the ones I mentioned above.

My point of all this is that as we go through life, priorities change, and thus the same goes with our goals and objectives. And that's cool.

As you assess your career, think about your priorities and where you want to be. If those are different from the goals that you set prior, it's OK to write off those goals and make a change to pursue a new one.

Have your career goals changed, and what did you do about it? I’d love to hear from you. Write your thoughts in the comments, tweet at me @mikewchan, or email me at mike@mikewchan.com.

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