SMART Goal Setting: Job Hunting

Hello friends!

It’s 11:30p on Friday night as I’m writing this. I was dozing on the couch half an hour ago, but then I got off the couch and brushed my teeth, so now I’m wide awake.

Does minty toothpaste make anyone else wide-awake?

So it’s time to start ticking items off that big list Iposted a couple weeks ago. First on the list is job hunting, more specifically setting SMART goals to get a job.

In case you missed it before, I have a job! I’m doing marketing and communications for a B2B generator company. Technically it’s a temp job as they rebrand and launch a new website, but it has the possibility of becoming permanent.

 SMART Goal Setting: Job Hunting

Getting this job was not easy. It was the culmination of a very long-term plan. Most of that plan isn’t relevant to you, unless of course, you never left the humanities building in college and somehow ended up in a dead end HR job. But since I highly doubt that is the case for most of you, I’ll skip to the actual job hunting part.

Specific: Get a full time job in marketing, PR, or communications.

Meaningful: This is something that I’ve been slowly working towards for a long time. I left my well-paying full time job to go back to school for this goal. That’s about as meaningful as it gets.

Measurable: Luckily this is a yes or no question. Do I have a full time job in marketing? Yes, then I succeeded. No, then I need to keep working.

Action Oriented: I took a two-fold approach to this goal. First, I applied for jobs. Monday through Friday I sat down at my computer and wouldn’t get up until I had either applied for four jobs or exhausted the job postings for the day. This meant customizing four resumes, researching four companies, and writing four cover letters based on the research and the job posting. This was not an easy task and I got so sick of talking about myself, but no one is going to knock on your door and offer you a job, so this was very necessary.

My second actionable approach was to work to bolster my resume. I did this by getting online certifications, writing this blog, creating an online portfolio, and doing as many odd-job marketing projects as I could. Depending on your industry you should be able to find a handful of free or cheap online certification courses that you can take in your free time.

Realistic: I had a good amount of experience, some relevant education, I was regularly adding new items to my resume, and I wasn’t shooting for a high-level position. An entry-level position, especially in a city that is going through as much of a boom as Raleigh is right now, was well within my grasp.

Timely: This is where I broke my rule a little. I didn’t have a set time limit on this goal. That’s not entirely realistic for a goal like this. I did have daily requirements – working from 9-5p to apply for at least four jobs and then fill the rest of my time with bulking up my resume – so that served to as a daily check-in for me as to whether or not I was living up to this goal.

Sitting in my cubicle in my favorite dress!

I put this goal in place and after several weeks, a large handful of phone interviews, and a small handful of second/in-person interviews, I got a job!

Is this my dream job?

Hell no! Not even close!

But my goal was not to get my dream job. It was to get a full time marketing job. And I did that. So I was successful.

What about you, friends? Do you have your dream job? Do you know what your dream job is? (I do! And it's such a scary feeling.)

Cheers, Kara

SMART Goal Setting: Two Mini Goals Make a House

Good day friends!

I’m back with the second installment of my SMARTing series. Today I’m talking about my big goal of buying a house and the two mini goals I’m creating to get Leon and myself financially secure enough to buy a house.

This is going to be kind of a long one, so grab some coffee. Or grab a drink and we’ll turn this isn’t a drinking game. Drink every time you read the word “goal.” I promise you’ll end up drunk by the end of this post.

SMART Goal Setting: Two Mini Goals Make a House

If you read the first post on the basics, you already understand the process of setting SMART goals. (Drink!) If you haven’t read the first post, I would suggest going back and starting there. Setting SMART goals isn’t rocket science, but a little extra pre-preparation never hurt anyone.

So for the sake of re-Secreting: my goal is to buy a house in the next 12-18 months. To do that Leon and I need to pay down some debt – mostly student loans – to improve our debt to income ratio (which I’ll be referring to as debt:income from now on) and save as much as possible to use as a down payment.

Step one: tackling debt.

Leon and I are not going to pay all our debt off before buying a house. College is expensive and we’re not suddenly making six figures each, so making that goal would be unRealistic. Instead, we’re making the goal of paying off our two smallest loans and putting a dent in the other two.

Below is the layout of our SMART goal.

(Caveat: I’m not going to share the real dollar amounts of our goals/debt. Your debt and goals are different from mine; so knowing mine will only serve to feed your voyeuristic nature. Also, fake numbers make for easier math.)

Specific: Pay down $15,000 in debt.

Meaningful: Aggressively paying down debt will improve our debit:income and get us one step closer to our house.

Measurable: Dollars are very measurable. And the spreadsheet with specific monthly dollar amounts for each loan is also very measurable.

Action-oriented: We have $8000 in savings, so once we take out $2000 to use as an emergency fund, we’re plopping $6000 directly into debt. That will be our payment for the first month and leave us with $9,000 to pay down. From there we’re going to put $825 towards debt for the remaining 11 months. This will cover more than the minimum monthly payments and we’ll make the payments in a Dave Ramsey Snowball fashion. (That link is to an explanation of Ramsey’s Debt Snowball.)

$6000+($825*11)=$15,075

Yes, I realize that this is more than our goal, but I like easy numbers. So instead of paying $818.19 per month, we’re paying $825. An extra $75 won’t kill us, though.

Realistic: We built a strict, but doable budget. We built a little wiggle room for fun into our budget, plus we have that emergency fund to cover unexpected expenses.

Timely: We are giving ourselves 12 months to do this and we will be able to check in each month. I even made an awesome spreadsheet to hang on the fridge and every time we make a payment as planned we get to put a sticker on the spreadsheet.

Step two: saving as much as humanly possible.

This goal isn’t quite as set in stone as our debt goal. This goal represents the bare minimum since more savings is definitely a good thing, whereas we figured out that there isn’t much benefit to paying down more debt at the expense of our savings.

Specific: Save at least $16,000.

Meaningful and measurable: The amount that we save directly impacts the amount we can pay for a house, since we want to put a large percentage down. So this is a hugely meaningful goal. And again, dollars and my nerdy spreadsheets are immensely measurable.

Action-oriented: Our budget has allowed for $2250 per month to be put towards debt and savings, so with our debt plan in place we’ll have $1425 per month to put into savings. We’re going to start this goal a month after we start our debt goal so that we have money for all those fun moving expenses, so we’ll have 11 months to get to our goal.

$1425*11=$15,675

This still leaves a $325 gap, but I’m anticipating with birthday money and wedding gifts and Christmas bonuses and picking up change off the street, we’ll be able to make up that gap and then some.

Realistic: This amount is just a hair below being difficult. So $16,000 is without a doubt obtainable. Like I said before, though, this amount is the bare minimum.

Timely: Our plan for this mini goal runs for 12 months. Since our over-arching house buying goal gives us 12-18 months to buy a house, if we find that after 12 months we want to build up more of a down payment we’ll continue the same debt and savings plan for another 6 months.

Okay! Those are my mini goals. They are not exactly fun, because living with a super tight budget is pretty much never fun. They definitely don’t guarantee that we’ll be successful in buying a house, but we still stand a significantly better chance if we can stick to these goals (or at least in very close proximity to these goals). And that makes it worth it to me!

If you read all the way through to this point you are amazing. And if you were playing the drinking game version you are very drunk, because I said “goal” 23 times. Either way, thank you!

Cheers, Kara

SMART Goal Setting: The Basics

Hi again friends!

I Secreted last week that my goal is to buy a house in the next 12-18 months. And part of that goal is setting lots of smaller, SMART goals. I started to write a whole post about the goals that I created for myself in the process of buying a house, but then I got an idea.

Going into this move I’ve got a lot of things that I want to accomplish. I always have a lot of things I want to accomplish, but moving to a new city is a really great catalyst for change, so I’m harnessing it. And luckily for all of you wonderful people, I’m taking you along for the ride and turning my goal setting into a series. This is the first installment.

SMART Goal Setting: The Basics

A SMART goal is one that is Specific, Meaningful and Measurable, Action-Oriented, Realistic, and Timely. If you ask me, a wish, a plan, a hope is nothing if it’s not SMART.

So let’s run through how SMART goals work and how they differ from just making a regular goal. For this example, let’s say your goal is to lose weight. (It is January, after all.)

You make the goal of losing weight. You do some things to work towards this goal. You may or may not lose weight. The end.

A SMART version of that goal looks like this:

Specific: You want to lose 10 pounds.

Meaningful: Your doctor says your weight puts you at risk for diabetes and you want to avoid that.

Measurable: Pounds are a unit of measurement, so that’s easy.

Action-oriented: You are going to workout 3/week for one hour. You are going to eat 5 servings of veggies/day.  (Measurable steps!)

Realistic: 10 pounds is not 100 pounds, so it’s not too difficult, but it’s also not 2 pounds, so it is a challenge.

Timely: You want to lose this weight in 10 weeks and you will check in on your progress every other week. That gives you a deadline and set times for progress checks.

 You follow this plan and at the end of the 10 weeks you see how much weight you lost. The end.

At the end of both scenarios, your success is not a given. Success is never a given, no matter how badly you want it, but you know that since you’re still reading. But SMART goals give you a fighting chance, because they give you a few tools. (I refuse to use the phrase “setting yourself up for success” because this is not some bullshit seminar about how to fill out college applications.)

-Planning and forethought. A lot of times we jump into a goal because it’s something we want, but without really examining it. The process of setting up your SMART goal forces you to think through things, identify obstacles before they arise, and really dig deep to see if you are motivated enough to achieve this goal.

-Manageable chunks. Most goals, at least the ones on my list right now, are huge and scary and overwhelming. So rather than sitting here blankly, trying to evaluate every move before I make it to see how it will effect my ultimate goal, I divide these big goals into chunks, each with their own game plan.

-Motivation. Maybe this is a sign of a personality flaw, but I have a hard time with motivating myself when I’m working towards a big or long-range goal. Each step is so small and the goal is so big that it can feel like I’m not moving forward. So having a clearly laid out plan with regular check points, or a bunch of goal chunks, gives me the opportunity for lots of small victories that keep me motivated to reach the next small victory.

So now you have the basics of why and how to set SMART goals. I’m working on a few more posts about setting up my goals, so let me know if you have any questions about SMART goals.

Cheers, Kara

Secreting, Sort Of

TGIF friends!

For a lot of you, this is a three-day weekend, which means today is either going to fly by or everything is going to blow up. I really hope it’s the former.

So I’ve got something a little heavy to talk about for a Friday, but if it’s too heavy for you now, come back and read it come Tuesday. (Or come back and re-read it on Tuesday anyway, because I love pageviews.)

I’ve never read The Secret, but I know people who did. I think the gist of it – the big Secret – is that if you put what you want out into the world the power of the universe and the power within yourself will make it happen. I have no clue if this works, but let’s give it a try.

My goal (which Leon is happily joining in on) is to buy a house within the next 12-18 months.

This is a lofty goal. It’s scary and feels very adult. But it’s also a goal that I am thrilled to death about for two big reasons.

First, it involves making a big, long-range financial plan with lots of SMART (Specific, Meaningful/Measureable, Action-oriented, Realistic, Timely) goals. I am a little bit of a personal finance nerd, so I’ve excited to put some of my knowledge to work and to learn more.

I’m going to use a lot of the information and resources from one of my favorite blogs, Our Freaking Budget, along with some Suze Orman and Dave Ramsey books to make our plan. The first step is having a very honest (read: scary) conversation about Leon and my financial situations.

Second, it involves making something beautiful, because Leon and I are planning on buying an ugly, old house.

Wood paneling? Oh baby!

Shag carpet? Yes, please! And make it maroon.

Laminate countertops and pastel bathroom tiles? That’s what I’m talking about!

I know a little bit about fixing up a house from growing up in my mom’s house, which we nicknamed “the structural nightmare.” Leon knows a lot more about fixing up a house, because he did that for work for a while. Between the two of us we are capable of doing a good bit of the work ourselves, and I know enough to know when I need to hire someone. (We’ll see if Leon has that self-awareness.)

The idea of taking an ugly, old house that would normally get overlooked and investing our money, time, and energy into turning it into something beautiful that not only looks like us, but that feels like our home is the most amazing thing. I’m not delusional to think that fixing up a house ourselves will be anything like what you see on HGTV. We’re not the Property Brothers or Nicole Curtis. It’ll take a few years and we’ll be living in a construction zone for a good bit of it. It’ll be a huge financial investment not just for this next year, but for a long time after that as we invest in fixing it up and paying off our mortgage.

This goal is scary like a rollercoaster. (I don’t like rollercoasters, but it’s a good simile.) But everything I’m doing right now – moving, trying to find a job, getting married – is scaring the shit out of me. So while I’m already scared, let’s go ahead and add one more thing.

Tell me, friends: am I completely bonkers? If you have any advice, send it my way.

Cheers, Kara