Whether you’re an entry-level employee working your way up or a corporate hotshot, you probably set day-to-day job and career goals. Actually achieving them is a different story. The CLEAR method helps you consider your needs for achieving job goals, which may differ from day-to-day personal goals. Here’s how it works.
Photo by Paxton Woebler
CLEAR stands for Collaborative, Limited, Emotional, Appreciable, Refinable. Other methods don’t force you to think as clearly and deeply about these factors — many of which are necessary elements of achieving your job related goals — as CLEAR. You will consider roles your colleagues and superiors play in accomplishing your goals, as well as other important goal-setting principles like the depth and scope of a goal, and whether it needs to be broken down into smaller, more achievable goals. Here’s the breakdown:
- Collaborative: Many of your work goals will be much easier to achieve with the help and endorsement of others, whether it’s a promotion or an assigned group task. Some of the goals will even require collaboration. Think about what help you can enlist to achieve the goals you set for your job.
- Limited: Limit the goal’s depth and scope to keep it clear and manageable.
- Emotional: Optimise the quality of work you receive from others by considering how emotionally involved the people you collaborate with are. When you recruit people for a goal, think of how to communicate what’s in it for them, and other ways you can get them to fully commit to the best possible outcome.
- Appreciable: Remember to break down larger goals into smaller, more manageable ones.
- Refinable: Be flexible and roll with the punches. Revise and refine your goals and plans to achieve them as necessary so you don’t feel forced to stick out a failing or irrelevant plan of action.
Use CLEAR to make a change if you’ve had a tough time achieving the job goals you set. It may also help to use your favourite points from other methods we’ve discussed before, to set yourself up for success.
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