45 Examples of Individual Goals for Work

John Spacey, June 20, 2023

Individual goals are goals that are directed by an employee as part of goal setting and performance management. These are documented and reviewed as performance targets but aren't specifically required by an employer but instead relate to professional growth, skill development, career advancement and self-fulfillment. The following are illustrative examples.

Block time each day to focus on productivity.	Give regular presentations in team meetings.
Gain public speaking experience with at least 5 speaking engagements this quarter.	Increase organizational visibility by taking action items in the monthly governance meeting.
Achieve project management certification.	Study a second language relevant to your role.
Attend industry events to build industry relationships.	Lead cross-functional teams.
Learn a new programming language.	Attend professional training.
Gain management experience.	Gain experience directly working with clients.
Attend professional workshops.	Pursue an advanced degree.
Become a mentor.	Seek out a mentor.
Take on stretch assignments that are difficult to achieve.	Take on more responsibilities.
Expand the scope of your role.	Gain experiences managing small projects.
Improve a weakness such as handling difficult customer complaints.	Improve professional habits such as developing formal meeting agendas for all meetings.
Job shadowing in a different department or role.	Training junior team members.
Work abroad on a secondment.	Develop visual communication and data visualization skills.
Manage a project budget.	Take a sabbatical for personal development or education purposes.
Participate in job rotations.	Improve the quality of your work and deliverables.
Take on work related research projects.	Gain experience with business experiments and optimization.
Build a prototype or proof of concept.	Pitch ideas for improvement to executive management.
Develop proposals such as business cases.	Take on high value work assignments to improve performance.
Manage expectations and prioritize to sideline low value work.	Deliver to schedule commitments.
Limit time spend in unproductive meetings.	Streamline work processes and eliminate low-value and time-consuming activities.
Work with product teams to improve product knowledge.	Work with business units to improve business and industry knowledge.
Take more of a leadership role on team by managing relationships with stakeholders.	Contribute to team issue clearing, problem solving and decision making.
Improve written communications.