How to write work goals for your new job + work goal examples

If you’re here, you’ve probably been given vague instructions at a new job or from a new manager—specifically around setting some goals.

You’re not the only one:

Setting the right work goals can help you stay focused on excelling in your role, impressing your colleagues and making a real impact on the business. But let’s be honest—most people don’t get much guidance on a good goal or how to track progress effectively.

You’ve come to the right place because today, we’re going to cover the very basics of setting work goals, why they matter, and how to create ones that are useful.

So, let’s break it down step by step. 

What are Work Goals?

Work goals are the milestones that help you navigate your role, contribute to your team, and grow in your career. They clarify what success looks like—both from your manager’s perspective and your own.

At their core, your work goals will serve three main purposes:

1. PerformanPerformance goalsce goals – These are the goals tied to your job responsibilities, expectations, and deliverables.
2. Personal goals – These focus on your growth, whether that’s building new skills, taking on leadership opportunities, or preparing for the next step in your career.
3. Team/business goals (OKRs) – These ensure you’re working towards shared objectives with your team, whether through structured frameworks like OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) or broader business targets.

Work goals can also be short-term or long-term, depending on what you’re working toward:

• Short-term goals might focus on immediate tasks or improvements, like learning a new tool, hitting a quarterly target, or refining your workflow.
• Long-term goals often align with bigger-picture growth, like developing leadership skills, driving company-wide initiatives, or setting yourself up for a promotion.

Each of these goals plays a different role in shaping your experience at work. In the next sections, we’ll break them down further—starting with performance goals and how managers use them to assess your work.

How to write Work Goals

Whether starting a new job or setting fresh goals in your current role, the key is to make them clear, actionable, and aligned with what matters most. A good work goal should help you stay focused, improve your performance, and contribute to your team’s success.

Start by Asking Yourself Three Key Questions:

Before writing down your goals, take a step back and reflect on these areas:

1. What’s expected of me? – What does success look like in my role? What metrics or deliverables will my manager use to evaluate me?
2. What do I want to achieve? – What skills do I want to develop? What career growth opportunities do I want to work toward?
3. How can I contribute to my team’s success? – How does my work support my team’s objectives? Where can I collaborate to make a bigger impact?

Use the SMART method

In this article, we’re not going to be able to tell you what your goal should be. That’s going to be different for every person and every circumstance. However, we can suggest proper goal formatting to ensure you’re clear about what you’re trying to accomplish.

The best way to do that is to use the SMART goal method. SMART is an acronym for:

• Specific – Clearly define what you want to achieve.
• Measurable – Make sure there’s a way to track progress.
• Achievable – Set realistic but challenging targets.
• Relevant – Align your goal with your role and company objectives.
• Time-bound – Set a deadline to stay accountable.

Example:

“Increase website traffic by 20% to 160,000 weekly visits by the end of Q2 through SEO improvements and content updates”

(Learn more about SMART goals and see more SMART goals examples)

Performance Goals: How Your Manager Evaluates Your Work

Performance goals are the targets your manager or company set to measure your performance in your role. They help define what success looks like in your position and are typically tied to job expectations, key metrics, and deliverables.

Why Do Performance Goals Matter?

At first, performance goals might feel like just another box to check, but they serve a critical purpose for both you and your employer:

• For you – They provide clarity on what’s expected, making it easier to prioritize work, measure progress, and build a case for promotions or raises.
• For your manager – They create a structured way to track contributions, assess impact, and provide feedback.

What to expect from performance goals?

Performance goals usually follow a structured process and may be tied to formal evaluation cycles. Here’s what you can expect:

• Goal-setting discussions – Typically happen when you start a job, at the beginning of a new quarter, or during performance review cycles.
• Ongoing check-ins – Managers may track progress through weekly or monthly 1:1 meetings. Some companies use performance dashboards to monitor key metrics.
• Formal evaluations – Annual or semi-annual reviews where your performance against these goals influences bonuses, promotions, or career development plans.
• Adjustments along the way – Goals aren’t always set in stone. Managers may revise goals based on business needs or individual growth if priorities shift.

Related terms and things to know

• Performance goals often fit into broader frameworks and systems. Some key terms you might hear include:
• KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) – Metrics used to measure success in specific areas (e.g., sales revenue, customer satisfaction, project completion rates).
• 30-60-90 Day Plans – A structured plan outlining expectations for new hires in their first three months.
• OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) – A goal-setting framework that links objectives with measurable outcomes.
• SMART Goals – A method for setting Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals.
• Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) – A structured plan for employees who need to meet specific expectations to remain in their role.
• Quarterly Goal Reviews – Some companies use quarterly cycles to assess and adjust performance goals rather than annual reviews.
• Self-Assessments – Some performance review processes include self-evaluations where employees reflect on their own progress before meeting with a manager.

Performance goals aren’t just about hitting numbers—they define how you add value to your team and company. Next, let’s talk about personal goals, which focus more on what you want to achieve in your role and career.

Personal Goals: What you want to achieve in your role and career

While performance goals focus on what your manager and company expect from you, personal goals look at it from your personal lens. Your goals can be tied to how you think you could contribute to the business, role-related skill development, career advancement/growth, or ways to improve how you work. 

Why Do Personal Goals Matter?

Personal goals are key to shaping your career trajectory and ensuring your work remains engaging and meaningful. Remember, if you’re being asked by your manager or comyour manager or company is asking youfor ways that you think you can benefit the business. While personal growth should also be important to a manager or company (in a healthy culture), remember that your goals should balance your ambitions and how you could contribute to the business goals too.

How personal goals benefit:

• You – They help you take control of your growth, whether that's learning new skills, preparing for a promotion, or simply becoming better at what you do.
• Your manager – When you develop new skills and improve, you become more valuable to the team and take on greater responsibilities.
• Your company – Employees who actively pursue personal growth tend to be more engaged, innovative, and effective in their roles.

What to expect from personal goals?

Unless your personal goals also fall under some of your performance targets, personal goals don’t always follow a rigid structure. More often than not, you’re on your own to track these goals so find processes that work for you. 

How they work (or things to try):

• Identifying your focus areas – Start by assessing what skills or knowledge you want to build. This could be hard skills (like coding, data analysis, or public speaking) or soft skills (like leadership, time management, or communication).
• Setting goals with a framework – Many people use SMART goals to ensure their personal development goals are well-defined and achievable. Some teams even apply OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) at an individual level to track personal progress.
• Finding resources and support – Growth often requires external help. This could mean taking an online course, finding a mentor, or joining a peer learning group (e.g., book clubs, industry meetups).
• Tracking your progress – Since personal goals aren’t always part of formal reviews, you’ll likely track them yourself. Some people use quarterly self-assessments, personal reflections, or tools like Tability to stay accountable.
• Applying your growth to work – The best personal goals align with your job. If you’re working on leadership skills, you might mentor a junior colleague. If you’re improving technical skills, you could take on a new project to put them into practice.

Related terms and things to know

Personal development often involves a mix of structured and informal learning. Here are some key terms and processes you might come across:

• SMART goals – A method for setting Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound personal objectives.
• Mentorship programs – Many companies offer mentorship opportunities where senior employees help guide your career development.
• Professional development budgets – Some organizations provide funding for courses, certifications, or conferences to encourage continuous learning.
• Peer learning groups – Informal communities where employees share knowledge, such as book clubs, industry meetups, or lunch-and-learn sessions.
• Quarterly self-assessments – Some people review their progress every quarter to refine and adjust their personal goals.
• Skill development plans – Structured plans that outline how to gain expertise in a particular area over time.

Personal goals aren’t just about checking boxes—they help you build the skills and confidence to create the career you want. Next, let’s talk about team goals, which focus on how groups work together to achieve shared success.

Team goals: How businesses align on the work that matters

While performance and personal goals focus on individual success, team goals are about aligning efforts across a group to achieve bigger, collective outcomes. It’s a way for the business to drive results and understand whether a business is failing or thriving. 

Beyond the company benefits, these goals will help teams stay on track, improve collaboration, and align efforts so that they have clarity into how their work contributes to company objectives.

Why do team goals matter?

Team goals serve as the bridge between individual contributions and company-wide success. They benefit:

• You – Clear team goals provide direction, helping you understand how your work fits into the bigger picture.
• Your team – When everyone is aligned on shared objectives, collaboration improves, and teams become more efficient.
• The company – Well-structured team goals ensure that different departments and teams are working toward business priorities, not just individual tasks.

What to expect from team/business-level goals?

Team goals can take many forms, depending on the organization and the way teams operate. Here’s what you can typically expect:

• Planning sessions – At the start of a quarter, year, or project, teams often set shared objectives that align with company priorities. This is where OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) or other frameworks come into play.
• Regular check-Ins – Teams usually review progress in weekly or biweekly meetings, where they discuss blockers, adjust priorities, and ensure alignment.
• Cross-functional collaboration – Many team goals require coordination across departments (e.g., marketing, product, and sales working together to launch a new feature).
• Tracking and accountability – Teams may use tools like dashboards, KPI (Key Performance Indicator) tracking, or quarterly goal reviews to measure progress and stay accountable.
• End-of-cycle retrospectives – After a goal period (e.g., quarter, sprint, or project), teams reflect on what went well, what didn’t, and how to improve next time.

Related terms and things to know

Since team goals often involve collaboration and structured planning, you may hear these terms and concepts:

• OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) – A popular framework for setting team-wide goals with measurable outcomes.
• KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) – Metrics that track team success, such as customer retention, product adoption, or project completion rates.
• Sprints – In agile teams, sprint goals define what should be achieved in a specific development cycle (usually 1-2 weeks).
• Cross-functional teams – Groups made up of people from different departments working toward a shared goal.
• Quarterly Goal Reviews – Some teams operate in quarterly planning cycles, where they set, track, and adjust goals based on progress.
• Retrospectives – A structured way to review team performance and learn from past projects or goal cycles.
• Team Scorecards – A way to visualize progress toward shared team goals, often used in sales, product, and customer success teams.

Team goals aren’t just about collaboration—they ensure that everyone is working toward meaningful, high-impact outcomes. Now that we’ve covered all three types of work goals, let’s wrap up with some final thoughts on how to set effective goals for long-term success.

Work goal examples

Now that we’ve defined the types of goals you might be setting, let’s look at some real-life examples. 

Performance goal examples

Increase customer satisfaction scores from 85% to 90% by the end of Q3 by improving response times through a new ticketing system and additional support training.

Close $50,000 in new sales within the next three months by making 50 outbound calls per week and improving follow-up engagement through a structured email sequence.

Reduce project turnaround time by 20% in six months by implementing a revised workflow, setting clearer milestones, and automating repetitive tasks.

Improve report accuracy by reducing data errors by 30% in the next two quarters through better validation processes, cross-team data reviews, and automated quality checks.

Deliver a high-impact presentation on market trends at the next company all-hands meeting in Q2, ensuring at least 80% positive feedback in a post-event survey.

(See more performance goal examples)

Personal goal examples

Earn a Google Analytics certification within the next six months by completing an online course and passing the certification exam with an 80% or higher score.

Develop public speaking skills by presenting in at least one team meeting per month for the next six months, receiving constructive feedback to improve delivery and clarity.

Improve time management by using the Pomodoro technique daily for three months, tracking productivity and reducing overtime work by 30% by the next quarter.

Enhance technical skills by completing an advanced Excel course by the end of Q2, applying learned techniques to automate two recurring reports.

Expand professional network by attending two industry conferences and scheduling five informational interviews in the next six months, following up with insights in a LinkedIn post.

Team goal examples (OKRs)

Launch a new product feature by August 30th, achieving 1,000 user sign-ups within the first month through a coordinated marketing and sales strategy.

Reduce customer churn from 8% to 6% in six months by implementing a new onboarding process, offering quarterly check-ins, and measuring engagement via NPS surveys.

Increase website traffic by 25% in the next quarter through SEO-optimized content, publishing three high-value blog posts per week, and tracking results using Google Analytics.

Improve sprint efficiency by reducing task carryover by 30% within the next two months through stricter backlog refinement and more effective sprint planning.

Boost cross-team communication by implementing biweekly syncs between sales, product, and customer success, measuring effectiveness through post-meeting surveys with at least 75% positive feedback.

(AI: Generate your own team goals and OKR in seconds)

Conclusion: Turning work goals into meaningful progress

Setting work goals isn’t just a routine exercise—it’s a powerful tool for shaping your career, improving performance, and contributing to your team’s success. Whether you’re working toward performance goals to meet job expectations, personal goals to build new skills, or team goals to collaborate more effectively, having clear, structured objectives can make a huge difference in your growth and impact.

Key takeaways for setting work goals:

✅ Be intentional – The best goals are purposeful and aligned with what truly matters for your role, career, and company.

✅ Make them SMART – Using the Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound framework ensures your goals are clear and actionable.

✅ Track your progress – Regular check-ins, self-assessments, or structured reviews help keep you accountable and adaptable.

✅ Stay flexible – Goals aren’t static. As priorities shift, be open to adjusting your approach while staying focused on long-term growth.

Work goals shouldn’t feel like a box to check—they should be a guiding force that helps you grow, stay motivated, and make a real impact. By setting thoughtful, structured goals, you’re not just improving your work—you’re setting yourself up for long-term success.