January, the month of resolutions, is a great time to do a little introspection, and then set and reset our goals for the year. Generally, our goals follow our dreams. But how do we prioritize our dreams?
I was talking with a job seeker who had a career dream that he wasn’t close to fulfilling. As he described the dream/challenge to me, it seemed to lie at the end of a a long, very steep and rocky path. He expressed to me that he was worried about dying with his music still in him. The more we talked about his career dream, the more clear it was to me how important it is to prioritize our dreams. Is a career dream worth sacrificing a family dream–spending so much time, energy, money, etc., on our career dream that we lose connection with those who matter most to us?
Many times, we can have both career and family dreams, but sometimes we can’t. In cases when making sure we don’t die with the career music in us leads us to leave the family music in us, I think it’s not a hard decision. Careers and jobs are important–God cares about them because we care about them, and he wants us to be stewards of our time, talents, and providing for ourselves and our families. But, in the end, I don’t think we’ll regret leaving the career music in us, if it means that the family music gets played. Whether it’s played messily or out of tune (probably both in my case), it trumps career music (and most other types of music), even beautifully played, every time. From an eternal perspective, God cares more about our family efforts than our career efforts.
We concluded our discussion with a clear plan of action to weigh the cost of achieving the career dream with a couple of intense but quick steps that will let the job seeker determine if the cost of the dream is reasonable and compatible or too costly with the family dream. I’m interested to see how it works out.
Speaking of dreams and goals, I shared the following (as an email) with my job seekers, all 30 of them, this week:
I hope you had a Merry Christmas and that 2025 is off to a great start for you. The beginning of a new year is a great time to set goals, especially job-related ones. January and February are two of the best months to look for long-term, full-time jobs since these are the months most companies receive updated budgets with additional positions.
One of my favorite books on goal-setting is James Clear’s Atomic Habits. He describes “implementation intentions” as a great method to set and achieve goals and provides evidence of its effectiveness in the form of a study from England:
“In 2001, RESEARCHERS in Great Britain began working with 248 people to build better exercise habits over the course of two weeks. The subjects were divided into three groups. The first group was the control group. They were simply asked to track how often they exercised. The second group was the ‘motivation’ group. They were asked not only to track their workouts but also to read some material on the benefits of exercise. The researchers also explained to the group how exercise could reduce the risk of coronary heart disease and improve heart health. Finally, there was the third group. These subjects received the same presentation as the second group, which ensured that they had equal levels of motivation. However, they were also asked to formulate a plan for when and where they would exercise over the following week. Specifically, each member of the third group completed the following sentence: “During the next week, I will partake in at least 20 minutes of vigorous exercise on [DAY] at [TIME] in [PLACE].” In the first and second groups, 35 to 38 percent of people exercised at least once per week. (Interestingly, the motivational presentation given to the second group seemed to have no meaningful impact on behavior.) But 91 percent of the third group exercised at least once per week—more than double the normal rate. The sentence they filled out is what researchers refer to as an implementation intention, which is a plan you make beforehand about when and where to act. That is, how you intend to implement a particular habit.”
This study and hundreds of others show that implementation intentions are important if we want to achieve our goals. In essence, you set implementation intentions by filling out the sentence: I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].
(I then shared some examples specific to job seekers.)
When you make a specific plan out of your goals, you are much more likely to follow through. Those who follow through are the ones most likely to find the right job more quickly.
May 2025 be a blessed and great year for you and your family.
Elder Brandenburg
Great advice, Brian!