Hey, Women in Procurement: It’s Time to Set Those 2024 Career Goals
Will 2024 be the year you finally get that promotion you’ve been waiting for? Or perhaps it’s the year your organisation will finally find the budget to send you on that leadership course you’ve been wanting to attend for as long as you can remember?
It might be, but it also might not be. And none of these things will happen without two essential ingredients: goals and a plethora of opportunities.
As women in procurement, we’re used to creating goals and achieving them (or perhaps overachieving them) when it comes to our work with suppliers or on important projects. But when it comes to our own personal goals and plans? We sometimes de-prioritise these, leaving one of the most important elements of our lives – our career – largely in the hands of someone else.
Women in particular are more likely to believe that success can come from ‘luck’ – that is, hoping that a promotion or other opportunities will be bestowed upon them by chance, not by choice. Let’s explore the role of luck in careers, and why it’s so important to create your goals and find opportunities for yourself.
The Role of Luck in a Career
As Forbes recently reminded us, historically, the concept of career success has been epitomised through characterisations of men. When men succeed, says Forbes, this success is attributed to their innate ability. Women, on the other hand, are considered more passive when it comes to their careers, so when they do succeed, it can feel unexpected.
They just got ‘lucky’, people will say.
Except, as the journalist Amy Hempel so accurately pointed out:
‘There is no such thing as luck. Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.’
Renowned psychologist Richard Wiseman studied luck for decades, and discovered something fascinating: that most people who considered themselves ‘lucky’ – and indeed, who had garnered a lot of success – did not, in fact, simply attract a disproportionate amount of good fortune.
They did four things more frequently, and deliberately, than other people with ‘bad luck.’
And one of the things was turn what would traditionally be considered back luck into good luck.
But how could this apply to your career?
Say, for example, a colleague secured a new supplier that you had been courting for months, that ended up leading to a substantial cost saving. Then, of course, said colleague took credit for the deal.
A person who believes in ‘bad luck’ might blame their colleague and dwell on the frustrating situation. But a person who believes in good luck might tackle this challenge entirely differently. They might, for example, focus on what they’ve learnt, and work with their colleague to understand how to better close deals in the future.
‘Lucky’ people also take the time to listen to their intuition (hint: having a healthy work-life balance can help with this, as meditation helps!), and, interestingly, proactively expect good things to happen to them.
The reason that this often turns into better ‘luck’ is because believing good things will happen often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, in that you always stay positive and keep trying.
Creating Career Goals
So, as you can see, ‘luck’ as in – chance – doesn’t have much of a role to play in your career. Luck is more of a mindset, so knowing that: it’s important to create your career goals, so you can start putting them into action.
Creating career goals is not a one-size-fits all exercise, and you definitely need to take the time to think about what matters most to you. Perhaps 2024 will be the year that you move to a more professionally satisfying role, for example, a role within an industry you’re passionate about, or one within a company that offers more opportunities for growth?
Or perhaps you’ve feeling overwhelmed and a little burnt out, especially given the current challenging economic environment, and you’d like to either discuss more flexibility with your current employer, or move to an organisation that better supports this?
Your goal might even be as simple as acquiring new in-demand skills.
Whatever your goal is, make sure that you create it, write it down, and most importantly, put a plan in place to achieve it that involves zero luck, and all action.
Finding Opportunities
You might have noticed that we only mentioned three out of the four things that ‘lucky’ people did when we were talking about what separates those who believe they are lucky from the rest.
And that’s because the fourth thing is just so important.
And that thing is: finding opportunities.
When studying luck, one of the key reasons that ‘lucky’ people seemed lucky was not just because they had more fortunate chance encounters, they simply had more chances: period.
‘Lucky’ people were always proactively looking for opportunities, looking to meet people, and trying new things. This meant that they simply had more opportunities to succeed: while many did not work out, enough did that success followed.
From a procurement perspective, you can see how this would easily translate. Meeting people through networking, for example, can help with everything from securing the best suppliers to making or breaking a career.
In fact, networking is so important that Procurious’ founder Tania Seary likes to set networking goals.
Whatever your goals, big or small, know this: luck will not get you there, but career goals and maximising opportunities for yourself will.
Women face many unique challenges in the workplace, and procurement is no different. It is key that you invest in yourself and your professional development to maximise your opportunities. Our BRAVO women’s leadership program will show you how to do this, plus much more.
To find out more about the 2024 BRAVO program, please click your region below:
