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Goal setting resources

Last updated on October 22, 2025

Goal setting is a process of working towards what we want to do or who we want to be. Employees and supervisors should collaborate and communicate openly on: 

  • What the goals should be 
  • How they can be achieved 

Goals help us: 

  • Focus our energy and resources 
  • Increase our performance and our organization’s performance 
  • Feel more engaged and invested in our roles 
  • Have a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction 

On this page

Types of goals

You can create any of the following types of goals: 

  • Work goals: Foundational or required for your current position (in current role) 
  • Learning goals: Formal (for example, courses or programs) and informal (for example, networking or mentoring) activities relevant to your current role or personal development 
  • Career development goals: Goals that are not required for your current role but are desirable to help you improve and grow. They tend to be medium- or long-term 
  • Private goals: Goals that are not shared with your supervisor unless you change the goal type 

SMART and HARD goal setting frameworks

Creating S-M-A-R-T goals help ensure that our objectives are clearly defined and attainable within an agreed upon timeframe. Making those goals H-A-R-D increases our level of focus and motivation. 

SMART 

  • Specific: Clearly define what the goal is and what outcome you are aiming for. Identify who is accountable for achieving the goal and what steps will be taken to achieve the goal
  • Measurable: Provide milestones to track progress, increase motivation and know when to celebrate successes
  • Attainable: Check to make sure goals are realistic and you can reasonably achieve them. Identify known roadblocks up front and don’t be afraid to break larger goals down into multiple sub-goals to stay motivated and on track
  • Relevant: Connect individual goals to the bigger picture. Focus on goals with the greatest impact to career, team or organizational strategy
  • Time-bound: Allow enough time to achieve the goal, but not too much time to reduce your motivation. Day-to-day events tend to overtake goals without deadlines

HARD 

  • Heartfelt: Highlight an individual or emotional attachment to the goal. Does it move you toward a desired future state?
  • Animated: Visualize the goal and focus on what success will look and feel like. What actions do you see yourself taking to get there?
  • Required: Focus on goals that are necessary for your own or your organization’s success
  • Difficult: Make the goal challenging so that you need to learn new skills and that potentially move you out of your comfort zone

What should a good goal statement include?

A good goal statement should include what you will do, why it is important, how you will achieve it and how you will measure success:

  • What: Your "what" should be a clear, concise opening statement of what you plan to achieve. Anyone who reads this should understand what the goal is. For example, "my goal is to deliver informative performance development sessions to ministry audiences." Use your “what” to make your goal specific (SMART), animated and difficult (HARD)
  • Why: Your "why" should explain why this goal is important to you and your organization. What value comes from achieving this goal? For example, "this goal will improve the consistency and quality of employee experiences across the BC Public Service." Use your “why” to make your goal relevant (SMART) required and heartfelt (HARD)
  • How: Your "how" should describe a plan or the few high-level steps you will take to achieve your goal. Be sure your goal remains challenging but attainable. For example, "I will do this by collaborating with ministry colleagues to develop presentations. The presentations will respond to the needs of employees in each part of the performance development process." Use your “how” to make your goal specific, attainable (SMART) and animated (HARD)
  • Measure: Your "measure" should outline how you and your supervisor will objectively determine if you have completed your goal and whether you have done it well. This can be either a qualitative or quantitative measure of success for your goal. For example, "deliver at least two sessions per month that reach at least 100 people." Use your “measure” to make your goal measurable, time-bound (SMART) and difficult (HARD)

Go to Goal examples to review samples of work, learning and career goals. 

Tips on how to get started

  • Reflect on suggested discussion questions from the Goal setting template and conversation resources. These may influence your goal statements. Set up a meeting with your supervisor to discuss what your goals should include
  • Review your goals after reviewing, What should a good goal statement include? What can you do to make your goals more effective? Review Goal examples for samples of work, learning and career goals if needed
  • Review your goals with your supervisor. Are you focusing on the right things? Is anything missing? Are there any subjective or vague words that you need to further define or clarify? 
  • How will you define success? Share your perspective with your supervisor of what success looks like. Make sure you have a clear understanding of what your supervisor’s expectations are

Create a goal

You can create a goal in one of two ways: 

How to use the MS Word version of the Create a goal template

  • Review the goal setting resources on this page
  • Collaborate with your supervisor to create a goal using the MS Word Create a goal template
  • Find one or more goal tags to add (Goal tag definitions are also available in the Goal setting Resources section of the PDP under Goal tags)
  • Use comments to capture updates and feedback on goal progress

Optional: to add the goal and any comments to the employee’s Performance Development profile and employment record, either: 

  • Email the Create a goal template to performance.development@gov.bc.ca
  • Submit the Create a goal template via an AskMyHR (IDIR restricted) service request. Use the categories Myself > HR Software Systems Support > Performance Development Platform