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Whether or not you write a personal mission statement, the best way to set goals is to try to look at yourself in terms of the future. Steven Covey calls it “beginning with the end in mind.”⁴ In many ways, a similar approach is to write your own obituary today—a rather jarring thought at the age of 21 or at any age. This exercise in goal setting was required by an instructor whom I had in college. The idea was to focus on long‐range goal setting. Occasionally, we all need to look at what we want to be remembered for—what we hope we will be able to accomplish by the time we pass away. Writing that obituary, or at least beginning with the end in mind, has helped many to more clearly see a focus for future actions.

Understandably, writing your own obituary is an unsettling thing to do. It may be easier to start thinking about what you want to accomplish by the time you are 30, 40, 50, and at retirement age. And, if you find that too difficult to do, just try to figure out where you want to be in your professional and personal life during the next five years. Be sure that you include considerations for your personal life as well as professional life. Let me be one of the first to tell you that your professional life should not be your life.

If you are unsure of what you want to accomplish, it might help if you use Tables 5‐1 and 5‐2 to get started. Find a quiet place where you can think undisturbed. Be brutally honest with yourself as you answer the questions in these two tables.

Once you have some idea of where you want to be, you can start looking at goals in terms of the concrete things that you need to accomplish in order to achieve them. Those specific actions are thought of as strategies.

Strategies are specific actions that are needed to achieve goals. For example, Beth has a goal of owning her own studio by the time she is 35. Assuming that Beth is a 23‐year‐old student who is about to graduate, what strategies might she need to plan out to achieve that goal?

TABLE 5‐1. Personal goals exercise

The purpose of this exercise is to analyze your skills, interests, and abilities in relation to the kind of job opportunities you will be seeking in interior design. Completing this exercise will make you more aware of what you have to offer your present or future employers. It will also help you discover goals that you need to work on in the next year or so.
1.	What is your primary interest in interior design?
2.	What or who influenced your interest in this profession (family, teacher, mentor, the media, work experience, etc.)?
3.	What kind of skills in interior design do you have right now?
4.	What special skill(s) do you have to offer your present employer or another employer? An example is foreign language fluency.
5.	If you were going to a job interview tomorrow, what specific career goal would you share with the interviewer?
6.	What could you do right now to improve your chances of getting the job you most want?
7.	List three of your biggest successes.
8.	List five goals you wish to accomplish during the next calendar year.
9.	List three goals you hope to accomplish by the time you are 30 years old.
10.	List three goals you hope to accomplish by the time you are 50 years old.
11.	Assuming it were possible for you to achieve any goal in interior design, what would it be?
12.	List 10 mini‐goals needed to support the goal stated in number 11.

TABLE 5‐2. Professional goals questionnaire

In these questions, you are asked to look at a variety of issues concerning your professional and personal life. Combined with the questions in Table 5‐1, these questions give you an opportunity to look at some additional issues that can help clarify your professional and personal goals.
1.	List at least three things that drew you into a career in interior design. Write several comments about each of these items.
2.	List any three people you most admire. Write down a few words or sentences that explain why you admire them.
3.	List three or four companies (or types of firms) that provide the kinds of design work you wish to do.
4.	Which of the following is most important to you in your career: money, recognition, self‐satisfaction, or creative expression?
5.	If you had the means to do so, what would you most like to do—personally and professionally? Remember, no restrictions.
6.	What do you think you need to change to make yourself happier in your professional and personal life?
7.	What frustrates you most about your professional and personal life?
8.	What do you like most about work in interior design? What do you like least?
9.	When are you at your best and most secure (professionally and personally)?
10.	Do you prefer to work independently or with a group?
11.	Write a paragraph that sums up what you most want to be remembered for in your professional (and/or personal) life.
12.	On a sheet of paper, make two columns. On the top of one column, write the word Problem; on the other, the word Solution. Then, in the “Problem” column, write those things that you feel are holding you back or are problems in your professional and/or personal life. In the “Solution” column, write down potential solutions to each problem. In some cases, you may find that you are really writing down thoughts rather than true solutions, but those thoughts will help you find solutions to the problems.

Here are a few sample strategies:

 Work with a residential firm for five years to gain experience in residential practice. Perhaps also work for a commercial firm to gain experience in that area of design.

 If necessary, take additional business classes at a community college or enter an MBA program to gain the business knowledge to own and operate a studio.

What are some additional strategies that might be feasible and useful for Beth?

The process is the same for any goal, and in some ways is never ending. New opportunities arise all the time—the trick is to recognize and act upon them. Unexpected problems and challenges might derail you momentarily or even forever. Although staying on track to accomplish goals in the shorter term is always a good idea, keeping oneself open to opportunities that might have long‐term implications is important. But isn't that part of the fun?