Stop Setting Goals Like a Tourist: Why Your Career Strategy Needs a Reality Check
By Noor — Your career isn't happening to you. You're happening to it. ·
It’s May 2026. If you’re still writing your goals on a sticky note and hoping the universe delivers, we need to have a serious conversation.
I’ve spent three years at Google watching the most brilliant engineers and product managers get passed over for promotions, not because they weren’t smart, but because they were passive. They were treating their careers like a flight they booked, hoping to land in a better city without ever checking the flight plan.
Your career isn’t happening to you. You’re happening to it. And if your goal-setting strategy is "I want to get a promotion by Q4," you’re already behind. Let’s tighten this up.
Stop Setting Goals for "Them"
Most of the goals I see from my clients are actually just chores they think their boss or society wants them to do. "Get PMP certified," "Attend more networking events," "Learn Python."
That’s not a career strategy; that’s a résumé checklist. If you’re setting goals based on what you think you should be doing to satisfy a recruiter (even if I used to be one), you’re building a career that’s going to make you miserable in eighteen months.
When I left Google to build my own practice, I didn’t set a goal to "get more clients." I set a goal to "build a practice where I only speak to people who are ready to do the work." That shift changed everything about how I market myself and how I charge. Your goals need to be selfish. What do you want your life to look like on a Tuesday in November? Does the goal get you there? If not, delete it.
The "Reverse-Engineer" Method
I’m from Detroit. We don’t sit around waiting for things to happen; we build the machine. If you want to be a Senior Manager in two years, stop looking at the job description for Senior Manager and start looking at the day-to-day misery of that role.
Reverse-engineer it. If you want that title, you need to be doing 60% of that job today. If you’re not, stop setting goals about "learning" and start setting goals about "shipping."
Actionable step: Go find three people who are currently in the role you want. Don’t ask them for coffee (everyone asks for coffee). Spend two hours stalking their LinkedIn, their recent projects, and their public posts. What are they actually doing? If they’re spending all their time in cross-functional meetings, you need to set a goal to get better at stakeholder management, not technical documentation.
The "Brutally Honest" Quarterly Review
Most people set goals in January and look at them again in December. That’s cute, but it’s how you end up obsolete.
I do a quarterly review that is, frankly, a bit painful. I sit down and look at what I promised to do. Did I do it? If not, why? And be honest—"I was too busy" is a lie. You weren’t busy; you were prioritized elsewhere.
If you find yourself missing the same goal three quarters in a row, it’s not a goal. It’s a fantasy. Kill it. Stop carrying the weight of a goal you have no intention of actually chasing. It takes up mental bandwidth that you could be using to actually scale something that matters.
Build the System, Not the Milestone
Here’s the thing about milestones: they’re temporary. You hit the promotion, you get the raise, you smile for a week, and then you’re right back to the grind. That’s why people in tech burn out so fast. They’re obsessed with the finish line.
I want you to obsess over the system.
If your goal is to "increase my salary by 20%," your system should be: 1. Track every single win, bug fix, and revenue-impacting project in a "brag document" every Friday. 2. Have one "career-check-in" meeting with your manager every quarter that isn’t about current tasks but about future growth. 3. Keep your market value data updated in a spreadsheet so you’re never guessing when you walk into a negotiation.
That’s the work. The salary increase is just the side effect of having a system that makes you impossible to ignore.
Your Career is a Startup, and You’re the CEO
I love Austin. The energy here is contagious—people are building, taking risks, and actually trying things. But even here, I see people treating their careers like a 9-to-5 job where they’re just waiting for the paycheck to clear.
Stop waiting for someone to hand you a roadmap. There isn’t one. You have to draft it yourself, update it when things go sideways, and be the one to decide when the current path isn't working anymore.
Stop setting goals that look good on a piece of paper. Start setting goals that force you to grow, change, and actually move the needle on your quality of life. The tech industry is changing fast, and if you’re floating in the void, you’re going to get swept away.
So, what’s the one thing you’re doing this week that actually moves the needle? If you’re stuck or just need a gut check on whether your current goals are actually worth your time, hit me up. Let’s get into the weeds of it. Drop a comment or slide into my inbox—I’m always around for a real conversation.