Any goal that you set is meant to set the course of your destiny into better and greater opportunities. Goals are not something that you achieve at once. Some goals require more effort to make them happen. If that happens, one should not give up and see if and why it is not working and realign the goals with a new one. It is better to do that instead of beating yourself up and draining yourself out. Here, let’s know What are Professional Goals for Administrative Assistants?
A professional needs to follow some kind of goal to be successful. Their professional demeanor and aura should be reflected in the position they hold. To achieve it, one has to fix some professional and self-development goals, no matter what position. Such kind of development is necessary if you want to be successful in your personal and professional life.
In this article, we are going to look at the professional and self-development goals for an administrative assistant.
Firstly, let’s look at the self-development goals. This goal is necessary for you to be outstanding in your work life. Without self-development, it is impossible to achieve your professional goals.
Professional Goals for Administrative Assistants
1. To achieve your self-development goals, look to your mentors or someone whom you respect and notice the things they do that call for your admiration. Maybe it’s their considerate nature or their cheerfulness. Learn what they did to achieve those soft skills that stood out for you and inculcate them in your behavior. Maintaining a good attitude towards yourself and others is the first and foremost thing to do for self-development.
Some of the things to make changes in attitude is:-
- Develop humility:- This habit cannot be overemphasized enough. This opens doors to success. No matter what position you are in, this habit will never go out of style. Humility is the beginning of many good habits to follow like understanding, patience tolerance, good listening skills, empathy, etc.
- Have a growth mindset in everything thing that you do. For instance, whatever task may come your way, look at the bigger picture and work towards it. If you make this a habit, it will grow your horizons and expand your thinking in ways that are beneficial both to yourself and professionally as well.
- Understand yourselves first for you to understand your surroundings. This is the first step to understand people around you. By understanding yourself, you can have clarity on what you want and you can remove things that don’t align with your values and visions. Thereby, allowing you to sieve out only the best goals for your present and future.
2. To be proactive and take effective decisions in your everyday life, you need to be a well-rounded person with proper regimes that help you achieve that. Therefore one needs to have a self-care routine, such as:-
- Exercise regularly:- Even if it is just for 15minutes. This enhances your mood and gives you the ability to think clearly.
- Have a healthy sleep routine:- Sleep is one of the deciding factors of how your day will go. Disruption in your sleep routine can make your day dull and unproductive which you don’t want to have.
- Maintaining an attitude that leads to gratitude is an important factor for success anywhere you go. It does lead you to better things and can land you in bigger positions if you have a grateful heart. Remembering to be thankful for what you have, rather than focusing on the things you lack has a profound impact on your whole demeanor and it is contagious. The whole atmosphere will be beaming with positive energy if you choose this path.
- Follow proper hygiene:- Those who don’t maintain proper hygiene are viewed as someone who is impolite. Your body odor is not someone’s business. Its considered courtesy to be hygienic. It also makes you stand out from the rest in both cases. You want to stand out for a positive reason though.
3. One most important thing for self-development is avoiding bad habits like gossips and any negativity that affects you as a person. Gossiping is such a negative habit that reduces your value as a person. Nobody likes to be around a gossiper because they feel threatened as they keep wondering when is it going to be their turn to be the gossiper topic. As the saying goes if someone gossips to you, they will also gossip about you. This is such a devaluing habit to possess.
4. Communication skills are the most prized one in today’s world. It can set you up for success or disaster. A good communicator can help avoid conflict and help instill an understanding of a situation. Develop it by working on your listening skills. The more your listening skills improve, the better communicator you will become. Also, work on your vocabulary and sentence construction to be able to express your viewpoint without causing misunderstanding. Take care of your non-verbal cues too like your posture, tone, and expressions. They say communication is 80% non-verbal cues and 20% words. So take care of those.
5. Managing your financial management skills play a huge part in the maintenance of your self-development goals. You can manage it by proper budgeting or living below your means. Proper maintenance of your finances makes a great positive impression on yourself and this will reflect the people around you. This has an impact on your self-confidence too. Take courses on improving your financial skills if you have to and change the dynamics of your finances.
6. Lastly, maintain time management. Every goal whether it is personal or professional cannot be achieved without having proper time management skills. Maintain a schedule and stick with it. Strategies those things that are important and find out those that are stealing your time and curb it. Maintaining a do to list and schedule it and do it. Retract and recuperate the time to meet your goals and visions.
An administrative assistant is someone who aids the executives to achieve the goals of a business.He/she is behind the success of an executive. They are also known as the face and the image of an office. It is a humbling role and an effective one from the standpoint of a business. An effective administrative assistant can help the business grow to its maximum potential. For them to be effective, they need to balance the management of the inner office workings and their personal life outside of the office, for that, they need to have a professional goal besides their own goals.
Let’s look into what are those professional goals for an administrative assistant:–
1. Develop your organizational skills. Administrative assistants need to keep track of their own as well as their executives. This skill is an important one for them to do their work with flair. A good administrative assistant is organized in everything they do. The coordination and keeping a track of the work can bring structure and all this comes together to make a successful outcome. The one thing a successful administrative assistant does is support others in their work, therefore, you cannot do that if you don’t support your work first by achieving your professional goals.
2. The overall function of an administrative assistant is to improve the better functioning of the office. The system that you build will have a lasting outcome on the office even after you go. Your talent and innovation in the administration to handle the executive support system by finding a better system and procedures can help the office for the long haul.
3. One of your professional goals has to be in the area of creating new opportunities for yourself. To do that you need to be proactive and motivated all the time to seek opportunities. But if you keep looking for it by setting your benchmark for achieving those professional goals and accomplishing your task, you will be surprised to find that opportunities do exist. This goal can set you up for success because it will bring out the leader in you. After all, only a leader can encourage themselves and can be a self-starter.
4. Growing your skills in every area is such an important part of developing your professional goals. Look for skills where you lack and start building them. Expand your area of expertise by diving into uncomfortable places to equip you with skills that will help you in your professional growth. Skills that directly affect your work performance as an administrative assistant, learn those to prosper in your role.
5. A company mission statement says a lot about the company you are helping to build. This has an impact on you as an administrative assistant, therefore, review those company and departmental mission statements. Those mission statements if aligned to your values and goals can have a greater impact on your internal growth and make a significant impact on the overall business success.
Conclusion
An administrative assistant’s duties require excellent communication skills, politeness, and tactfulness. An effective administrative assistant is observant about their surroundings and applies effective cost-cutting techniques to reduce the expenditure of a company. As an administrative assistant focuses on his/her personal and professional goals, it will have overall progress in their work task and the company’s as well. Therefore, maintaining such goals causes an administrative assistant to rise in its value. Businesses need an excellent administrative assistant for their growth and that cannot be overemphasized.
