Should your long-term career goals stay afloat?

Before the pandemic hit, you had it all worked out.

A couple more years on the job, then onto grad school, then a new, better-paying position and then more. And more. And more—until you reached the pinnacle of your career.

But what now?

Well, that depends.

“For a lot of us who came out of college or entered the ranks of the working world in the early 2000s, we still view our career as a timeline,” says Ryan Meyer, a careerstrategist in New York who specializes in working with individuals who want to enter new fields of work. “Today’s younger employees aren’t as committed to following one plan or staying loyal to one company. While you’ll still find some people who have some long-term goals, today’s employees are much more focused on short-term rewards and short-term promotions.” And that’s a good thing.

“I’m not opposed to long-term planning. I think for certain professions it’s an absolute must and even for a casual employee who has long-term goals, a long-term plan can be very helpful but you reach long-term goals by hitting short-term goals,” Meyer says. “I think sometimes we look at the big picture and fail to see all the small steps involved in getting there.”

Meyer says stories of missed goals are common. “They’re usually the result of high expectations and poor planning,” he says. “Most long-term goals are attained by following a path, and today, those paths can curve at any moment. Companies get sold, new opportunities emerge, passions turn into careers—it’s all much more fluid than in the past. You can create a plan and even try to stick to it but you shouldn’t do so at the expense of missing out on something better.”