Career Goal Setting: Every Young Cop's Goal Is to Become an Old Cop

A young officer approaches you and asks, “what should I do to enhance my career?” There is one solid answer - the goal of every young cop is to become an old cop. Unfortunately, as we increase the subject matter and requirements in police academies, the academy directors seem to forget one important presentation. There should be a block on your police career management with goal setting and personal finance survival.  

Back in 1992 the book Megatrends: Ten new directions for transforming our lives written by John Naisbitt (1929-2021) was all the rage. At that time of my career as a young sergeant working my way to command staff, this was required reading. In almost every management course that I attended, this was nearly a gospel. If I can remember one thing to glean from it, it was that we are transitioning into a new informational driven era. Naisbitt foretold that technology was coming upon us and to prepare ourselves for it. Computers and the internet were just getting off the ground, look at where we are now.

The other theme in his series of books focused on planning. You know it is coming so prepare yourself, adapt and embrace it. This will put you ahead of those who rigidly cling to the past and fight change. Now when we talk about goal setting a lot of people use the acronym of S.M.A.R.T. for making goals. Let’s take a closer look from my point of view.

Specific: As you plan your career you must separate it into different or  multiple fronts. First,  being the career itself. Second, being your personal and family life and third financial sustainability. Why the reason for three? Your life planning is more than just this job and that must have balance with the rest. Goals for your career, we will talk about more in depth later. Whether you wish to follow a uniformed path or a specialize path (forensics, tactical or investigations), or even pursuit supervision / command staff pathway; you need to have a career plan.

For you as single person, this is easy but add in the possibility of a family, these things can become difficult. Your spouse/partner and maybe some family members may need to weigh in and support your plans. Be sure you incorporate your immediate family in career moves. Certain career moves create burdens on both sides which will require support from all.

I strongly encourage you to start financial planning as an integral part of your life plans.  You cannot start planning for supplemental retirement savings at the end of your career, this has been a downfall of many.  This mistake has been made far too many times. I would recommend seeing a certified financial planner if you possibly can for them to assist you. This will require budgeting and commitment because unfortunately you have got to start saving now while you are making the least salary that you will ever make. Financial planning will require a tight but sensible budget. Yes, you must run a tight budget and maybe we cannot take the kids out to see every new movie that comes out so plan accordingly and make it work for all.

Meaningful: What may be meaningful to you may not be meaningful to others. Sometimes you need to tell (and sell) your story to gain the support of others. I give an example of one officer who I deeply believed would have been a great sergeant but refused to take the test. He shared with me that  his family life was more important for him. For him to have seniority and days off as a senior corporal was more important than sergeant stripes.  He prioritized family and I respected him for that. Sometimes your family will not understand what your goals are, so maybe sit down and talk with them. Explain the preparations and challenges coming up for the professional side. If you must go off to schools or career schools for several weeks or months gain their buy-in and support.

Achievable: I would not say have pie in the sky dreams but attainable ones. Make sure what you are considering is achievable. Ask yourself if you may have physical limitations, educational limitations or even departmental limitations preventing your goal. Departmental limitations are where you may have to go to another agency to achieve your plan. Not every agency has all the opportunities.  Therefore, do not set goals that are unachievable because sooner or later it is going to wear you down.

Realistic: Make goals real and tangible in your life. If professional goals require  a college degree, start planning on it now! You cannot achieve certain goals if you lack necessary educational credentials. If you need the diploma, can you afford to go back to college, enroll and get busy. Addressing your educational needs, can you afford it? Are there grants or scholarships available? Note to military veterans make sure you review all your military benefits available to you, to include home loans and educational pursuits; remember there are time values on these benefits.  This goes back to balancing out your time and the value of goals.

Time: A little note on time investment, sometimes when we are going down the turnpike of life, please try to stay in your lane. I see people weaving over and chasing different dreams from lane to lane and they lose traction and then must go back and restart. This is often wasted time, money and efforts, stay the course.  

Some of these goals will be long-term and some short-term ones. Of course, we follow your departments career pathway. You must be promoted to corporal before you become sergeant for instance. Review your rank structure’s requirements in your department. You always set the short-term of making the next promotion but also begin positioning yourself for the next one. Begin reviewing the next promotion’s requirements as well. Often you may accomplish a requirement for the next or higher level before you get there.

Your personal planning and career management focus is more than the next step or the next evaluation.  Do you have three, five or  ten year goals? These should be your long-term goals. Most agencies will fail when they plan only for next year's budget. What I always recommend is do a three- and five-year plan. You know that several large ticket items have a replacement cycle.  You can project fleet replacements, laptop replacement, and other larger line items or projects. So, where do you want to be a year from now?  Where do you want to be three  or even five years from now?  What does it take for you to achieve that? Start working on this now.

WE must do better collectively as a vocation. We can no longer accept that the next generation will ‘figure it out’ as we did. It is essentially on the retired, veterans to mentor today’s officers for their future. Today’s political volatility creates a toxic working environment. It is more than what I experienced, tomorrows’ officer’s  survivability is ensured with great mentors. Be one to them, and their payback to their replacements will ensure this vocation remains honorable.