SMART Goals / Career Strategy Map

Short-term goal: Set a schedule

Specific accomplishments

Establish a schedule for my studying and practicing the game of Chess so that I don’t get discouraged by work and school taking all my time away from my goal of being a chess coach. Treat this time like I would a Rainbow Pro-Life Board meeting or working at Walmart so that I don’t lose sight of the goals I have

Measurements of success

My main metric for determining if I am making progress is the blog posts and videos I produce for teaching chess openings. By making regular posts such as once or twice a week, I can see that my progress towards my chess book that I want to publish or growing my Twitch Channel is consistent.

Attainable outcomes

Setting up a schedule is at least attainable and doesn’t depend on other people. However, an outcome I predict is getting more comments or followers on my social media and blog.

Revelant points (how it relates to your career)

This goal is relevant to my career because my chosen career is to establish myself as both a local Lee’s Summit Chess coach that people know about to fill the void that exists in my town and also to become a very entertaining online gamer who plays and teaches chess concepts for enjoyment and also getting the word out about my business.

Timeline for accomplishment

I expect to have a schedule planned out before July is over.

Mid-term goal: Improve online chess ratings

Specific accomplishments

A chess rating is a specific measurement that is used in Chess all over the world that measures a player’s strength of mind in Chess. It increases when you win and decreases when you lose. The amount that it changes is based on the difference between your rating and your opponent. The goal is to get it above my current general 1500 to 1600.

Measurements of success

I play Chess on multiple websites, but the ones that I am concerned with are lichess.org, playstrategy.org, and pychess.org because those sites all use the same formula. I will not account for chess.com because I have evidence that the cheating of opponents is taking place.

Side note: Cheating is actually quite measurable in online Chess, and it is too easy to accomplish. The greatest masters and experts have entire videos dedicated to how cheating is detected in online Chess. That is a post for another day!

Attainable outcomes

I expect to get a rating of at least 2000. This number is reasonable as the goal is not to be higher rated than Magnus Carlsen or the Stockfish engine. Specifically, this will apply to correspondence and classical time control ratings because shorter time controls always lead to bad quality moves from both myself and opponents that do not represent the beauty of the sport that is Chess.

Revelant points (how it relates to your career)

Increasing my rating is a clear way to advertise that I am knowledgeable enough about the game that people expect to learn from me. It is reliable because it cannot be altered in any way other than playing actual games with people online.

Timeline for accomplishment

I don’t think a time limit can apply to this because this goal is ongoing and will continue to improve as long as I live, but maybe before I graduate from Full Sail, I will also have achieved the ratings and skill.

Long-term goal: Gain Students

Specific accomplishments

I will get the word out through my written blogs and videos about teaching Chess, and I expect to get people interested in hiring me as a coach or at least playing games with me for fun.

Measurements of success

There are two measurements I will use because I will have both free and paid students.

The first and most obvious is that when people pay me, I will keep track of this, and it will be my business fund that I can use for training materials, travel by Uber/Lyft to people’s homes, and place online ads on certain platforms.

The second will be my free students, who can pay me in a way that is not money but by being guests on my videos or writing online reviews to help let others know about what I do. This way, I will have a digital record of everything besides knowing the people.

Attainable outcomes

The outcome will be both fame and money since people will want to watch or read my content online but there will be some who pay me for my time with them as well.

Revelant points (how it relates to your career)

My career is going to be a hybrid of Chess Coach and social media influencer which is something I do on top of any other local jobs I work. Everything I do will be relevant, and most of it will be online because I will never be able to drive a car and don’t expect to be able to work for big companies for a high income elsewhere.

Timeline for accomplishment

This goal will be for my whole life, and as such, timelines don’t really apply, but I think within the next year, I will already have measurements for this goal and the two previous goals as well.

Sources

(n.d.). Chess rating systems. Lichess.org. https://lichess.org/page/rating-systems

(n.d.). Fair Play And Cheat-Detection. Chess.com. https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-com-fair-play-and-cheat-detection