Goal Setting
Topics on Student Success
"It is not enough to be busy.
So are the ants. The question is what are we busy about?"
Have you ever said to yourself, "I need to study more" or "I wish I had more time to get into a work-out routine?" How about actually accomplishing these things? Not much luck? Why do we fail at achieving our goals more often than we succeed? A big part of it has to do with effective planning and self-discipline. In order to accomplish a goal you have to be deliberate in setting goals and making progress toward them by using your time effectively.
1. Create a Vision
Before you know what you need to accomplish in any given day, you need to have a clear understanding your overall vision or long term goals. You must define why you are here…why are you in school…what do you hope to accomplish in your life…what is really important to you.
When creating your personal vision, be ambitious and be specific. Think about what you really want to achieve as a long-term goal. Don’t be afraid to create a vision like ‘become self-employed within 5 years of graduating from college.’ By setting lofty visions you increase your expectations of yourself and your actions will likely follow. Are you spending your time on things that are crucial to your personal vision, crucial to what is truly important to you?
2. Set Effective Goals
Once you know what is important to you, set concrete goals. Goals take your personal vision and transform it into achievable tasks. The crucial first step in goal setting is making sure that you have set an effective goal. This means making sure your goals are SMART. The SMART model allows you to take a goal like ‘study more’ and make it something that you can actually work to achieve.
Specific
Be clear as to what exactly you want to accomplish. For example, change ‘study more’ to ‘study my chemistry and math materials.’
Measurable
Define a specific measurement so you will know when you have achieved what you set out to do. For example, expand on ‘study my chemistry and math materials’ to ‘study my chemistry and math materials at least 2 hours each weeknight.’
Action-Oriented
Make sure that the goal reflects you actually doing something. So, expand in the previous statement by saying, ‘review the previous day’s notes and complete all associated exercises for my chemistry and math materials, spending at least two hours each weeknight.’
Realistic
Make the goal challenging, yet realistic. For instance, if you know that on Wednesday nights you have a Student Government meeting that will routinely keep you from spending two hours on your homework, make sure you reflect this in your goal. For example, ‘review the previous day’s notes and complete all associated exercises for my chemistry and math materials, spending at least two hours each weeknight except Wednesday, when I will spend one hour after the Student Government meeting.’
Time and Resource-Constrained
Define the timeframe for goal accomplishment and what resources you will need to accomplish the goal. For example, ‘accomplish this goal by the end of next month, using the library as my study location.’
Effective goals are also manageable goals. This means that a goal like ‘complete my term paper for my English class one week prior to the due date’ needs to broken down into smaller pieces. So for instance, this large goal is made up of the following smaller goal pieces:
- Meet with my professor by October 15th to finalize my term paper topic.
- Spend at least four hours per week working on my term paper between October 15th and November 15th.
- Make revisions and turn first draft into the professor for comments by November 25th.
- Make final revisions and complete term paper by December 10th.
3. Follow through with the goals you’ve set for yourself.
Follow through may be the most important piece to accomplishing your goals. If your goals are challenging and worthy, you should expect setbacks and obstacles. Self-discipline and persistence are essential to completing your goal.
- Self-Discipline means doing something you don’t want to
do or giving up something you want in the moment in order to reach a
larger goal. It might mean not going to the movies with everyone else
in order to have time to study for the chemistry exam or forcing yourself
to read the 30 pages assigned each night for history.
- Persistence is pure will and determination in the face of obstacles. Persistence is more important than any other factor in reaching your goals (Reynolds, 2002). It means continuing to try for something after numerous failures. The question is, ‘Are you willing to do what it takes to get what you want?’