This week we are learning the importance of goal setting. This is vital for leaders, but it is also important for everyone. I believe that goal setting and goal achieving is the best way to advance yourself towards growth and success. It is a way to keep your eye on the prize and to push yourself to achieve more. As young leaders climb the ladder of success, goals can help them reach the future that they are destined for.
Each year I ask our juniors and seniors to set some goals for themselves. We break this exercise up into personal goals and career goals. While it is great to have personal goals (like getting in shape, learning a new skill, making a friend), these goals will not always help advance their careers. That is why I encourage them to set goals for their careers in the framework of the SMART goal exercise.
The SMART goal exercise says that good goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. By meeting this criteria, students come up with goals that are very specific and detailed. Rather than saying, “I want to get into a good college,” they would say, “I want to be accepted to one of my top three colleges by December of my senior year.” This is a really good goal for students. It is obviously specific. It’s measurable because when the students get to December, they will either be admitted into one of these schools or not. It’s attainable as long as the students’ top three colleges are within their abilities. It is relevant because at that stage of life, students are very focused on the next chapter of life. Lastly, it is time bound because the students have given themselves a deadline.
At this point the students have taken the first step towards achieving this goal. However, goal setting requires action and follow up. You can write down an excellent goal (think New Year’s resolution) and forget about it and never work towards it. As young people, it is really easy to do that. So, I have them start setting these types of goals in their junior year, and I keep the goals on file. Then I ask them about the goals in class every six months. Normally it goes one of two ways:
The student forgets completely that he or she set the goal and tries to make up an excuse as to why they have not progressed.
The student is excited to discuss the goal again and presents the class with the updates on action towards the goal. Or in some cases the student can share that he or she has met the goal.
For the students who actually make progress towards the goal, you can see pride and a sense of achievement. This can be a really rewarding experience when it is taken seriously. So how do you hold yourself accountable when you don’t have a teacher to regularly ask for progress updates? The best way to keep making progress towards your goals is to keep them at the front of your mind. The easiest way to do this is to put the goal somewhere you will regularly see it. This might be your bathroom mirror, your phone screen, your laptop, your car, etc. When you regularly see the goal, you will be more likely to keep working on it. If you don’t feel comfortable displaying it where someone else might see it, you can always set regular reminders in your phone so that you are alerted to the goal once a week.
-Bria