Jan

1

Characteristics of Successful People- Setting Goals

Filed Under "At-risk" students, Goals, Useful Handouts 

celebrationToday is New Year’s Day, January 1 , a traditional day to set goals for the coming year. When I talk about setting goals with my students, I talk about the value of setting goals. Setting goals gives you control over your life. Many of my at-risk students have few or no goals. To be honest, most haven’t even though much about the future. They have some vague sense that they’ll work at something, or they’ll play pro basketball in the NBA or something. They just drift through life, day after day letting others make the goals for them. When they realize that by making their own goals they can take charge of their lives, they are more open to the topic of goal setting.
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First, goals need to be realistic. They have to be doable. In order to be able to set realistic goals, my students need to know themselves. What strengths do they have? What weaknesses do they have? What do they like doing? What do they hate doing? Are they people smart, self-smart, body-smart, word-smart, number-smart, music-smart, nature-smart, or spatial-smart. There’s no point in wanting to play basketball at the NBA level if you’re not body-smart. There’s no point in getting a job that involves heavy duty number crunching if you aren’t number smart. How do student’s discover their “smarts”. I have them complete a questionaire based on Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences. There are many versions of the test available. I’ve given you the link for one, just so that you can see what it’s about. Once they determine their strengths, they can set more realistic goals.

Oh, one more thing. It’s important for students to set short term, medium term and long term goals. By setting and meeting short term goals, my at-risk students quicly come to realize that they have some choice in their lives and that motivates them to take more ownership of their lives. Setting medium and long term goals helps them see that they can have a say in what happens in the future. Perhaps more importantly, they see they have a future.

Happy New Year!


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