The talk that we had in class this week about setting goals and following through with them, got me more interested in the topic. I thought it may be good for myself to learn ways that may help me follow through with some of the goals that I set for myself, and maybe help others as well.
When searching the web, I found an article that gave a few tips to help you follow through with your goals for yourself, no matter which type. http://www.dumblittleman.com/2009/02/11-useful-tips-on-setting-goals-and.html
- Take firm action- Tell yourself you WILL follow through
- Get priorities in order- Know what's important to you NOW
- Write them down- Have them written where you can see them often
- Take a deep look- Realistic?
- Make an action plan- Which method works best for you?
- Track your progress- Know where you're at with accomplishing your goals
- Involve others- Allow advice and encouragement from others
- Welcome failures- You won't always be successful, you will fail at times, but it's ok
- Persist- Don't give up
- Celebrate- Be excited about accomplishing each step
- Don't lose sight- Stay focused, your goal can be achieved
I thought that all of these tips were very valuable. I know that from experience I always am more likely to follow through with things when I write them down. Whether it's a To Do list, a method for studying for a test, or goal setting, it is embedded into my head more when I write them down, and I am more likely to remember what I need to do and follow through. I also think that it is important to make realistic goals. So many times people throw out unrealistic goals for themselves and are disappointed later on when they realize they were unachievable. You need to think about where you are right now and take steps/ make small goals, that may lead up to a larger goal later on. Overall, the article was short but to the point. I feel like it gave good advice, though.
Does anyone else have any advice to give on goal setting that works for them??
Plan-directed behaviors aimed at reducing or removing the discrepancy between our present states and our ideal states are a common agenda for college students this time of year. "I only have this many assignments left until the end of the semester. My goal is to get this much done by this date, etc." We all benefit from keeping a list of those things we wish to accomplish, and the satisfaction we receive by crossing off each one is much more than ticking it off from a mental check list.
I came across an interesting goal-setting worksheet I thought would be useful to those of us wishing to set an achievable goal for ourselves. By integrating those concepts presented in our textbook under effective eight-step goal-setting programs, this worksheet has you specify your objective, determine how difficult the goal will be, be specific about what the goal entails, and decide when you will evaluate your performance. It also provides steps in the goal-striving process such as goal acceptance, strategies, implementation intentions, and providing feedback. The supplementary questions provided on this site really got me thinking about how influential goal-setting is to our lives. What are you passionate about? Do you like yourself right now?
http://hubpages.com/hub/Goal-Setting-Worksheet
I also found an array of goal-setting activities provided by Baylor University’s Community Mentoring for Adolescent Development program. It was interesting to complete these activities and browse through the pages of material they provide to adolescents seeking their mentoring services. I envisioned myself as an adolescent in a small group carrying out Activity I (p. 15), and the eight-steps to decision-making became much more applicable to real world problems not just those goals I have for myself. Goal setting and goal striving really are important factors in our everyday lives—we wouldn’t do much without them.
http://www.mentoring.org/downloads/mentoring_429.pdf
This was a fairly interesting article. I liked many of the tips, and they seem to fit well with what we have read in our book. The tips" Take firm action" and "Persist" definitely fit the 8 step effective foal setting program. When it said, "Get priorities in order- Know what's important to you NOW" I thought that it related well to the step "Make an action plan, then create a specific time table/schedule to which they each adhered." The article mentioned that goals will only be helpful if they are realistic, and this is something also mentioned by Reeve. The line "Welcome failures- You won't always be successful, you will fail at times, but it's ok" reminded me of material in Chapter 9, more specifically relating to Mastery Beliefs. It is not just important what happens to us, but how we react to whatever it is that happens. Failures are inevitable, but we can take those destructive events and try to salvage them for constructive meaning (make the most of a bad situation).
I would also like to discuss the tip "Don't lose sight- Stay focused, your goal can be achieved." In my experience, this is very helpful advice, but its meaning must not be misconstrued. As we mentioned in our Chapter 8 discussion, it's important to focus on the activity itself rather than the reward if we hope to be successful. I know firsthand that this is very true. Whenever I have been in a class that I have not really enjoyed, I used to sometimes try to motivate myself by thinking about how great it would be too pull off a great grade in there. In actuality, I was just wasting my time thinking that way, and would have been much better suited simply thinking about the tasks at hand rather than spending time worrying/daydreaming. This is sort of a common sense finding in some ways, but I think it especially holds true for mental tasks. I can just say that in my experience, I have actually found concentrating on the reward to be helpful, but only in tasks that require intensive physical exertion and relatively no cognitive effort.
As we mentioned in class, I would also say that making lists has been extremely helpful in my life. Although I do not know of many empirical studies about the effectiveness of this behavior, I think that regularly writing lists can help people organize the complex and sometimes chaotic demands of everyday life.