Why Understanding Obstacles is Essential to Achieving Goals. iStock By Linda Flanagan There is no shortage of pithy quotes encouraging positive thinking: “If you can dream it, you can do it.” “Reach for the stars!” “Look on the bright side.” “See the glass as half full.” While inspiring words might provide a moment of motivation, it turns out they can have an adverse effect on achieving those goals.
For 20 years, psychology professor Gabriele Oettingen of New York University and the University of Hamburg has been examining positive thinking and her conclusion is clear. What does contribute to success, she says, is the conscious adoption of a nuanced kind of optimism, one that takes into account the real-life barriers to success. Here’s an example of how it works. Wish: An 11th grader, say, wants to get an A in Honors English.
Outcome: Next, he thinks about what would happen if he achieved this goal, his desired outcome. This cognitive technique is effective, Oettingen says, because it works on the nonconscious mind. Related. Creating Learning Goals & Success Criteria Collaboratively | LGSCC. How Google Spreadsheets Can Bring Teachers Together I’ve always wondered why more of us don’t work together to build our courses. It is time consuming, sure. But I’m sure we would save much more time working with our colleagues than working alone. More importantly, I think that the conversations and differences of opinion experienced through exploring different approaches to delivering curriculum would most certainly produce a higher quality finished product.
Collaborating to Create Learning Goals & Success Criteria So let’s just assume that actually creating course content collaboratively might not be your ideal choice for whatever reason. I look at a collaborative approach to interpreting your curriculum expectations or standards as an opportunity to learn how other educators in the same subject area and different location interpret your course curriculum.
My First Learning Goal and Success Criteria Challenge (LGSCC) Create Your Own LGSCC Step 1: Go to Google Drive Step 2: Sharing Settings. 4 Common Mistakes Managers Make When Goal Setting (and 3 ways to fix it) Just Put the Puck In the Net – The Value of Student and Teacher Goal Setting. Hockey is a simple game really with one ultimate goal: put the puck in the net more times than the opposing team does. Everyone knows the goal, everyone helps get to the goal, and everyone knows when the goal has been achieved.
The tricky part is in the strategies; many great coaches and hockey-minds have developed hundreds of different strategies to reach the goal. There is no one right definitive way, in fact there are many factors that good coaches will take into consideration before choosing the right strategy. No strategy works with all people all the time. So is the game of education. With the shift over the past several years to including formative assessment, student goal setting has been found to be highly effective in supporting students in academic achievement. “… goals inform individuals as to what type or level of performance is to be attained so that they can direct and evaluate their actions and efforts accordingly.” pp.164 Empty Net (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Goal Setting Worksheet. The secret to goal setting is to write your goals down. Just the act of putting them on paper will give you a much greater chance of success than keeping them in your head. To help you do this, I’ve create a simple Goal Setting Worksheet. You can use this for… Personal GoalsWork GoalsBusiness GoalsFitness GoalsEmployee Goals I’ve based it around a 12 week timeframe, which works well for many types of goals. To help you set and achieve your goals, print out the Goal Setting Worksheet, grab a pen and let’s get started.
Get started with the goal setting worksheet using the S.M.A.R.T. Your goals need to be … SpecificMeasurableActionableRealisticTime-Based Lets start at the top. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Overall: This simple goal setting system can help you achieve your goals and objectives in a timely and effective manner. For More Information on setting SMART Goals, see this excellent article by Michael Hyatt Question: How will you use your goal planning worksheet? Play The Game Of Life & Get To Your Goals With Mindbloom. What exactly is Mindbloom? Is it a mind mapping application? Is it a goal-setting motivational tool? Is it a social network? Or is it a game? Mindbloom is actually a bit of all these, but primarily the concept of the Mindbloom life game seems to follow the old adage that a giant oak grows from a tiny acorn. The Metaphor of a Growing Tree Mindbloom uses the image of a tree to symbolically show that like a tree which grows from an insignificant seed, life improvement is the result of continuous actions – little by little.
But all this need to be an exercise in drudgery; it can be turned into fun with motivational boosters like music, images, social support, and a little bit of play. Grow the Life You Want With the Step By Step Animated Game Start growing the tree of your life by choosing an area that you would like to improve. Just like a real sapling, you have to nurture this too with the right ingredients like sunlight (music, images); and water (simple actions). Now, Take Some Actions. Setting SMART goals help students succeed. Feb When I talk to my students about goals, many of them tell me that they don’t have any goals.
I tell them they actually do, but they don’t realize it. They call their goals plans. The plans that they make for later in the day , later in week or later in the year are really goals. Then we discuss the characteristics of good goals. I try to lead the discussion so that we conclude that good goals are SMART goals and show the slide show below to illustrate the idea of SMART goals. After we watch the slide show, I have my students set their own short term, medium term and long term goals using the graphic organizer below. Smart Goal Setting Organizer If you’d like this as well, just ask and I’ll send it to you as an attachment. I’ve always had good results with this activity. Helping my students set goals the smart way.
Feb “If you don’t know where you are going. How can you expect to get there?” (Basil S. Walsh) Setting goals is so important for future success, yet often my students don’t think to set goals, let alone smart goals. Mostly, they just sit in their little row boats and let the currents of life take them wherever and then are surprised or disappointed about what happens.
Or if they do set goals, the goals are too vague- I’ll do whatever, whenever, or too unrealistic- I want “x”, but am not capable or prepared to do what it takes. I’ve created the following PowerPoint presentation to teach my students about smart goals. You’re welcome to use the presentation if you think it would be useful. I’m going to show the Slideshare to my students as part of the discussion we have about setting smart goals. Share. Setting Goals Worksheets.