Dreaming Big in Small Pieces

One of the biggest challenges we have in understanding goal setting is making them realistic.  It is hard for the kids to understand that some goals are impossible to achieve in the short term, but that they become possible eventually, and they can set other goals that will keep them on track for success in achieving the long term goal. For example, many of my students want to be NFL or NBA players.  When I ask them to set short term goals (goals that can be reached within a month or so), that is still their goal.  If I ask them to set a goal that can be reached by the end of the school year, that is still their goal.  I even bring up those particular goals in our discussions and talk about how they can't be reached for many years. So, one of the things we work on all year long is breaking down long term goals into short term goals.

This year we added goal setting pages to our agendas.  They look like this:

As you can see, we are trying to help them break goals down into simple steps.  Since we started talking Goal Setting before we watched the video, this was a great chance to reinforce the idea of setting a path of goals instead of just thinking of it as one giant goal. Before we watched the Goal Setting video, we watched the video of Ms. Simmonds and her crew winning the gold medal in Rio.  The kids had a blast, and it made me laugh to watch them.  They were really encouraging the USA to win, yelling just like it was a football game (and we take football seriously in Oklahoma!).  It was funny to me because they already knew she won!

                                    

Once we watched the goal setting video, we discussed what kind goals Ms. Simmonds set in order to get to Rio.  We talked about how long that would take and what kinds of things she had to do. Then we tried to apply that to our own goals.  One of the things they thought was really neat was that Ms. Simmonds has a goal journal like they do.

Our challenge was to come up with one large goal and then break it down into two smaller goals that would help them achieve that goal.  I narrowed it down a bit and asked them to come up with a goal that could be completed within one month and then to break that down.  We still struggled.  We'll keep working!

First, I had them write down their ideas on their own.  

Then I had them work in pairs to talk about what their goals were and what kind of steps they needed to take to reach them.

Finally, I had them share their plans with a larger group.

Outside of the sports goals, most of them wanted to work on their reading.  We had a great discussion on what a reasonable amount of reading was.  I still had goals that said they wanted to read 50 books in one week, but it's a start! And, at least they want to read!