Goal Setting & Breaking a Habit

There are a lot of different ways to approach goal setting. One way is to set long-term goals (what you want to eventually accomplish in a distant period of time - ie. 10 years), and then to set interim goals in between to help you make slow but steady progress towards your ultimate goal. The problem with that is that often times a person's long-term goal will change before they've reached it. And, that's ok.

I think that the best way I've seen goal-setting done is as a part of a person's life-long dreams. What have you always wanted to do? What have you always dreamed of being? Who do you want to be remembered as? Those are things that work really well as a long-term goal or a base to start from. This also helps you get a better understanding of who you are as a person and allows you to establish a personal mission statement or set of values. This also rarely changes. How you approach reaching this goal may change, but you'd still be making steady progress towards your ultimate goal.

So, before you begin trying to set goals, you need to do some soul-searching. You need to know more about yourself. Make a list of the things you value. Who do you want to be? Who are you now? Where do the differences lie? What can you improve on? And, don't be worried if it's a long list of things to improve on. Nobody's perfect, and this is something to work on for the rest of your life.

Next, formulate a list or description of one area that you want to improve in to reach this ultimate goal. For instance, if your ultimate goal is to be the type of person someone can admire and depend on, one area that you might need to improve on to reach this goal is to change your work habits - getting rid of procrastination.

Once you figure out your secondary goal (ie. procrastination), then try to figure out where you can improve this area of your life. This is a mid-term goal or interim goal, meaning something you need to work on to before reaching your long-term/ultimate goal. Look at ways that the problems not meeting this secondary goal can cause. What about the areas that you have the most trouble with? For instance, with procrastination, maybe you only procrastinate on things you don't want to or don't like to do. Make a list of what those are. Are any of them similar to others on the list? (ie. Maybe you have doing homework and reading the chapters on the list - both of those would be school related. Or, maybe you have cleaning your room and doing dishes on the list - those would be home or cleaning related.) If you have similar items, group them together and give them a category name (ie. School or Cleaning). These will be your tertiary goals or short-term goals.

Now, you've broken things down into something smaller - something that you can more easily deal with. Using these short-term goals, create a list of how to tackle each one of these items. Some will be easier to tackle than others. List as many ways as you can and know of to tackle each of your short-term goals. Yes, you can expect to end up with some of your goals having several things listed as ways to accomplish the goal, and some with only have one or two. For the ones that only have 1-2 ideas, you'll need to do research or some more brainstorming on how to accomplish them. The short list means that you haven't completely figured out how you define this and thus how to approach it. So, come back to it. For now, start on the one that has the most suggestions and ways to change it. That'll be the easiest place to start. Or, according to the philosophy of Kaizen, the lowest hanging fruit. (For more information on Kaizen, check out this link: http://lifehacker.com/software/kaizen/practice-your-personal-kaizen-207029.php)

Here's a couple of examples of what I'm talking about:

Ultimate goal (long-term goal) - To be someone that people can depend on to get things done
Mid-term goals - To not procrastinate, to get things done on time
Short-term goals for "Not Procrastinate" - Improving at work, Improving at school, Improving with cleaning
For short-term goal "Improving at school" - Keep a to do list, get a calendar, write all due dates on my calendar and reminders a week ahead of time for upcoming due dates, set aside time one day a week to figure out and update my to do list for the next week using my calendar and old to do list, time myself for reading and doing homework so that I know how much time things will take, etc.

Ultimate goal (long-term goal) - To live a long and healthy life
Mid-term goals - Be physically healthy, mentally healthy, emotionally healthy, etc.
Short-term goals for "Physically Healthy" - Exercise, eat better, get enough rest
For short-term goal "Eat better" - Drink more water, Don't eat fast food, Limit junk food, Limit caffeine

Remember - the more specific you are with your goals and ways to tackle your goals, the more successful you'll be. For instance, "drink more water" is pretty vague. How do you measure "more"? How do you know when you've accomplished that mini-goal? A better way might be "drink at least 32oz of water a day". Granted - it's still not the recommended amount, but it's a start. And, you have to start somewhere. And, make sure that you cut yourself some slack. This isn't all going to happen overnight. In fact, research says it takes 21 days to change a habit. And, that's really what your mini-goals and short-term goals are - ways to change a habit and habits to change.

There are a lot of other things that can help you reach your goals:
1) Give yourself a reward. Incentives work - even if it's something small.
2) Try tackling your habit changes with a friend. Two heads are better than one. They can help you brainstorm other ways of achieving your goals. They can also provide moral support when you're struggling.
3) Don't be afraid to mess up or to change your mind. You may need to figure out another way to do something if your first attempt didn't work. If at first you don't succeed...
4) When you do mess up, take a step back and look at things. Did you set your original goal too high? What obstacles caused you problems? How can you deal with those obstacles next time? Don't think of it as "failure". It's more of an ongoing process. Besides, we learn a LOT more when we "fail" than if everything comes perfect to us the first time around. Just think of it as a learning process.
5) Take advantage of the free things you have at your disposal. JSRCC hands out free calendars (aka. Student Handbooks) every Fall. You can get on in the Student Success Center. Bubble.us offers a free mapping system if you need a way to plan this all out. And, there are workshops at JSR (check the "Useful Links" section) and other free sources on the web. Just do a quick search. For instance, there's a free planner at http://www.studygs.net/schedule/Weekly.html that will actually break things down for you and help you figure out how to schedule all of your time.

And, when in doubt - ask for help! There's nothing wrong with that either. In fact, I'd say the absolutely most important thing you can learn as a student is how to utilize your resources. :)