Discussion board guide for interactive student-teacher learning

¶ … Goal setting is a powerful process for thinking about your ideal future and for motivating yourself to turn your vision of this future into reality" (Personal goal-setting, 2011, Mind Tools). Many people have said that they key to achieving long-term goals is to achieve a series of short-term goals. After all, there is only one way to scale a mountaintop -- step-by-step! "When you have determined where you want your life to be in one year -- or five -- or even 20, it will have an impact on what you do TODAY. A person who dreams of being a lawyer will not have much success obtaining that goal if they don't first make the time to fit studying and school into their schedule today" (Setting goals: Long-term and short-term goals, 2005, Time Management), However, to ensure you are moving forward in the direction of meeting critical short-term goals, you need to first identify these goals and then understand their relative importance. For example, if your short-term goal is to run a half-marathon in three months, a critical short-term goal might be to complete a certain amount of mileage on a per weekly basis and to change your diet to a healthier one. Less important goals might include buying new running clothes, shoes, and a fancy stopwatch. The goals should be ranked, and then the most important goals should be highlighted and targeted in your life priorities.

Short-term goals lead to long-term goals. However, to identify the most critical long-term goals and fulfill our heart's desire, we must engage in intense self-searching. Identifying important long-term goals requires an inventory of personal talents and interests. For example, most of us as a long-term goal might have the goal of getting a good job. To refine and highlight what are the most important goals regarding one's vocation, aspects of the personality like 'enjoys working with people' and 'wants to make a difference' must be acknowledged. Only then can someone strong in the sciences make a good choice in setting long-term goals between being an engineer vs. A nurse. But long-term goals must be supported by short-term goals, and the dreamer must not lose sight of the need to carefully proceed in a sequential fashion. Becoming a nurse may be a noble goal, but unless the student studies hard and gets good grades in the here and now, achieving this dream is impossible. Dreaming big can be motivating, but big dreams must be supported with a grip on reality.

A failure to reach short-term goals is often due to a lack of focus. We think we have set short-term goals, but we really only have a vague sense of our dreams and desires, and so we skip steps in the process of refining and defining them. We vaguely say, "oh, yes, I'd like to become a runner," without setting goals such as increasing mileage, deciding to enter a race, etcetera. While talking with others about short-term goals can be helpful, there is also a downside -- talking about short-term goals can cause our focus to be diverted, and we can lose our sense of 'true North.' We also must be realistic -- for some people who are just beginning running, a realistic short-term goal might be to enter a local 5K, not the New York City marathon. Setting unrealistic short-term goals can lead to discouragement and self-doubt. One good acronym to remember is SMART: goals must be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound (Personal goal-setting, 2011, Mind Tools). Goals like 'making a lot of money' or 'becoming a good runner' are not specific. Running a specific race is a much stronger statement, and it is also measurable in terms of both distant and time. Yet the goals must be achievable, so you will not give up -- and also must be relevant. Sometimes the reasons we do not set specific goals is because we do not truly desire to do the thing we crave, we merely are in love with the image of being a runner or being rich. Writing down the goals, defining them, and creating a plan forces us to acknowledge what we truly want and need to do.