Setting and Reaching Goals

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Our attitude plays a major roll in our successes as well as our failures. If you don't think you can do something, the project is doomed before you start. All too often I hear my students say: "I can't do it! It's too hard." They give up before they've even tried. That's laziness, not ability level. I can forgive a student for the attitude, but not an adult.

I have listened to fellow employees grumble as another employee receives accolades or a promotion. They don't attribute it to hard work and effort, but to brown-nosing or having the right connections. There is a little green eyed monster in all of us. Because of it, people have a hard time acknowledging and praising another person's accomplishments. Their success makes us more aware of our own shortcomings.

Part of the problem stems from the inability to set realistic goals and the lack of fortitude to keep at it until we succeed.

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Setting Goals is a skill we tend to take for granted. Most people have goals, but they are vague with no real plan in place to achieve them. I have many writer friends that claim they want to write and publish a book, yet they find excuses not to sit down and write. They're too tired after a day of work, or they don't know what to write about. They need to make dinner, or their mother-in-law is coming to visit so cleaning has to take precedence. The just got a new manicure and typing might mess it up. There are a million excuses, some legitimate, others not.

I have had many goals that I have changed, adjusted and tweaked over the years. It's a process. As my knowledge base grows, I have a better understanding of what I need to do to reach a particular goal. My original time frame may have been unrealistic, or priorities have shifted due to personal or family circumstances. Some of my goals are vague and undefined while others are laid out in detail and on a tight schedule. No two people are alike. How I set my goals and plan to achieve them may not work for you. The key is to have the goals and to be working toward them. All it takes is the right attitude.

One of the reasons so many adults have trouble setting goals and sticking to them, is that they never learned how to set goals as a child. Goal setting is one of the most important skills a person can learn. They give us purpose. Children need to be taught how to set goals, make a plan for acheiving them, and encouraged along the way.

Learning how to set goals and achieve them as a child will improve your child's opportunities for success as an adult.