SMART Goals
Gianna Marques-Ozuniga (7)
Goal setting typically starts on New Year Day, it could be as simple as practicing gratitude or to be more productive people. Goals are a good healthy way to motivate you and help you achieve more things in life. However, less than 8 percent of people actually follow through with their goals.
5 Steps to Setting Goals:
- Set goals that you are actually willing to achieve. Yes, you can set a goal like trying to read one book every week, but it’s going to be a hard goal to achieve if it doesn’t interest you or motivate you.
- Set a SMART goal. SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound.
- Write down your goals. Narrowing your focus and generating immediate motivation and excitement are two benefits of writing down your goals.
- Have a strategy of action (a plan). You can concentrate on the steps necessary to accomplish your goal by using a plan.
- Keep at it!
Ms. Navarro’s advice is, “To be realistic with your goals, try not to accomplish too much in too little time.” It’s never a good idea to set goals that aren’t realistic. If you do that, you are working on something that most likely will not come through. In addition, you won’t have the sense of accomplishment, you won’t meet the goals, and eventually you will stop making goals.
Another good piece of advice Ms. Navarro suggested was to, “Create monthly goals that will continue on.” One example of that is Ms. Navarro’s January goal that is to get to school by 7:45 each morning. Then, next month instead of stopping that goal she will continue coming to school at that same time and also on top of that, she will set yet another goal.
7th grader, Jasmin Fitzpatrick made a list of goals she wanted to do over the summer. “I made it because I wanted this summer to count since last summer I did not plan anything to remember my summer.”
Setting goals are important, whether they are personal, professional, or just fun. They keep you on track and always moving towards something. Ms. Navarro has her 6th grade advisory class set weekly goals. They post them and see them daily. At the end of the week, they reflect on what they have done well and what they will work on for the following week.
Setting goals is a very healthy thing to do, and SMART goals are the way to go! What goals do you have this year?