Teachers have so many goals….Let’s talk about how we can set goals that actually get accomplished!
How many times have you set a goal for yourself, then a week later you’ve forgotten the goal or given up on it entirely? One word: exercise…. I have lost track of how many times I have sworn that I was going to exercise every day for a month. Then everything gets in the way of those really good intentions. I’ve never been a fan of diets. I’m certain I would be saying the same thing about that…. But I’ve finally figured out why I’ve broken my own plans so many times…. While I’m great at making a goal, making a plan to actually make the goal happen is where I fall short. All the wonderful goals aren’t going to happen if we don’t put a realistic plan in place to meet the goal.
Step 1: Set a goal that is something that you want, and will benefit you.
Look at your teaching and classroom. What is the most annoying thing that you deal with every day? What is something, that if you were able to fix it, would make your life a lot easier? When I look back, the thing that has gotten in my way the most is my lack of focus when I am working. I have tended to sit down and flit from one thing to another during my entire work period… and not get anything accomplished. That is incredibly frustrating, and I ended up spending time at home doing work at home. The lockdowns and all the extra work from that made me realize how poorly I have been using my time to get things done.
Moving into next year, and especially next quarter, I will be more focused when I am working. So, what I really want is more time with my family and less frustration with all the things on my to do list. To get what I want, I’m going to make sure that when I’m working on something, I remain focused on that one item until it is completed before I move on.
Step 2: Figure out exactly what it looks like, when we implement the goal.
My goal is to remain focused when I do my work, which should look like me choosing one task to complete at a time, and sticking to that task until it is completed. For example, I might need to work on getting my progress reports done before the end of the week, so I want to break up the progress reports into 4 days, and each day I need to complete a set number of progress reports.
On each day, I will sit down with the grades and input for those students who are set for that day, and only work on the progress reports for those students until they are all done. I won’t work on a student’s progress report from another day, until this list is complete.
Step 3: Make a plan to make meeting your goal as easy as possible.
Now that I know what I want to do and exactly what it looks like, I need to make a plan for how I will make doing this as easy as possible. That way I won’t make excuses and not do it. Back to my example, if I want to be focused on one task at a time, I need to be prepared when I sit down to do that task. When I sit down to do my progress reports, I need to have all of my materials that I need all together and ready to go. That way I won’t need to get up to get something…and get distracted by other things that I need to do. So, I need to be prepared when I sit down to work. I also need to know exactly what this work session needs to accomplish. When we look at our to do list (you know that list of goals we set each day that drives us crazy), it is full of so many things that need to be done, which I then try really hard to do all at once….
Instead, I need to sit down with a must-do and may dos list. First I will work on the must-do tasks and get them done one at a time before I jump into the may-dos. All of this will help me to sit down, know exactly what I need to do, be prepared to do the things on my list, and prevent me from walking around my room doing random tasks instead of my must-dos. The whole point in this is to make keeping your goal, your promise to yourself, as easy as possible.
When setting a goal, try to think ahead to all the obstacles that you’ll face so that you can move them out of the way to make meeting your goal easy.
Step 4: Write your goal down!
Put your goal and your plan into your calendar, or on your bulletin board…just somewhere you will see it every day and be reminded of the small steps you’ll want to take to get what you want from following your plan. I know a lot of people believe in vision boards… I like them, it’s fun to sit and daydream, but when I walk away from it, I forget all about it. I do much better with sticking with it when I just have to follow small steps to eventually get where I want to be.
On that note, if you haven’t read it, I really suggest you read Atomic Habits. I read it last summer, and it made a big impact on the way I did my goal setting, as well as how I think about making positive changes in my life and classroom. So, if you haven’t read it, I do suggest you pick it up!
Setting goals doesn’t have to be a useless thing that we do every new year. If we match those goals with a doable plan, those goals can be really valuable. So, get out there and meet those goals!