Evaluating Alice's SMART Goals

During our class readings and discussion, we learned about setting S.M.A.R.T goals, which shows how to structure your goals. After reading this chapter, I wanted to set some realistic goals for this course and this program. The S.M.A.R.T. goals that I’ve set for this course are to learn to be more

Did you know people with written goals are 50% more likely to achieve than people without goals? A goal is the object of someone’s ambition or aim. Goals are helpful because it gives the person a purpose to work hard for something. Goals are unique since each person has a different mindset for their life. My goals consists of an academic, professional, and person perspective. My goals will be described, have an explanation of past and present that attains goals, and will identify a goals to retain goals.

When I was 29 I was working two jobs, I had two boys ages 11 and 3, and my total income for that year was below poverty level. My goals at that time were simple. Survive, raise my boys, keep food on the table, and don’t lose it. That’s not the case anymore. I want to increase my income, find a career not just a job, and have a choice to retire. Now that’s what I’m after. Pursuing an Associates of General Studies is now my goal. I’ll be a college graduate by June 2018!

The second one is a short-term goal. This is something you want to do in the near future. To demonstrate, you can do it next week, this month or even next year. The last one is a mid-term goal. Now a mid-term goal is what you do after you have graduated college. In case, you want to buy a house, start a business or start a family. In order to set a proper goal, you need to use the SMART system. The SMART system stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound. The first step in setting a goal is it should be specific. According to the college orientation and success book "the more concrete a goal is, the more likely you are to achieve it and you need to begin by answering the who, what, where, why and how to help avoid goals that are too general". The second step is goals should be measurable. You need to set up concrete criteria for your goal by choosing specific dates, numbers or milestones to help you stay on track. As an illustration, "I will read thirty pages a day". The third step is goals should be attainable. It's good to dream and challenge yourself, but goals should also relate to our personal strengths and abilities. Setting

Because I have identified several tools given to me – and that I am aware of my purpose, I can now set goals. My most immediate short-term goals as a college student include: becoming proficient at balancing my time well, soaking up the information that I am being taught, making great grades, serving my community, traveling and studying abroad, and attaining internships and scholarships.

The goal that I established to address the element of weakness will address the need for an increase in individual student planning, specifically related to career readiness and success as well as post-secondary options. This goal addresses the attributes of a SMART goal in the following ways: Specific – I will develop and implement three classroom guidance lessons that cover the importance of career planning, the different career paths,

Goals must be stated in measurable terms, i.e., how can you tell you have accomplished that goal? Identify dates for accomplishing each goal.

The efforts to reaching a goal begin with self-discipline and confidence that accomplishing the goals with being another milestone completed within the timeframe allotted. Reviewing each goal over and over is something that will happen on a regular basis until satisfaction of the results. Making one’s self-accountable to family and friends is one of the best ways to reach a goal. The family and friends support an individual with his or her vision to do better in life. Determining the big picture of the goals, selecting activities to help achieve goals and choosing daily tasks to make up the chosen goal is heading in a positive direction (Laureate Education,

Firman’s presentation entitled “Setting and getting to goals”, presented very effective strategies for developing and accomplishing goals which I found to be helpful for my personal goals as well as treatment goals for clients. A SMART worksheet accompanied the presentation and denotes the terms and steps specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and time-based. A goal is considered specific if it is clear and well defined. When goals are clearly defined it becomes easier to develop a technique for measuring its progress. Additionally, it provides individuals with a better understanding of the steps needed to accomplish set goal. Goals are realistic when individuals are willing and able to work towards it as well as construct a time frame in which to achieve it. During this presentation, I was consumed with thoughts of my specific goal of finishing my portfolio within the first week of December, where a checklist will be used to measure progress. The actions include completing work for at least two hours nightly which I am willing and able to do. I thought of it as a useful tool for clients as it would provide them with autonomy and empower them to become more responsible for setting and making SMART

Some examples of these goals are, doing well in all of my classes, getting a job, or joining clubs. Although these ideas are useful to work towards, they fail to meet the SMART criteria. This criteria, explored by Locke (2004) and extensively used in business and academic settings, allows one to create suitable goals for themselves. A SMART goal should be “Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time Based.” My working goal, created after self evaluation and assessment, is Achieving and maintaining a 3.3 GPA for the winter 2016 semester. This goal satisfies all SMART criteria, and is of an adequate level of challenge. In order to meet my goal for the end of the Winter semester, I have defined some specific task and actions needed to be taken. First, since this goal is academic, I must clearly define study habits and routines. Rather than simply reading text or taking notes, I will assign specific times for study. It is suggested that for every hour of in-class instructional time, two to three hours of work should be done out of class. I determined that I am in class for 14 hours and 30 minutes per week. This means I should assign at least 29 hours of time outside of lecture periods for study, research, and assignments. To meet these requirements, I can assign specific hours for each day as study time. In order to combat procrastination, I will apply methods that allow me to get a head-start on my work, and ensure I have a balanced work load around due dates. In order to keep up with my progress, in my case, GPA, I will use blackboard, and keep up to date with my professors. To successfully reach my goal by the end of the semester, I will also take advantage of various support tools and

Directions: Read the scenarios about Benjamin and Clara. You will be using these scenarios and working in groups to practice writing SMART goals. Follow the steps described in this assignment sheet to write goals for the “S”, the “M”, the “A”, the “R” and the “T”. Your group will be asked to share your responses with the class. As a class we will modify the goals to create a set of SMART goals for Benjamin and Clara.

Something else I learned from completing this assignment was effective goal-setting. When we set goals, they should be:

The goals are a personal investment of my time, commitment, and effort in planning for my future. My goals represent a clear path with a timeframe to achieve my goals, such as completing my bachelor’s degree, attending workshops for advancing my technological skills, and obtaining a higher level position in my current workplace or finding new employment.

A successful person chooses goals to achieve something that is of great value and importance to them. This in turn motivates the person to achieve the goal because when the desired outcome is very important to a person, that person will be determined to persevere. Goal setting also improves a person 's organizational and time management skills because goal setting requires prioritization and that leads to the successful and sequential completion of necessary tasks. Once a person defines and prioritizes goals a plan should be drawn out detailing how this goal will be achieved. Goals and the time-line for their completion should be clearly defined, it is also important that a person 's

As it was described somewhere in this unit, SMART goals are good tools to be used in the realization or achieving our plans SMART stands for: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bounded. A smart goal will evidently decrease negative emotions such as irritation, upset or disappointment but instead will