Author: Isha
In this blog post I am outlining ways you can make your goal setting experience a little easier and reasonable! These tips can apply to various types of goal setting related to school, extracurriculars, hobbies, and personal habits. With the nature of the pandemic, it can be difficult to be optimistic and set new goals, however improving your skills, and learning new things is something that can help keep you motivated and driven!
How can you understand if your goals are reasonable?
A reasonable goal is one that can be accomplished within an adequate amount of time. Now, not every resource is at your fingertips, so this means you can account for the time it will take to have enough information before you embark on your journey towards your goals. I also recommend talking to people who have taken a similar path. Networking can be a powerful tool to help you understand the different paths you can use to approach your goal. Learning of other people’s struggles and accomplishments along the way can prepare you for the fun and difficult times of the process.
Have a back-up plan.
It may be scary to think “what if my goals do not work out?” but this is an important question to ask yourself. Over the past year, uncertainty has been a common theme due to COVID-19. Personally, the biggest lesson I learned is to have contingency plans and keep different options open. It is important to have these options to fall back on in case something does not fall into place. Remember that settling for a second option does not mean you cannot reach your goal anymore. Settling with a different plan might give you more time to refine your goal and find better ways to reach those goals!
Have an action plan but be ready to change it along the way.
I recommend having an idea of what specific actions you need to take in order to reach your goal but avoid micromanaging the process as it could lead to unneeded frustrations. As time progresses the way you perceive and approach your goal may change. As a simple example, if your goal is to achieve a better grade in a class, you might want to pre-read before class, participate in class, and create good notes after class. Along the way, you might find certain concepts more difficult than others, so you might spend more time practising those areas. On the other hand, having a specific numeric grade set out for each test is unrealistic and can lead you to obsessing About the goal in an unhealthy way.
Your experiences may be different than expected, but that’s okay.
It is safe to say that many aspects of our life do not go as planned, as we experience unexpected events and obstacles. However, a part of reaching your goal is successfully overcoming those roadblocks, because the journey is really about learning and genuinely earning your way to reaching your goals!
