Help kids set SMART goals

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“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.” —Pablo Picasso

Last weekend I decided to attend a Vision 2020 transformational goal-setting workshop as an alternative to the new year resolution thing that I'm no longer about. For some time now it seems that I haven't been moving forward in a number of areas of my life, so, I committed to the workshop to see if I can get results by trying a different way in which to get unstuck from my stagnated state. Let's just say that since then, I've picked up and restarted work on a couple of projects that have been gathering dust in a folder for about a decade or so, because I decided I want to "live by design and not by default," as the facilitator Michelle Low Chew Tung, of LCT Consulting and Associates Ltd put it.

A vision, she said, is a must in order for me to get where I want to be in any area of my life. And creating a roadmap of SMART goals to getting me there is also necessary.

"Writing down specific visions and the goals," she explained, is where the magic begins. Anyone who knows me knows I'm all about writing things down. I religiously write down the things I plan to do every single day and take pleasure in ticking off the ones I actually get done. So I should have been on track, right? Wrong! Apparently I was writing down and ticking off day to day necessities without an end game in mind. I had no specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based goals. I was, in fact, living by default.

The more I think about it, the more I am able to pinpoint exactly where I went off course. And it has everything to do with a certain little 11-year-old who dominates all my time, drains my energy and finances and leaves me with very little of all three to commit to anything else. When we are young and don't have, as my grandmother used to say, "a parrot on a stick," we tend to have visions and the time, energy and resources to commit to getting there. And commitment is one of the key principles of goal-setting. When children come into the picture, however, it is much more difficult to stay focussed on our visions. I don't know about other parents, but over the years working, cooking and cleaning, dropping and picking up from daycare or school, extracurricular and social activities usually leaves me too exhausted to want to do anything extra at the end of the day. And it has been very, very costly. Not that I regret doing any of it.

But as expensive and time-consuming as it is, becoming a parent doesn't have to be a death sentence to visions and the achievement of goals. Resuming my projects, albeit for a week, has made me realise that because I'm passionate about them I've been able to find that "second wind" at some point during the day to commit some time and effort to start making the end result a reality. Realistically, I know that because I'm right smack into the lead-up to the Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) exam (yes, it feels like I'm the one doing it), I don't have a whole lot of time on a daily basis to inject into these projects. So I've set my goals in such a way that I can focus on each of them for an hour every day, with a plan to adjust and spend more time and effort after the SEA exam on April 2. The fact that I'm seeing progress everyday keeps me highly motivated even amid my fatigue, which is one of the benefits of setting goals.

Another good thing about setting goals is the fact that it's not only for adults.

"Goal-setting is something that should be taught from primary school level," I recall Low Chew Tung saying at the workshop.

I've since roped my son into proper goal-setting habits and, even though it has just been a week, I've seen a small improvement in his academic performance. I encouraged him to write down a list of daily tasks, all adding to the bigger picture, to which he has committed in order to keep him on track.

"When we are less committed to goals – particularly more challenging goals – we increase the likelihood of giving up. In the presence of strong commitment, there is a significant association between goals and performance; we are more likely to do what we intend to do," researchers Dr Edwin Locke and Dr Gary Latham said.

If I'm seeing improvement in such a short space of time, I'm thinking attending that workshop may have been a SMART decision because I have learned how to set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based goals that will ultimately take me to where I want to be in life – a valuable lesson I was able to pass on to my son.

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"Help kids set SMART goals"

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