A saying attributed to the French writer, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, is this: “A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
Goal-setting is an important skill, as a goal articulates your specific vision of an achievement, condition, or experience in the future. Articulating a goal is the first step toward achieving it; once you identify the goal, you can create an action plan identifying specific steps you can take to achieve that goal.
However, articulating goals is not always easy. You may have a wish that, in five years, you’ll be in a position of more importance at work. This is simply a wish; it’s not yet a goal. To be a goal, the statement needs to be SMART:
S – Specific
M – Measurable
A – Achievable
R – Relevant
T – Time-Bound
The following tools may help you think about and articulate your goals. If one or more of these resources resonate with you, use them. If not, then seriously engage in thinking about goals on your own by asking and answering the SMART goals questions.
SMART Goals Questions
| S | Specific | What exactly do I want to accomplish? Why? Who do I need to get involved, if anyone, in accomplishing this goal? What resources will I need? What roadblocks, if any, do I need to plan for? |
|---|---|---|
| M | Measurable | How will I know when I’ve accomplished this goal? What specific criteria will I use to determine completion? |
| A | Achievable | Is the goal realistic given the situation in which I’m pursuing it? Can I identify specific steps toward accomplishing this goal? |
| R | Relevant | Is this goal related to something important to me? Is it worthwhile to spend time working toward this goal? |
| T | Time-Bound | What’s the timeframe in which I need to accomplish this goal? What time should I devote to each step toward the goal? |
Goal Setting Tools
- Goal Setting (from Iowa State University’s Academic Success Center)
- Writing Great Specific Goals. This article from ThoughtCo. provides tips on how to write goals in a way that can help you implement them.
- Personal Goal Setting. Mindtools.com is a business-oriented website that contains useful information on setting SMART goals
- Basic Goals Worksheet to help you articulate your academic goals, from Iowa State University’s Academic Success Center
- More Sophisticated Goals Worksheet on SMART goal setting, from Iowa State University’s Academic Success Center
- Writing Great Specific Goals – provides tips on how to write goals in a way that can help you implement them
- Personal Goal Setting – a business-oriented web page that contains useful information on setting SMART goals
- The Edupunk’s Guide to a DIY Credential. There’s good information on goals in these sections: “How to Write a Personal Learning Plan” (pgs. 9-12) and “What do you like? What do you want to be? Where do you want to go?” (pgs. 21-22).
initial learning activity
Identify a goal that you’d like to achieve. It can be a goal related to your academic work, professional work, or life circumstance. Make sure that it’s a SMART goal (e.g., a goal of “achieving my degree” is not necessarily SMART, as it may be too general). Also, for the sake of this learning activity, make sure that it’s a goal that is achievable within a relatively short time frame (2-3 weeks).
Once you identify your SMART goal, create an action plan for achieving that goal. Write your steps and timing for each of those steps toward that goal. Also write the criteria you’ll be using to measure your achievement of each step and your overall achievement of the goal.
Then, enact your steps.
Finally, at the end of your timeframe, write a short reflection (4-5 pages) on your experience of working toward your goal. Did you move through every step as expected? If so, to what do you attribute that? If not, why not? Did you achieve your ultimate goal? What can you do the next time you set a goal to ensure that it’s enacted in the way you plan?
Submit:
- SMART goal
- action plan
- reflective essay
in-depth learning activity
Read one of the articles below. Both articles were published in an academic journals, and both are available in full text from ESC’s library.
- “New Directions in Goal-Setting Theory,” an article in Current Directions in Psychological Science, provides an overview of goal theory and can provide some interesting concepts to consider, especially in the section on “Advances in Goal Theory.”
- “Understanding the Role of Personal Best (PB) Goal Setting in Students’ Declining Engagement: A Latent Growth Model,” an article in the Journal of Educational Psychology, provides results of research studies on adolescent students who were coached in setting Personal Best goals. Note that the article offers specific, numeric results. It’s okay if you don’t understand these fully; focus on the beginning and the end of the article (the Discussion section), which offer main concepts.
Write a brief essay (4-5 pages) based on the chosen article, using one of the following options:
Option 1
- Summarize the article’s main ideas.
- Apply a concept in the article to a real situation in which you were involved, or that you observed, involving goal setting. Explain fully how the concept applies to the real situation.
- Analyze the concept. Do you agree or disagree with the concept, based on your experience or observation? Why?
Option 2
- Identify the knowledge, skills, and competencies that the author/s needed to have in order to write the article.
- Apply those competencies to your own situation as an academic writer and as a reader of the article. Which of the competencies are you comfortable with, and which do you think you need to develop?
- Analyze how you might further develop one of these competencies. Be specific in your analysis.
Submit:
- essay on one of the options
Related college Learning Goals
Active Learning: Assess and build upon previous learning and experiences to pursue new learning, independently and in collaboration with others.
For more information, see the College Learning Goals Policy.