Goal-Setting and Self-Improvement

Happy New Year!  I hope you all had a chance to relax and enjoy your Winter Break with friends and family, as well as earn some money with the extra time available to you.  Now that the break is over, it's time to get back to WBL.

When we return from break, we'll work on setting some realistic measurable goals for ourselves in the same way my daughter did with me over the past few weeks.  Check out my VE blog for the upcoming week for a detailed explanation of how I taught my daughter to accomplish a big goal over time. As a class, we will watch four videos about how to follow through with goals and then devise a plan to accomplish them over the course of the next four and a half months.  The goals we set in class can relate to personal accomplishments (ex: do 100 pushups in two minutes), professional growth (ex: earn a raise or promotion on your next performance evaluation), or school-related achievements (ex: graduate).

Regardless of the goals, there is a lot of preparation required.  You'll need to work on time management, techniques to keep your goals in the forefront of your mind, keeping periodic (daily? weekly?) records of your progress, and being able to work through adversity.  The things you've already learned about initiative, self-direction, and backward design will definitely help, but I've also prepared some videos from Tony Robbins for you to watch in class so that you can begin to get into the right frame of mind to setting and achieving these goals.  Below is a breakdown of what we will watch each day in class.  There will be simple blog assignments associated with the videos to make sure you actually record your plans properly.

Tuesday: How to Follow Through With Your Goals: Part 1
Wednesday: How to Follow Through with Your Goals: Part 2
Thursday: How to Follow Through with Your Goals: Part 3
Friday: How to Follow Through with Your Goals: Part 4

I realize my VE students will be watching these videos more than once, but this is actually a good thing.  My VE students can be relied upon to help contribute to the conversations and share some of the things other students discussed each class.  Further, their experience with these discussions will help provide a strong framework for how to conduct the class activity.

Get your pencils sharpened and get ready to work on making this semester your best it can be.  I'll see you in class on Tuesday!