Happy New Year! This is one of my favorite times of year, because I am a resolutions maker. If you’ve ever taken the habits quiz by Gretchen Rubin, I’m a classic Upholder, someone who keeps both inner and outer expectations (usually). In other words, I am a person who loves to create goals. (To find out your tendency for meeting expectations, you can take the quiz at https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/3706759/Gretchen-Rubin-s-Quiz-The-Four-Tendencies.)
This is a rather paradoxical character trait, as I have a passion for working with clients with executive dysfunction, those persons who struggle with managing themselves and their resources in order to achieve their goals. Executive functions are higher neurologically-based skills involving mental control and self-regulation. Possible resulting behaviors of executive dysfunction are an inability to plan and use time efficiently, difficulty organizing belongings, difficulty identifying problems and finding solutions.
For now, let’s just talk about the importance of setting goals, and how to do it. Goals give you a long-term vision of how you want to see your life unfold. That long-term vision should provide you with motivation in the short-term. For example, your middle-school child sets a goal of playing for his school’s basketball team. Therefore, he is more apt to shoot baskets instead of playing video games after school. Goals also provide focus for what we take the time to learn. We are constantly bombarded with information, but if our goal is to learn Italian, then we will more likely study the language instead of scroll through social media. As you can see from the above examples, goals help us to organize and prioritize our time and our resources to make the most of our lives.
Nevertheless, the act of setting goals can be daunting. Most experts suggest setting SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. For example, I want to post one calligraphy project on Instagram (specific, measurable and attainable) monthly (time-bound) in order to improve my skills (relevant). It should be noted that some goals are achievable in the sense that they can be crossed off a list (I will get an A on my upcoming math test) whereas others are ongoing (I will only eat sugar on special occasions.) In both cases, it is important to think about your long-term goal (I want to get into the college of my choice. I want to be a healthy person). However, you will have more lapses with the latter type of goal because there is no end-point. We have to recognize this possibility, focus on the long-term goal, forgive ourselves when we fail, and start again. The point is that the long-term goal is our compass.
As a final note, goals are very personal. We should not be creating goals for our children. We should help our children to create their own SMART goal, write it down, remind them of their goal (maybe with a note on the fridge; not through nagging), and perhaps create a daily chart for accountability. Carol recalls an article she read about a man with many accomplished children. He claimed the key to his parenting success to be the fact that he asked each of his children to identify their goal for the month, and then reminded them that he would help them if they needed assistance.
By the way, the calligraphy goal is really on my resolutions list. Now that I’ve just made it public, I’ve created an accountability factor. Be creative; goal-setting can be fun!
LeeAnne Fura, MS, CCC/SLP