Setting goals is a way to keep our attention focused on aiming toward that highest personal potential. This happens because a goal helps you direct your energy. The situation is analogous to driving a car. If you have a destination in mind, you can use the car's energy to cope with most barriers to your progress. For example, if the road is blocked, you can choose to turn off the engine and save gasoline while you wait for the road to be reopened, or you can choose to drive the car on an alternate route. Through these planned responses to the environment, you will eventually arrive at your destination. However, if you begin driving with no destination in mind, you are likely to randomly change direction each time you encounter a barrier. As a result, while your car used just as much gasoline as in the previous situation, your odds of arriving at a desirable destination are small while your odds of becoming completely lost are great. 

Similarly, when you have a clear life or career goal, you can direct your energy toward attaining that goal and avoid scattering your energy in other directions. You can start planning steps to take to attain your goal and begin avoiding unconscious steps away from it. For instance, if your career goal is to become a buyer for a large retail store, it would be a logical step to take an entry level job as a sales clerk, but it would not be logical to take a job working on an assembly line, even if the latter job paid better. Of course, as with driving to a destination, directing your energy toward a goal does not mean you will not have to make detours or encounter delays. 

Moreover, if you are goal directed, you will now that you charted this course yourself. You will have a sense of being in control. In addition, having a goal clearly in mind enables you to know when you have succeeded. This seems obvious, but it is an important benefit of goal setting. "Success" is a term that most people use but never really define in their own minds. As a result, a person can accomplish many tasks, receive many promotions, earn lots of money, be recognized with awards and still not feel "successful." Often, this is because they do not know what "success" is , they have never developed a personal definition for the term. Setting goals is a way of defining "success" for yourself, of defining it in a way that allows you to recognize your own accomplishments, to be proud of them and to be motivated to set new goals and strive for new successes. In other words, you gain a sense of being a success. Setting goals is also a necessary step if you want to be successful in the portfolio development process, if you want to create a portfolio that can help you earn credit for specific courses. In this case, goals are necessary because they will guide you and direct your efforts as you write your portfolio. As a result of preparing your Chronological Record and your Life History paper, you probably realize that you cannot write about all of your experiences in detail. You need to sort through the myriad of experiences. Your life/career goals are the starting point for this sorting process. This is how it should work. Once you have your life/career goals in mind, you can select the college degree that is most likely to help you achieve them. With this degree goal established, you can examine the courses required for the degree, and decide which ones cover topics that match your learning from experience. Then you can sort through your experiences and focus on the ones that yielded relevant learning. This entire process will be covered in much greater detail later in the workbook, but the point to remember is that the process begins with clear goals. 

One phase of this self-analysis involves becoming aware of your own values , of what is important to you, of what makes you happy. When people list their values, they usually include such things as money, leisure time, security, independence, social status, helping others, and so forth. However, the priority individuals assign to a particular value varies from person to person. White one person may value money above all else, another may value leisure time most. 

Being aware of what you value most enables you to match these values to the types of rewards - and costs - that are common in a particular career field. For example, a career in sales often yields an above average amount of money. However, such a career frequently has less status than some other fields. On the other hand, a career as a doctor provides a great deal of status, but doctors forfeit a significant amount of leisure time. In the process of examining your own values, you must decide what you want and what you are willing to sacrifice in order to get it. The classroom activities and discussions will help you with the values clarification process. 

Unless you are already very certain about your career goals, you will need to give some special thought to this area. As you set these goals, in addition to understanding your own values you should also be aware of your interests, of what attracts and holds your attention. Once you know your interests, you can begin to look for a career that allows you to earn money for doing tasks similar to those you would choose to do for fun. A professional baseball player is obviously someone who has found a way to match his livelihood to his interests. A less obvious example of the same sort of well planned matching is the person who loves to solve puzzles and makes a living de-bugging computer programs. In other words, like the people in these examples, you should look for a way to get paid for doing something you would not mind doing for free! 

However, while taking into account your values and interests, you must also honestly analyze your abilities. From past experience, you know what you can and cannot do. Now you need to know whether you lack certain skills simply because you were never trained in them, or whether your lack aptitude in that area. Perhaps you can figure this out on your own; but, if you cannot, the campus Counseling Offices can help you with placement tests. 

If there are areas in which you have aptitude but require training, you must decide how much time, energy, and money you are willing to devote to getting this training. This decision will affect your career goal. For instance, you may have an aptitude for clinical psychology, have a keen interest in the field, and value helping others. However, you may not be willing or able to spend the many years it takes to get the training required to be licensed as a therapist. Instead, you may want to pursue a two-year degree in Human Services or Substance Abuse Counseling. The idea is that you must decide how much time you can spend developing your skills and set your goals accordingly. 

How much time you can spend depends on your needs and wants, the final factor to analyze as you set your goals. As an adult, you have responsibilities to meet your own basic survival needs and, perhaps, the needs of others. You must temper your goal setting accordingly. However, be sure to do this tempering with the long-range picture in mind. It may be worth living frugally for a year or two to give yourself and your family a much better life later. 

1. Perform the self-analysis discussed in the preceding paragraphs.

 
2. Based on this self-knowledge, formulate your long-term goals, that is decide what you want your life to be like five or ten years from now.

 
3. Set short-term goals - goals for the next few months or next year. These goals should lead logically to your long-term goals and serve as stepping stones. (For example, short-term goals of securing a job as a retail clerk and pursuing a degree in mid management retailing would be stepping stones to a long-term goal of becoming a buyer.) 

 
4. Identify and develop resources to help you achieve your goals. For example, the College's Cooperative Education office might be a resource to help you find a job in a new field.

 
5. Write a Goals Paper.

 

 

(1) What are your values? 
(2) How do you know or how did you decide? 
(3) What are your interests? 
(4) What abilities do your have? 
(5) What skills do you need to develop? 
(6) What are your needs and wants? 
(7) What current responsibilities are affecting your choice of goals? 
(8) What plans have you made to help you achieve your goals?
(9) What resources have you located. 

For some people, what they value is defined narrowly as money and material possessions, while others define what they value in terms of personal harmony or inner peace. The possibilities are infinite and unique to each person. To explore the relationship of what you value to money and other factors, identify in the space below ten sources of pleasure in your life: 

1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

6. 

7. 

8. 

9. 

10. 

After each item which is contingent on money, place a "$;" after each item which requires sharing with other people, place a "P;" after each item which you want to experience more fully with greater frequency, place an "!." Study your list; a pattern should emerge which suggests something of your unique values.

Once you have focused on what is and what is not of value to you, you can begin setting goals that are compatible with those values. As you set your goals, think about and assess where you are now and where you want to be, and what the gap is between those points. Then set goals for yourself that are:

 
1. Believable - Make certain that the goals are something that you really want, that will make you happy and are realistic.

 
2. Measurable - The goals should be set so that you can recognize if or when they are achieved. 

 
3. Achievable - Impossible dreams really are not goals. Goals should be stated so that they can be attained in a reasonable period of time. Later, the achieved goal can be replaced with another.

Keeping the above guidelines in mind - believable, measurable, and achievable - write a goals paper that emphasizes a future orientation versus the emphasis on your life up to this point described in the Life History section of your portfolio which was your "past." In one to two typed pages portray your hopes and aspirations - your goals. A sample Goals Paper will follow this section. 

Since then, I have contemplated the direction of my life and decided to assume more control over it. That is why I returned to college for my bachelor's degree. I want to create options for myself, to have the ability to set the path I want to follow. To start this process, I have divided my goals into two sections: short-term and long-term. 

Short-term Goals (to be completed in 1 to 3 years): 

1. Register for college courses that will enable me to become a State certified teacher and stay within the George Mason University BIS degree program requirements.

 
2. Pursue every opportunity to travel, especially to those places where I can augment my cultural understanding of people regionally or internationally.

 
3. Expand my reading to encompass unfamiliar subject matter to reduce the "tunnel vision" tendency.

 
4. Save and invest my earnings wisely to prepare for retirement.

 
5. Assist my children to become independent, productive adults and to encourage them to always further their educations.

 
1. Maintain marketability in my computer skills and acquire an education which will expose more options, should my current job not accommodate advancement or expand in scope.

 
2. Obtain my college degree in 5 to 6 years.

 
3. Continue to broaden my personal enrichment through diversifying my travel, reading and contact with others outside my normal scope of activity.

 
4. Maintain a warm and healthy relationship with my children as adults.

 
5. Retire debt free in 20 years.

 
6. Work to preserve the friendships that have meant so much through the years.