Setting Achievable Goals

Are you getting stuck designing goals for your child’s homeschool curriculum? Or are you an adult learning to deal with work or school goals at home due to pandemic conditions?

As anyone who has ever set a New Year’s Resolution (and utterly failed to keep it) can tell you, goal-setting is harder than it looks. In fact, studies have shown that about 80% of New Year’s Resolutions fail. Typically, no matter how committed you feel when you set your goal, something always seems to get in the way - be it work, family commitments, or even lack of resources.

The secret to achieving your goal doesn’t lie in quitting your job, ignoring your family, or magically winning the lottery, however. The secret is really to set an achievable goal in the first place! But what does an achievable goal look like? Here’s a list of strategies to help you and your child avoid the common pitfalls of goal-setting:

Make sure the scope of your goals fit into your schedule. If you need 4 hours of work per week to achieve your goal, but you only have 2 hours per week to dedicate to your goal, you probably won’t achieve what you want. To avoid simply giving up, try paring down your goal by making it shorter or less complex. Or, look for ways to free up additional time.

Work toward only 1-2 large goals per quarter. When you try to do everything at once, you typically end up accomplishing very little. For example, you might tackle large History & Math projects this quarter and save your Reading & Art projects for next quarter.

Set and recognize goal milestones. Pre-decide when you will know that your project is 25%, 50% and 75% complete - and make the time to let that progress sink in, whether that means rewarding yourself or your child with a special treat or a simple acknowledgement of a job that’s closer to being done.

There is a wealth of literature out there about how to set and achieve goals, but making your goals achievable is the lynchpin in the entire system. Whether the goal is for yourself or your child, if you make time for progress in your day, focus on 1-2 large goals per quarter, and pre-decide when to acknowledge the work that’s been done, you’re well on your way to doing and achieving more.