Strategic Goal Setting

Hi everyone!

What a week! I hope you all are feeling happy and confident that you had the best week possible in your chase for college and future opportunities! With new semesters starting and the looming thought of new year's resolutions, I thought it would be the perfect time to talk about strategic goal setting!

 

Now this isn't your typical, "I want to get an A" goal setting. This is goal setting with focus and steps to help you achieve your goals and gain that feeling of accomplishment! Let's get started ...

1. Define your goal - What is it that you want to accomplish this week, semester, or year? Is it getting an A, is it gaining more followers on Youtube, or is it loosing weight? Whether it is academic-related or more personal, you need to accurately define this goal. Be specific in your goal. You need to quantify it so that you have something to aspire to.
2. Quantify your goal - Now that you know what you want to accomplish, it is necessary to put some numbers or some adjectives to it. So you want to get an A, great, but where do you want to get that A? In Bio? In Class Participation? Gym Class? ... etc. You want to get healthy, does that mean eating more salads or working out three times a week?  I don't know about you, but I am more likely to work out everyday if my goal is to lose thirty pounds, than if my goal is to "get healthier." Think about it and structure your goal so that taking steps to do it, will be easier. That brings us to ...
3. Make your procedure - How ya gonna do it folks? How are you going to map out your days and your weeks so that you have no choice but to succeed in accomplishing your goal? Your goal is to raise my GPA (1.), by increasing all of my classroom grades by five points (2.), and I am going to do this by a). using my commute to school to read my notes, b). stay after school twice a week to work in the library and meet with a teacher, c). locate one classmate who I can study with the week leading up to a test. These three procedures are all small, but very doable aspects of helping this student reach their goal.
   
   Your goal will seem more manageable when you break it down into actionable items that can be worked into your schedule easily.
   
   
   
   
   
4. Create Check-Ins - If you've ever seen The Biggest Loser on NBC or any of those weight-loss shows, you know that they do a check-in at the end of each episode to see what was lost. Make a check-in a regular part of your goal. For the student above, it could be checking on their grades in each class on Fridays, or if your goal is to increase your number of youtube followers, have a check in at the same time every two weeks. Once you know the numbers, think about what happened that week to help you reach your goal or give you a little setback. Use this as fuel to continue working towards your goal. If you fell off the wagon, then create a new procedure to counteract that until the next check-in. We are all human and we make mistakes, but what's important is to keep working hard to accomplish those goals that you have set!

Setting goals is a part of growing and improving to help us reach a better spot in life. Set yourself up for success by following those four steps so that once you are done with the semester, the year, or even this week. You know that you worked as hard as possible and did everything in your power to accomplish them!

What are the goals that you have set for yourself and how are you accomplishing them? Feel free to comment below or tag me on twitter at @Chasing_College.

enjoy the chase,

skylar

Life Update: I HAVE A JOB!

Hi everyone! I hope you all are having a great week - whether you're planning for college or grad school visits, preparing for entrance exams, or even just relaxing! For those of you who follow me on Instagram (@skylarclapperton) you know that I recently started a new job and for the rest of you who didn't know ... today I am going to talk about it!

So, anyone who has gone through the job search process knows how horribly time consuming and frustrating it can be. You have to continuously fill out applications, update your resume and cover letters, and hopefully travel for interviews. I am a goal setter ... I always haven been (examples here and here) and my reachable goal was to start a job by July 1st and thanks to Independence Day, I wasn't able to start until July 6th, but in my mind I kind of reached my goal!

My view every day at work ... incredible!

Nonetheless, I am very excited to announce that I accepted a position as an Assistant Director of Admissions with Hartwick College (yes, the same Hartwick College from the Northeast Road Trip)! A lot of times in my posts I will mention how important it is to find a college that fits your needs ... finding a place to work is no different. You want to be in a supportive environment where you are able to do what you love and still grow as a person. This is exactly what I believe I have found in this position at Hartwick.

What will I be doing you ask? Great question ... I will be traveling across the state recruiting fine students to attend Hartwick College, as well as, meeting with school counselors to talk to them about a Hartwick College education. I also meet with students when I am working in the office to do their Admissions Interview. Once the application season starts in the Fall, I will also be reviewing students' applications. There's also a lot of other day-to-day tasks like managing student workers and planning events with my colleagues. The position requires a lot of responsibility, but I am very excited for it and can't wait to see what the future brings!

One thing that I do want to mention to you all as my readers is that I purposely don't promote any university or college on this blog specifically because I have a day job. I never want this blog or my career to clash or be a conflict of interest in any way, so that is why (other than the Road Trip Series which promoted many various universities (with another disclaimer)) I don't like to talk about colleges and universities by name.

Please let me know if you all have any questions about my new job, I would love to answer them and I'd love to hear any of your job search stories too, so please share below! Have a great weekend everyone!!

enjoy the chase,

skylar