Tag: Goals

Setting Goals to Graduate

0

If you’re a nontraditional student, you already have the overarching goal of getting your degree. The next step is to turn that aspiration into something you can actually achieve.

Going at it every day with just the big, abstract goal of “get degree” will not serve you well. That doesn’t mean it isn’t admirable. Nontraditional students face more hardships than the average student. That’s exactly why you need to go about reaching success in a systematic and process-oriented way.

You’ll notice the word “goals” in the title is plural. That’s because I’m suggesting you create many little achievable milestones during your studies. This process will keep you motivated and will help you track your progress as you turn pages in your calendar towards graduation day.

Big Goal Problems

Large, abstract goals are the enemy of the nontraditional student.

When goals aren’t clear, it’s impossible to tell if the work you’re doing is leading to the achievement of that goal. When goals aren’t precise, there’s no way to guarantee that scheduled tasks will lead to success.

I think the worst is the problem with motivation. Massive goals take a long time to achieve. Without creating manageable mini-goals within the larger project, you’ll end up feeling like you’re working and working but never getting anywhere.

Make Smaller Goals

By no means should you lose sight of the larger goal of graduating. But in order to get there, you’re going to have to focus on smaller projects.

By thinking about your degree as a series of tasks to accomplish, you’ll be able to stay motivated and you’ll feel good about yourself as you move along.

Your program will offer you an easy starting point for creating smaller goals. Passing each class can be one goal in itself. Take a look at your curriculum. As you plan out which classes you’ll take, imagine each of them to be one stepping stone along the path.

There’s other ways to create goals that will help you. Maybe you’ll want to set a goal to study for two hours after dinner every night. Or maybe you’ll choose to set a goal of writing a certain number of pages toward your senior thesis every week.

The Three Qualities of Goals

No matter how you choose to break down your big goal into smaller ones, remember that these goals need to have three qualities. They need to be:

  • Achievable
  • Realistic
  • Specific

Make sure you’re creating reasonable goals for yourself. Setting a goal of reading ten chapters in a week is not realistic. Setting a goal of five essays per week is probably not realistic for most nontraditional students.

The trick here is to push yourself to your limit, but not beyond it. If you set your goals too easy, you’re not doing anything to better yourself. You may be able to get your degree that way, but it will feel shallow. On the other hand, if you set them too high you’ll constantly fail at task after task. It’s unfortunately easy to fall into a spiral of failure, especially if you let it become a habit.

Specific goals will help the most to keep you on track. Setting a goal to read every day is not nearly as helpful as setting a goal to read chapters 10, 11, and 12 by next Friday. The more specific you can be, the more likely your goals will actually be helpful in your endeavor.

So those are my thoughts this week on surviving as a nontraditional student. I’ve been researching goal setting and time management pretty regularly since I went back to school, trying to set myself up for success. I hope this helps you, too.

Leave a comment and let me know what kind of goals you’re setting for yourself.

Categories Tags , , , , , , , ,

Stay Focused on the Destination

0

Raise your hand if you’ve heard this one…

“Success in life is found in the journey, not in the destination.”

I would attribute a source, but I think I made that one up based on a collection of like a million different variations from just as many sources.

Search engines retrieve tons of different variations on that quote. It’s not always about success. Often it’s about “Life” or “Lessons” or some other noun that is abstract and easily applicable to everyone.

The actual value of sayings like this one is debatable. On one hand, it’s so simple and abstract that it’s crossed over into being meaningless. Attempting to take it at face value is shallow and lazy.

On the other hand, it’s so simple and abstract that it can be interpreted in many ways. This allows an active reader to make it personal and therefore more effective. The opportunity to insert an original definition for “success” and “journey” and “destination” can make it meaningful and inspiring.

I enjoy seeing quotes like these throughout social media. They make me smile. I like that others are attempting to brighten someone’s day or inspire a friend. When I have the time, I use them as mental exercises to work on how I interpret the world and view my own goals and challenges.

This one has a fundamental flaw. It devalues the act of goal setting.

We all have goals. Maybe you’re trying to lose twenty pounds, get your college degree, or find a new career. It’s great to have goals because they demonstrate a desire for growth. If the goals aren’t specific, they at least still show someone wanting to avoid stagnancy. In short, goals help us get off our butts.

I don’t want to undervalue the journey. Larger projects, such as my desire to finish my college degree, will have to account for larger journeys. In my case, the process will include individual classes, time spent studying, planning courses, and managing time. What makes it a journey is that there will inevitably be challenges that I can’t prepare for. I’ll question my ability when times get tough. I’ll push through when I don’t have the energy. I’ll change course when the unexpected becomes reality.

Lessons learned during the journey need to be applied somewhere. Otherwise, they aren’t lessons. They’re just good ideas.

Without a destination you’re just wandering around. You’ll never learn anything if you’re not looking for something. You don’t even have to be sure what you’re looking for. Maybe your goal is still abstract and you haven’t scaled it down to something achievable. Having a rough idea of a direction is still better than meandering aimlessly, because at least some of the lessons will end up being applicable to you.

By all means, enjoy the journey. Embrace the challenges. Wander off the well-worn path a few times. But try not to forget where you’re going along the way.

What do you think? Do you enjoy focusing on your destinations? Or do you have a different opinion on the value of journeys? Leave a comment. I’d love to get a discussion going!

Categories Tags , , , , , ,

Downsides of the To-Do List

0

Before I dive into this post, I want to point out that I wholeheartedly do advocate the use of To-Do lists. My experiences with using them have been incredibly positive. My life became more organized. I’ve been able to accomplish more tasks which will eventually lead me to reach my goals.

There are two reasons why I wanted to do a post featuring the downsides of To-Do lists, despite my feelings towards them. The first is that the early days of my adopting this process were incredibly difficult. I gave up many times. This is my opportunity to discuss what went wrong and why it was detrimental to my progress. The second reason I want to write about the downsides is that not everyone will benefit from this practice. If you know yourself well, then exploring the downsides may save you a lot of time and grief.

Here are three major downsides to using To-Do lists. These are problems that I experienced while figuring out how to incorporate using To-Do lists in my daily life. I’ll also include the ways I was able to get around them.

Too Much Stuff

You may be considering adopting the regular use of To-Do lists because you have a lot going on and feel like it needs to be organized. That is great initiative. Go you! So you buy a notebook or download an app and fill in every single task that needs to be done. You even sit back and think through every aspect of your day, add in chores you nearly forgot, and double check that everything is there.

Yikes! That’s a long list!

This practice makes it easy to feel like you’ll never get it all done. There’s simply too much for one person to ever do. You might start tackling one item at a time, but eventually you’ll either fail or give up before you get a chance to fail.

When I got started with keeping a To-Do list, a long list like that was a quick way to guarantee that I’d grab a drink and play games on my phone for two hours. Because if failure is inevitable then why even start?

Though I later found a way to incorporate the long list of everything, I had to eliminate it in the early stages. Getting away from feeling defeated before you even start can be solved by one quick fix.

Don’t write it all down!

Start off by creating lists designed for one day at a time. Only write down the tasks you absolutely must accomplish. If there is time left over in the day to do more, great! Add it on when you have time. But start with a short, reasonable list.

No Prioritization of Tasks

When everything is listed together in one line, there is no discerning between what is important and what is trivial. They all receive the same weight when there is no differentiation from one task to another.

Do you ever give laundering socks the same amount of attention as working on an essay for a class? Is putting the clean dishes away equally as important as remembering to go to a doctor’s appointment?

When we give everything equal value visually, we struggle to complete the tasks that should be given a higher priority. You need to be the one who decides what priority a task has. Maybe you base this on your goals and values. Or maybe some tasks on your list are time sensitive. Then it’s up to you to act on completing tasks that rank higher for you.

I was able to accomplish this by putting my tasks with highest priority on a separate list. I call it my Dailies. These tasks are the ones that will eventually lead to bigger things. For example, my Dailies includes journaling, homework, and essential chores. I designed it so that it doesn’t take up my entire day, leaving me an opportunity to work in other tasks that need to be done, too.

You may want to try my method. Or you may want to try color coding your tasks. Or maybe you’ll have better luck by blocking off tasks on a calendar, giving stronger visual cues to tasks.

Whatever it takes, make sure your priorities come first. No matter how satisfying it is to cross a trivial task off your list.

Leftovers Leave You Feeling Guilty

Seeing a bunch of tasks still listed at the end of the day is painful. It’s easy to beat yourself up when not everything gets done. You might feel inadequate. You might feel like a failure.

Much like listing too many tasks, this is a common place to want to quit. I know I quit a few times because the leftovers drove me insane. It happened to me often enough that I tried to figure out why it kept repeating.

Sometimes it was because I overscheduled myself. You need to remember when creating your To-Do list that the tasks take time. Be honest about how much time they will take. Give yourself some flexibility between tasks.

Other times I had items left on my To-Do list because I was being inflexible. Surprises happen. Emergencies happen. Life can take you away from your day. When this happens, you need to learn how to let go. You don’t have control over everything, and you never will. To-Do lists can make you feel like you’re in control, but that will not always be the case.

If you’ve experienced any downsides with your To-Do list, leave a comment! I’d love to get a discussion going about problems with this habit and how we can solve them.

Categories Tags , , , ,