College Goal Setting Tips for Veterans
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Setting and achieving goals are the most underestimated skills for success in college and quite possibly, for overall success in life. The results of poor goal setting and lowered achievement skills are lack of motivation, lack of direction and poor academic performance. Poor goal setting can also lead to low grades, academic frustration and ultimately may lead to dropping out of college. Postmilitary.com wants to help you become the complete college student, but the first step in getting there is to establish your college goals.
Identify Your GoalsThe first step in establishing your college goals is to isolate three short-term and two long-term goals related to your college studies that you would like to accomplish. Clearly outlined goals identify things that you desire and provide you a clear direction to accomplishing those goals.
For example, three short-term goals are to increase study time an hour each day, to find a calculus tutor and to start your English research paper early. Long-term goals are to end the semester on the Dean’s list and to find a summer internship. By breaking your goals into short-term and long-term, you can now see them as separate goals, not one giant goal.
The better you become at breaking your goals down and getting more in depth, the more goals you will see yourself accomplishing each year. Now that you have the goals broken down, you need to write them down.
Devise a Plan of ActionNow that you have selected your goals and solidified them, it is time to develop your plan of action. College goals differ from, financial or personal goals because without a clear, detailed plan of action, it is easy for you to get sidetracked and loose momentum.
Identify the steps or tasks that you must accomplish that lead to your goal and write these down as well. You must achieve these steps, or mini-goals, in order to reach a larger goal. This is just like how you should break your goals down into short-term and long-term.
The most effective plans of action outline time tables in reaching each milestone, or goal, and even go further in identifying pitfalls or road blocks that may arise and mitigation strategies so you do not loose any valuable momentum.
Review Your GoalsNow that you are working hard to reach your goals, it is important to review your progress. There is little point setting goals, unless you review them regularly. This is critical. Reviewing your progress allows you to see if you have taken the necessary steps to achieve your goals and assess your progress.
More importantly, you can now make the necessary adjustments to your plan if, and when, needed. As holds true in many other disciplines, the philosophy of "little and often" usually gains you the best results.
Reviewing your goals as often as weekly will allow you to get in a routine of monitoring them. This will further steer your progress, requiring just minimal effort and time.
Establish New GoalsAs you move forward and accomplish your academic goals, it is always important to establish new goals after you hit the old ones. After you find your calculus tutor and ace your math class, establish a new goal!
Do this with both the short-term and long-term goals that you have set and aim to reach between eight to 12 goals per academic year. You must establish new goals after you achieve your old ones because it will help keep you motivated and keep your momentum up.
Goal setting and achieving is a life-long learning process. It is the strongest skill set to master for those wishing continuous success in everything they do. When you do not reset your goals, the feelings of achievement stop and stagnation, aimlessness and frustration often take over as motivation fades and your momentum runs out. Like anything that you repeat enough, goal setting and reviewing your goals becomes habitual.
You are on Your WayGoal mastery and goal setting are important skills that will stay with you forever if you learn to use goals in every aspect of your professional and personal career. Setting your academic goals is important because college is one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences in your life.
At Postmilitary.com we wish you the best down the road to academic and professional success, but start setting and monitoring your academic goals today!
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