Imagine a game of soccer (or football) where you need to score goals to win, but there are no goal posts. You’re in a very competitive and high stakes game where every goal scored ensures your victory. You have the ball with you and you’re running around the field, but no matter where you go there is nowhere to score a point.
In academics and real life, failing to define when you have accomplished something is equivalent to not having goalposts in that hypothetical game. Without setting an objective, progress becomes harder to track, motivation feels draining, and a sense of responsibility disappears.
Setting Goals or Objectives
Setting goals gives meaning to the tasks at hand. They allow you to structure the work you’re doing so that every checkpoint you pass gives you clear identification about how close you are to finishing.
These goals also allow you to take a break, revise errors, and set new objectives if needed. When done correctly, goal-setting is equivalent to the Radius cycle of imagining → implementing → introspecting → improving. It is a highly valuable skill to have in complex tasks where inputs from many sources is necessary.
How to Set Good Goals or Objectives
An important aspect of effective goal-setting is using time limits. That is, setting a deadline or only allowing a certain number of hours on the task. This allows you to track progress and measure how difficult the task is, so that in your introspection/revision stage, you can plan more time for that goal.
A broader method to use in setting your goals is to make them SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound. As stated before, you want to have a direction that you are working toward. Ultimately every good goal that you set should have an answer to, “what am I aiming for?”
Goal-Setting Anchors Many Cognitive Skills
Goal-setting is an anchor to several other skills because it outlines what needs to be done (e.g., a good essay needs a skeleton/plan before you can start writing). Planning cannot occur without these defined objectives, time management cannot calibrate to the difficulty or complexity of the task, and self-monitoring collapses because you are working randomly. In executive function development, goal setting is an orienting system.
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Circle To Sphere educators know that it takes good planning and practice to stay ahead of school work and learning. You will learn how to assign importance, gain good habits, and set impactful goals. but it doesn’t just take a great objective to come out on top. Check back into the skills library to learn more.
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