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WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

James wants to be a history teacher. Stephanie dreams of being a newspaper reporter. Andy won’t be satisfied until he owns a car repair shop.

James, Stephanie and Andy have goals. They have something to work toward. Goals are clear ideas, plans, or purposes of what you would like to achieve.

The definite plans you have in life are your goals. They give you a picture of where you are going. They also help you show what you must do to get there. They also guide you in your use of time. As you achieve personal goals, your life becomes more interesting.

The greatest waste of our natural resources is the number of people who never achieve their potential. Get out of that slow lane. Shift into that fast lane. If you think you can’t, you won’t. If you think you can, there’s a good chance you will. Even making an effort will make you feel like a new person. Reputations are made by searching for things that can’t be done and doing them. Aim low: boring. Aim high: soaring.

Goals don’t come out of nowhere. Most of them come from dreams or hopes. For instance, you and your friends may dream of becoming wealthy or famous. Perhaps you have dreams of managing a business, travelling around the world, or writing a book. You may also have dreams that include owning a home, having a family of your own, and helping those less fortunate.

Goals can be short-term or long –term. Wanting to pass next week’s language test is a short-term goal. It can be achieved in the near future. Planning to major in business at the university is a long-term goal. It can be achieved further in the future.

It’s important to set both short-and long-term goals. Short-term goals, such as reading a book, cleaning your room, writing a letter, or learning more about computers, are easier to reach than long-term goals. By setting short-term goals, you feel good when you reach them and gain a sense of accomplishment.

Long-term goals can be made easier to achieve if they are divided into a series of short-term goals. For instance, if your goal is to attend summer camp, you can read about and compare different programmes. Then you could earn 30-40 hryvnias per week babysitting and save enough money to go to the camp of your choice.

You see, not everyone who sets goals reaches all of them. Perhaps you know people who have had the goals of becoming student body president, a city league baseball player, or leading person in the class play. If they were unable to reach their goals, there may be many reasons why. Ambilitious goals like these, as well as others you set, are more likely to be met if you have certain skills. The ability to make good decisions is one of these. Just making the right decisions, however, is not enough. You must also follow certain steps along the way. Let’s look at these.

1. Set you own goal. Although parents, friends, and relatives influence your goals, be sure that the goals you set reflect what is important to you. To achieve any goal you must be committed to it. You need to “own” a goal for it to be meaningful.

2. Develop a plan. For instance, just wanting to participate in the 10-kilometer run isn’t enough. Even though it is a fine goal, it won’t get you anywhere without a plan of action. Make each step of your goal count. Begin by setting up a healthful diet and exercise program. For the first week run a short distance every day. Then slowly increase your distance each week. With each new distance that you achieve, reward yourself. In that way you won’t get tired and bored, or fail to achieve your goal.

3. Carry out your plan. One way to do this is to keep the goal in your mind as much as possible. Try to visualize, or picture it. Also, write it down on paper. Maybe your goal states, “I want to be able to bench press 300 pounds, ” or “I want to become a veterinarian, ” or “I want to earn 750 hryvnias so I can buy a new stereo.” Whatever your goal, read it a aloud every morning and every night. Then devote the time and energy needed to make it come true. It’s up to you to make goals happen.

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Understanding what is important to you means knowing what you need and want. All human beings have certain needs. Needs are things that are essential. They are physical, emotional, mental and social. Your needs affect every decision that you make.

You have three basis physical needs: food, clothing and home. Your basic emotional needs include affection, security and safety, independence, belonging or acceptance, and achievement. Your desire to learn and experience the world around you is a mental need. Socially, you need to relate to other people, including family, friends, and acquaintances. Do you think all people feel the need for social contact in the same way?

When your needs aren’t met to some extent, you may not feel very confident. Therefore, making sure your needs are met is important to both health and happiness. This is true of your wants, too. Wants are things you desire to make life more enjoyable, and they may be related to many of your needs. For instance, wanting to dress like most of her friends is part Andrew’s need for belonging or acceptance. Andrew feels good about being able to buy a new stereo for himself. He feels good about it because it will help meet his need for achievement. Meeting both you physical and mental needs is necessary to have self-confidence.

And now let’s think of decision making as a series of steps. By following each of these step, you’ll learn to make decisions that will help you to achieve your goals.

1. Identify the problem. You need to be able to state the problem – to put it into words. It might be, “I am failing science.”

2. Examine your choices. There are usually several possible ways of dealing with your problem. For instance, “I could get a tutor, ” “I could study more, ” or “I could continue failing mathematics.” Look closely at the good and bad points of each available choice.

3. Make a choice. Consider your goals when you make your choice. For example, “I am going to study more so that I can pass my next chemistry test.” For many problems, it helps to make a step-by-step plan. Be as specific as possible. Your plan might include setting aside study time for science as well as a certain place to study.

4. Act on your decision. Carry it out to the best of your ability. If you plan to study chemistry or mathematics from 7: 00 to 7: 30 p.m. Sunday through Thursday nights at the kitchen table, then do so.

5. Evaluate your decision. Did you achieve your goal of passing the science test? Did you follow your plan? Was “studying more” the best choice for solving your problem? Answering questions such as these will help you make good decisions in the future.

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The decision-making process can help you with a specific problem. However, there will be times when you have several decisions to make and a lot of things to do. Often this happens when you’re busy. How can you possibly get it all done? How do you decide which things come first? Managing, or working out the best way to meet several goals, is a skill that can help you.

Proper management, combined with good decision making, can make goalsetting work for you. For instance, you have already decided how to work on passing the chemistry test, but you would like to do better in your other classes, too. In addition, you have other goals besides raising your level.

The management process can help you decide what is most important and relieve the frustration you feel when there is just too much to do. Here is how it works.

1. Planning. Making a plan requires two major steps. First, list both what you need and what you want to accomplish. Make sure your list is in order of importance. You might list, “I want to raise my marks”, “I want to be on the football team, ” and “I should practice my guitar each day if I’m going to stay in the school band.” Second, you need to decide on a time schedule for each item on your list. Planning involves thinking ahead in order to avoid conflicts. For example, tryouts for the football team are a month away. You may decide that running 45 minutes a day, four days a week, will help you get into condition. That will still allow you time each day for studying and playing the guitar.

2. Acting. Putting the plan into action is an easy step for some people, but a hard one for others. Remember that a plan without action won’t get you anywhere.

3. Controlling. This step helps you keep your plan working. It means checking the progress of the plan and making any needed changes along the way. For instance, “Because I didn’t pass my English test, I will add half an hour per day to my study schedule. I’ll have to cut my running down to half an hour three days a week until my English level improves.”

4. Evaluating. Checking on the effectiveness of the planning, acting, and controlling steps requires honesty. Determine what kind of job has been done and better ways to do it the next time. For instance, if you raised your marks, made the football team, and stayed in the school band, then your decisions were good and you managed them well. However, if you reached only the goal of raising your marks, you are still a success. You met your most important goal. If you aren’t pleased with the results of what you tried to accomplish, evaluate your goals and decisions. Make a new management plan and move forward.

Being a manager means facing number of challenges, or demands made on you by yourself or by others. Some are easy to deal with and some are not. For example, Mary’s boyfriend is a always pressuring her to skip studying so they can spend more time together. However, Mary has a definite goal of becoming a school counselor. She needs to do well in school so that she can go on to university.

Listen to you internal guidlines. They will help you to tell the difference between right and wrong. It is called conscience. It plays a great role when you deal with challenges that come your way. Most guidelines come from your family, religious beliefs and from the society you live in. Don’t act against your conscience! Then you are going to feel yourself really good and self-confident.