Horizon Point Consulting

Author: Mary Ila Ward

Goal Setting for Students

I’ve always been a list maker. I love to make a list at the end of each work day, so I can draw a red line through item after time the following work day. And, by the way, I don’t just do this for work. I do it for everything: grocery list, kid’s activities for the week, Christmas shopping list, cleaning for the week and the list goes on and on. I’m the queen of lists.
That being said, even though I’m a list maker, I’m still not as organized as I would like to be. But, when I began the process of quarterly goal setting and implemented a weekly tracking process, organization and my life ran much smoother.

I believe this process can not only be valuable in a person’s career, but is a great tool to help students become more organized and, long term, be ready for college or career. What a great habit to begin as a high school student?

First things first words written on the chalkboard

To quote Stephen Covey, first things first, developing a mission statement is a great way to get on the right track. Check out Developing a Personal Mission Statement to prevent stress and burnout and Power of 3 – Mission and Purpose to help you develop a mission statement. Then, you are in a great position to begin your quarterly goal setting. You can begin this most any time of year, but I suggest beginning on January 1 or in the summer before the upcoming school year. Develop 3 or 4 goals for the quarter. Then, document how you will achieve those goals. This will help you as you begin entering action items into you weekly tracking spreadsheet.

Even if you are very disciplined, it is great to have an accountability partner. So, grab a friend and begin the process together. How great will it be to be entering your senior year of high school and already be on the right track for college or career? You could have your portfolio complete, applications completed to your top college choice, job shadowing experience and even taken the ACT for the fourth time. You will be leaps and bounds ahead of some of your classmates.

Check out our Goal Setting Worksheet to help you get started.

January 27, 2015
Goal Setting – Feedback

I want to round out the goal setting discussion by focusing on the importance of feedback. To illustrate, feedback has played a critical role in a current client business coaching engagement.  To begin the coaching process this past summer, we employed a 360° feedback mechanism to help set priorities for the client’s development.  Feedback was first necessary to set goals and priorities.

Based on areas for improvement, we developed four questions that she asks herself each and every day.  These are all “yes” or “no” questions.  (As example, a question I ask myself every day is “Did I do something to develop new business today?”  because one of my goals for the year is revenue growth.)  She has them posted by her computer and we begin each session by going through those questions, regardless of the focus of that particular session.  This is a simple personal feedback mechanism that was set in place to hold herself accountable.

Finally, providing feedback to her subordinates is important to this client’s development as a leader.  She is already good at providing feedback and motivation to her team, but her business has grown large enough that she needs (and desires) to have a process in place that helps her provide ongoing feedback for development and evaluation.

At every step in the process, feedback has played a critical role in establishing success.

What feedback mechanisms do you use to personally hold yourself accountable or those you lead accountable?

For more insight, check out New Year’s Resolutions 101: Don’t Put The Cart Before The Horse.

**This post originally appeared on Horizon Point Blogpost January 30, 2012.

January 22, 2015
Career Change for Athletes

A career as an athlete is something many dream about, but only a small percentage of those who dream of playing a sport actually make that dream come true.
After your “glory days” or maybe after you begin a family, you may consider a career change. Regardless of whether you have an injury that forces you to consider a new career or if you are just ready to get out of the game, where do you begin? What’s your next move?

There are several careers that allow you to be in the sports arena, just in a different capacity. If you are a motivator and love kids, you can consider being a teacher/coach. A career as a high school teacher allows you to motivate and teach kids and you can consider coaching as a supplemental income. Check out Career Spotlight: High School Teacher to learn more. According to ONET, coaches and scouts are in demand.

High School Basketball Team Having Team Talk With Coach

Do you enjoy writing? Sports journalists who are former athletes are always a favorite among readers. What a great way to share your love of the game and personal experience with others. Check out Best. Job. EVER.: Sports Journalist to read about this cool career. Sports broadcasting is another option in the journalism area. Check out Education Portal to learn more.

LOS ANGELES, CA – June 13, 2014. NBC Sports announcers sitting outside the LA Staples Center before Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

A career as an athletic trainer is another option for former athletes. Check out the following sites for salary information and more details:

ONET

ExploreHealthCareers

Education Portal

Regardless of what career you currently have, if you are itching to make a change, examine the following as you begin:

What is missing from what I do now that I want to be able to do on a regular basis? What skills do I need to use on a regular basis to bring satisfaction?

What is it that I do now that I want to continue to be able to do? What skills that I want to continue to use are transferrable to other careers?

What type of environment do I enjoy working in?

What careers match with the skills and abilities I want to use and are also in line with my work values?

A career assessment may help you with these questions. We can help you with an in-depth assessment that examines your personality and desired skills and abilities or you can take a free one here.

January 20, 2015
Goal Setting – Diminishing Returns

In my last post, I talked about the importance of goal commitment when setting goals for yourself and/or those you lead.

Today, I want to discuss the law of diminishing returns and how it relates to goal setting. I have honestly thought about a dozen different things that I want to focus on for the New Year, have you? The law of diminishing returns tells us that the more goals we set, the less likely we are to achieve them. One goal distracts from another, leaving us less likely to accomplish anything.

From a personal perspective, one way to avoid this is to have a mission statement (see the January 2^nd post) and make sure that any goal you set is related to that purpose. Another way is to answer two questions that Stephen Covey advocates for asking in his chapter on “Principles of Personal Management” in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. They are:

Question 1: “What one thing could you do (you aren’t doing now) that if you did on a regular basis, would make a tremendous positive difference in your personal life?”

Question 2: “What one thing in your business or professional life would bring similar results?” (pp 146)

These can be very simple things. The key is, there are only two actions or goals and they are done regularly (see last week’s post on changing behaviors to create habits and goal commitment).

From a leadership perspective, the law of diminishing returns tells us, keep it simple. Too many goals tell those we lead that nothing really is important (and we tell ourselves this when we set too many for ourselves). I recently heard a Facility Manager in a meeting say that he had three things he focuses on and measures relentlessly (based on lean principles) with his team of over 700 people. He said he never leaves a meeting with anyone without focusing on those three key goals.

Nothing gives us all ADD more than too many priorities. Have you experienced ADD, and therefore diminished results, because of too many goals or priorities?

**This post originally appeared on Horizon Point Blogpost January 23, 2012.

January 15, 2015
Goal Setting – A Series
Research has shown that goal setting, if done correctly, is one of the most supported motivational techniques (Jex & Britt 2008). Setting goals can help you maximize success for yourself and/or the people that you lead.

We’ve all heard of the acronym “SMART” that guides good goal setting:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Realistic

Time bound

I certainly advocate for following these guidelines with any resolution or goal you set. But there are three things that I want to focus on over the next few weeks that have been shown to be important components of goal setting that are not emphasized as much as the acronym components:
1. Goal commitment
2. The law of diminishing returns
3. Feedback
In terms of commitment, before you set a New Year’s resolution, honestly examine how committed you are to the goal. Many people fail because the behaviors that lead to goal attainment are not established by habits. For example, losing weight is one of the classic goal setting examples. If your goal is to lose 10 pounds in 3 months, if you don’t modify your behavior to make it a habit to exercise more and eat less, it isn’t going to work. Your behaviors reflect your commitment. If you’re a leader and need to foster goal commitment with those you lead, here are two tips:

1. Set goals with people you lead versus for them (participative goal setting) -or-

2. If you have to set goals for people, “sell” don’t “tell” those goals.

If you’re interested in reading more about how and why goal setting works and how goal commitment is intertwined in this, check out “Goal-Setting- A Motivational Technique That Works” by Gary Latham and Edwin Locke.

I’ll talk about the law of diminishing returns next week and why feedback is important as well as some tools for providing feedback to yourself or those you lead to round out January’s posts.

Reference: Jex, S.M. & Britt, T.W. (2008). Organizational Psychology: A Scientist-Practitioner Approach. 2^nd ed. Wiley. Pp 247

**This post originally appeared on Horizon Point Blogpost January 16, 2012.
January 13, 2015