Achieving Your Goals

A big step towards achieving your goals is developing and maintaining a goal-setting mindset

as the attitudes you develop will influence the way you view goal-setting. Approaching a task with a negative and self-defeating attitude makes it much harder to actually be successful at that task.

Try to foster a positive attitude when setting and trying to achieve your goals. A positive attitude means you are looking for ways to SUCCEED rather than focusing on the

difficulties and obstacles that could be in your path.

To create a more positive attitude:

– Each day note down something you did towards achieving your goals.

– Note down any changes someone else has noticed e.g. your teacher says well done on

your work.

– Don’t stop trying if something goes wrong, rather, reassess your goals or decide if you

need to work harder to achieve them.

– Find a mentor or helper to encourage you to achieve your goals, possibly someone who

is interested in the same things or is good at the same subjects but is a bit further ahead

of you.

Other reasons why we don’t achieve our goals:

– No action plan.

– No true commitment to the goal.

– Not rewarding yourself along the way.

– Trying to focus on too many goals.

– Not preparing yourself for success.

– Fear of failure.

If you are still not achieving your goal, try this:

– Clarify your goal.

– Write a list of actions.

– Analyse, prioritise and prune.

– Organise your list into a plan.

– Monitor the execution of your plan and review your plan regularly.

– Ask for help!

You can learn more about goal setting and many other topics to help you achieve your best at

school at www.studyskillshandbook.com.au