Goal Setting
A goal is a specific result you intend to achieve, with effort and a deadline; a dream has no plan attached. The exam tests types of goals, the SMART framework, action planning and reviewing progress.
Core concepts
- SMART (Doran, 1981): Specific (what exactly), Measurable (how you will know), Achievable (realistic with your resources and effort), Relevant (it matters to a longer-term aim), Time-bound (a date).
- Short-term goals (this week), medium-term (this term) and long-term (after Std X, a career). Short-term goals should feed the long-term ones.
- Outcome goals describe a result ('score 80 in Science'); process goals describe an action ('solve ten numericals daily'). Process goals are within your control, so they are the ones you timetable.
- Backward planning: start from the deadline and work back to weekly milestones.
- Review goals regularly and revise the plan, not the value behind it.
Worked example
'I want to do well in the exam' fails SMART. Rewritten: 'Score at least 70 out of 100 in the Science unit test on 15 March by revising two chapters every weekend and solving one past paper each Sunday.' Reasoning: it names the subject and mark (specific, measurable), is reachable from the student's current 55–60 range (achievable), supports the term result (relevant), and carries a date with weekly milestones (time-bound). The weekend slots are the process goal that makes the outcome possible.
Traps
- Making 'Achievable' mean 'easy' - it means realistic with effort, not low.
- Writing a goal with no measure or no deadline.
- Setting ten goals at once instead of prioritising two or three.