Setting Goals

Happy New Year! As I helped ring in the New Year at a party attended by close to 50 people, I overheard many revelers proclaim their New Year’s resolutions proud and loud.

You might be asking yourself, what does this have to do with planning professional development? Glad you asked. While I listened and nodded and smiled, I couldn’t help but ask myself, Are these goals that people are setting for themselves really attainable? Let’s eavesdrop on a few, then you tell me. “I will lose weight.” "I will stop smoking." "I will be kinder to people." "I want world peace" (huh?). "I will be more organized." "I will exercise more." "I will spend more time with my family.” You get the point here.

Setting a goal is not very difficult. You know the results that you want to achieve at the end. Getting back to the New Year’s party, was declaring a resolution or stating a goal enough? No. And why you might ask. Those goals, those resolutions were not specific. They told the what, but not the how or when. A specific goal or a SMART (where have I heard this before?) goal will give you all the information you need to attain the end result. Specific (what do you want to happen), measurable(concrete criteria), attainable (reachable), realistic (doable) and timely (when).

Your New Year’s resolution should be phrased so that you know when you have achieved the goal. The same holds true for planning your professional development, programs and objectives for the year. What do you want to achieve this year? Do you want to learn how to create databases in File Maker Pro? Do you want your leadership team to develop professional learning communities in your school? In your department? Do you want to become a better designer? A better trainer? A better coach? What is your resolution this year? These are great partial goals.

Now that you have a clear picture of what you want to reach, how will you get there? What is the timeframe? What resources have you? It is really possible to achieve this year? Or should your goal be broken down into smaller steps? Goals you set which are too far out of your reach (unattainable) will loose commitment quickly. How will you know you’ve reached your goal? What method of measurement will you choose?

What are your professional development goals? For yourself? For your school? For your department? For your program? Let's work on setting goals, reasonable goals for the professional development in our areas of responsibility.

I’m blogging out of here.

Kyna