Tag: Goal Setting

JANUARY 2024 SEL THEME – GOAL SETTING – Wrapping up

Posted on by alisakaczorowski in Parenting, Social Emotional Learning

Well, it’s time to wrap up our very first SEL theme of the month – goal setting. If you’ve been following along and setting goals for yourself or with your kids or students, you might be wondering how to keep the momentum going throughout the year.

Here are a few things you can do to ensure achievement of your goals:

  1. Break them down into smaller pieces – It’s a dream for a reason! It’s going to take time and effort to achieve. Do yourself a favor and break it down into more manageable chunks.
  2. Celebrate the small wins – Don’t wait until you achieve the goal to celebrate! Celebrate all the small successes you have along the way. You deserve it!
  3. Be consistent – It takes time and consistency to achieve a big goal. Keep at it and try not to get discouraged when it takes longer than you think it should.
  4. Stay organized – Have a system in place to map out the small steps you will take to reach your goal. Write it in your planner, add it to your calendar – whatever it takes to keep you on track!
  5. Visualize your success – What will it look like, feel like, sound like, etc. when you achieve your goal? Visualize every little detail of that success!
  6. Set up an accountability system – Find yourself an accountability partner to keep you focused and on track.

Now that you are well on your way to achieving your goal for the year, you may be wondering where we are heading for February and our next SEL theme. Well, I’ll tell you…tomorrow!

JANUARY 2024 SEL THEME – GOAL SETTING – Resources and Picture books

Posted on by alisakaczorowski in Parenting, Social Emotional Learning

As we begin to wrap up this first social-emotional learning theme of the year, I want to share a few resources that I have come across over this past month. These can be used by parents or teachers, at home or in the classroom.

  1. This is a great list of goal-setting activities from Big Life Journal. Some are individual, some can be done as a family and many can be adapted to work in a classroom.
  2. Also from Big Life Journal, check out this handy dandy set of tips for goal-setting with kids.
  3. This is a great set of activities from Edutopia to foster a goal-setting mindset in the classroom.
  4. Below is the list of picture books I have curated over the past month while researching goal-setting.

Be sure to check out my YouTube channel for so many other goal-setting activities and resources! I hope you’ve enjoyed this first SEL theme of 2024! I will be announcing February’s theme very soon!

JANUARY 2024 SEL THEME – GOAL SETTING – TIPS & STRATEGIES FOR Teachers

Posted on by alisakaczorowski in Parenting, Social Emotional Learning

In last week’s blog, I talked about setting goals with kids and what that looks like at my house. This week, we are going to dig deeper into the idea of goal setting and take a look at two strategies that are beneficial in helping us achieve our goals.

First, let’s talk about visualizing our goals. This is a strategy that many athletes, performers and businesspeople use regularly. The idea is that we visualize every small detail of our race, performance, goal, etc., from the very beginning to the very end. We focus on our five senses to help us really feel as though we are experiencing the achievement. We acknowledge any obstacles that we may face and work through how we might overcome them. We see ourselves celebrating the accomplishment of achieving our goal.

The second strategy is the use of affirmations to help us overcome challenges while working toward our goal and remind us that we can accomplish what we set out to do. An affirmation can be a statement or mantra that you write down, read and repeat regularly. It’s basically putting the power of positive thinking to work for you.

Examples include:

  1. I can do hard things.
  2. I will overcome every challenge that is put in front of me while working toward my goal.
  3. I will achieve my goal.

Of course, you can add more detail to make the affirmation more specific to your goal.

Affirmations are great to write down and post in an area where you can read them regularly. They can stay the same for as long as you want/need or you can change them up daily/weekly/monthly to fit your needs at the time.

Here’s your homework for today…think about a big goal you have for this year. How can you incorporate visualization and affirmations into your routine to help you achieve your goal?

Once you’ve had practice with each of these strategies, think about how you can introduce them to students. Help them make connections between visualization that we use while reading, visualization we use to calm down and this type of visualization. Similarly, make connections between using affirmations for a self-esteem or self-confidence boost and for goal setting.

There are so many great ways to use these strategies with kids, especially since they are both fairly multi-purpose strategies! How do you foresee these strategies working in your classroom or home environment?

January 2024 SEL Theme – Goal Setting – Tips & Strategies for Parents

Posted on by alisakaczorowski in Parenting, Social Emotional Learning, Uncategorized

Every year in January, each of my kids and I set a goal for ourselves for the new year. It’s typically a new skill we want to learn or something big we are challenging ourselves to complete.

Two years ago, my oldest child’s goal was to learn to ski and my middle child’s goal was to learn to trot on a horse. In true youngest child fashion, for the life of me, I cannot remember what my littlest’s goal was…ha! My own goal was to complete a triathlon.

His first time hitting the slopes

After some time spent thinking and brainstorming, we write our goals on index cards and hang them up on the refrigerator where we can see them each and every day. We also discuss the steps we will need to take to accomplish our goal.

This is where we come in as parents because typically, our kids’ goals will involve us to some extent. In the case of the goals I talked about above, I had to commit to finding the time to take my kids skiing and horseback riding regularly so they could practice.

I find that it’s helpful to get dates on the calendar as early as possible so I don’t feel like we’re scrambling at the last minute. This also sends the message to kids that their goals are important to us and that we are invested in helping them succeed.

Grooming her favorite horse, Jake

Since beginning this goal setting project a few years ago, I have created this resource to help my kids in setting their goals and identifying their action steps. It’s a simple way to help guide their thinking.

As you begin thinking about setting goals with your kids, here are a few things to keep in mind and/or discuss with them:

  1. Goals can be big or small, but I encourage my kids to make this a BIG goal since they have all year to work on it.
  2. Encourage them to think outside the box. What is something they’ve always wanted to try? What is a new skill they’d like to learn?
  3. Have them help you plan out the action steps/get dates on the calendar. It’s their goal; they need to own it.
  4. Celebrate the small wins! As they inch closer to achieving their goal, get excited about the small steps they take along the way. This will help keep their momentum going as well!
  5. Discuss failure. What happens if they don’t achieve their goal? How might they feel? What might they be able to do differently in the future? Reassure them that failure is possible and OK! It happens to all of us!
  6. Celebrate the accomplishment! Make a big deal when they reach their goal! In our house, we write the date the goal was accomplished on the index card and take a picture of the person with their card to commemorate the achievement. We also keep all of their index card goals in their “box of memories” so they can look back on them later in life.
I even brought my index card goal with me to the triathlon so I could take a picture as soon as I finished!

If you try this strategy with your kids, I’d love to hear what some of their goals are for 2024! What are your own goals?

January 2024 SEL Theme – Goal Setting – An introduction

Posted on by alisakaczorowski in Parenting, Social Emotional Learning

I’m so excited to introduce our very first monthly social-emotional learning theme for this year! Naturally, it’s goal setting!

In this first week of the month, we will define our theme, discuss why it’s an important SEL skill and talk real-world application. This will serve as a springboard for the resources and other ideas I will be sharing throughout the remainder of the month.

So, let’s dive in!

What is goal setting exactly? Here’s a good starting point to use with kids of all ages. You can adjust this definition to best fit the needs of the age group you work with.

Now that kids know what goal setting is, we need to help them understand why it’s important and how it will be useful in their actual lives.

It’s critical to give examples of both big and small goals so that they understand that a goal can take many shapes.

Begin connecting goal setting with kids’ real lives using the list below.

What other ways do you apply goal setting to your own life? Be sure to share those with kids so they can start to see how this concept applies to their own life and the lives of those around them.

The more tangible we can make it, the more invested they will be when we ask them to begin actually setting goals for themselves (and yes, that’s coming soon!).

Be sure to follow along all month right here on the blog, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. I will be sharing all sorts of tips, strategies and resources.