Tips for Parents & Educators on Practicing Goal Setting

Set Specific Goals

Help your teen to set specific measurable goals. If a goal is specific and measurable, teens can easily see when they have succeeded and how much work went into the accomplishment. If they don’t achieve their goal, they can retrace their steps, see what went wrong and take steps to avoid making the same mistakes again.

Set Realistic Goals

Teaching your teen how to set a realistic goal will prevent them from making some common mistakes:

Basing their goals on other people’s ambitions for them: Teens experience a lot of pressure to meet others’ expectations (even their parents!) at this age. It’s important to show them how to differentiate between setting their own goal and working for something for someone else.
Creating goals without enough information: If your teen doesn’t have all the facts when they set their goals, they may be upset when accomplishing their goal proves difficult. Help them to see all the angles.
Always expecting their best performance: No one can always be the best. Teach your teens that it’s okay to have a bad day once in a while and how to plan for them.
Failing to respect themselves: While teens may feel invincible, they have to learn to treat their bodies right. Goals shouldn’t get in the way of getting enough rest and relaxation.

Setting Goals Too Low

Conversely, teens may set their goals too low because of:

Fear of failure: Risk must be approached responsibly, but it’s important for teens to stretch themselves. Successes will build their confidence, and failures will build their character.
Taking it too easy: Don’t let teens fall into the trap of setting low goals just so they don’t set unrealistically high goals. In order for an accomplishment to have real worth, it must involve hard work and the chance for failure.

Setting Goals at the Right Level

Parents can play an integral role in helping their teens to set realistic goals for themselves. With guidance and practice, teens will learn how to properly set their own goals.

Help your teen to examine their goal from multiple levels. Ask questions. Have they realistically considered how much work is involved? Why do they believe they can or can’t achieve something? Are they letting personal factors like tiredness cloud their vision? If there are faults in their logic, help them to address them and reassess the goal. This will help them to see the importance of setting goals effectively.

Short-Term vs. Long-Term goals

Your teen will likely find the difference between a short-term and long-term goal easy to grasp. However, they should also be able to see how setting short term goals can help them achieve their long-term goals. Having these smaller goals will give them the chance track their successes and help them make it through rough patches along the way.

When your teen chooses a short-term goal, encourage them to set milestones on the way to that goal. It will be helpful for them to think of this in terms short periods of time. What can they do today, next week or next month to reach their goal?
For long-term goals, have them ask themselves where they want to be in one year, five years, ten years.

For some teens, it may be worthwhile to consider coaching. Coaching is a very specific model that involves helping teens setting their own agenda and goals for the future. Just like a trainer helps an athlete win a gold medal instead of just finishing the race, a coach can help your child not only reach, but exceed, their goals in a balanced, healthy way. A coach can also help your teen deal with any stress or anxiety they may feel. For more information on coaching, check out Coaching 4 Teens.