How Can Goal Setting Help With Academic Performance
We all know the importance of goal setting, that how goal setting gives direction to our life. Unfortunately, we have reached a time where majority of students are quite aimless. In this digital age, most of them remain glued to their mobile screens watching unconstructive things and videos. Although we can use our gadgets constructively, but mostly, it is used destructively. Nevertheless, in this article, we will understand that how can goal setting help with academic performance, and also 5 points that show importance of goal setting.
So what is goal setting? Goal setting basically means, giving our life a defined destination. Imagine that you are driving a car, but you do not know where you want to go? You would not only end up driving and reaching nowhere, but would also make you exhausted without any outcome. Now, for most of us, we never give ourselves a well defined goal, because of which our effort are not concentrated. This not only leads to failure, but also disappointments, hopelessness and a negative mindset. Now that we know what goal setting is, let us understand types of goal setting and learn to apply them on the academic front.
Do you do goal setting?
Types
Before we know that how can goal setting help with academic performance, let us know its types. As we have understood, goal setting is the process of forming well defined aims, which gives our life direction and purpose. It is this art which truly makes our life worth living, because most importantly, it gives us a sense of purpose. This mindset keeps us motivated, and prepares us to undertake this beautiful journey called life. When we talk about goal setting, there are basically are 3 types, let us understand them briefly from academics point of view.
Short-term
Short-term goals are those, on which we focus ranging from days, up to a few months. In this time frame, we simply focus on small daily tasks, without thinking too much about our final result. Do you want to know the secret of success? Our main goal is comprised of various small little goals. For example: in academics, your main goals might be to get good grades and admission to a college, or a good job. However, we only focus on the main goal which does nothing but gives us pressure.
If you look at your goal closely, you will see that it is comprised of various small easy to achieve goals. Like, doing your daily homework, doing assignments, committing to do active participation in class, and so on. They are these short term goals, which not only prepare us, but also instill a belief in us that “I can do it.” This is because, as we go an achieving goal after goal, we develop confidence which also helps to kick out stress. Why most people remain anxious is, they keep thinking about grades, admissions and jobs. This outlook never allows them to focus on the present, or their daily goals which are stepping stones to success.
We must always have a clear vision of what we want to achieve. In fact, we could write it on a chart, and stick it where we see it often, this helps to stay focused. However, we must completely devote ourselves to our daily tasks, whatever they might be depending upon what you are studying. Simple, isn’t it? Since we are understanding that how can goal setting help with academic performance, we must know medium-term goals as well. (Read: Life always changes)
Medium-Term
We are sure that you are getting an idea that how can goal setting help with academic performance. Nonetheless, this is just the beginning in this deep topic. Now that we have understood what are short term aspirations, let us know what medium term goals are and how are they important. These goals are those, which come in the time-frame of 3-6 months. These are those goals, which help to bridge the gap between our aspirations, and our final objective.
Do you know that apart from doing our daily studies, we can also do a lot of activities that can help us excel? For example, we can join academic clubs, study groups or participate in quizzes that can help us develop more confidence. There are surely a lot of study related activities that happens in schools, and we can be a part of them and further improve ourselves.
Another great way to use medium- term goals is to focus on our weak subjects. We all have subjects in which we are weak, and in some, we are strong. For example, say that you are weak in physics, so you can commit to yourself that you are going to put in extra efforts, and get better with it in the next 3-6 months. This time time-frame mainly should be used to improve our weaknesses by developing appropriate strategies. We hope that we are making your academic excellence simpler, for now, so now let us dive into another segment.
Long-Term
In the above segment, we learnt that how medium-term goal setting helps with academic excellence; now let us understand the main part. So what are long-term goals? These are those, which come in the time-frame of 6-12 months. Can you guess what they include? Yes, you guessed it right, they deal with our final objective, which could be a good score, or admission, or anything else. If you ask us, then your long-term intention should not be scoring good marks, but achieving sustained academic excellence, which comes with being disciplined with short-term goals.
Let us ask you a question, and answer honestly. Imagine that you are walking to the supermarket, wherein you are just looking at the supermarket, and not watching your steps? Well, obviously you not only risk falling or bumping into someone else, but also meeting with a major accident. Does this example ring any bells? Yes, most of us keep thinking about scoring high, which not only makes us worried, but is more like day-dreaming.
Long-term goal is just your vision that you have written on a chart and put up on your wall. It is a good idea to remind yourself of it often, however, our entire focus needs to be on the short and medium-term goal. Remember that getting good grades is a good dream, but dreams only come true when we open our eyes and see what we need to work on. (Read: Science of prayer)
5 Points That Show Importance Of Goal Setting
- Gives Direction: Why goal-setting is important is because, it gives us a well-defined direction. It is very true that without a direction, we simply end up wasting our effort and time. It is quite obvious that if we do not know where to go, then obviously we would end up reaching nowhere. Therefore, having a set objective gives us direction; hence prevent us from wasting time and effort.
- Motivation: Do you know that lack of motivation is one of the main reasons why people fail? Yes, people who do not feel motivated often end up doing nothing, and reach nowhere. So can you guess why people lack motivation? Yes, because they do not have a well-defined objective. Keeping an aspiration, and having powerful intention, gives us a feeling of having a bright future. This simple thought keeps us motivated, and always forces us to prepare hard.
- Re-shapes beliefs: Nowadays, we are surrounded by negativity and often hear negative affirmations like: “you are not good enough,” “you will never be successful,” and so on. Although we take such comments lightly but we do not understand that every word is absorbed by our mind. Such affirmations solidify negative beliefs within us, because of which we feel that we are truly not good enough. However, with goal setting, when we remain focused on easy goals, then that helps to reshape our belief system, and builds confidence.
- De-stresses: Do you know what is the main reason for life related stress? It is lack of preparation. When people aim too high, but are not well-prepared for it, this causes a conflict between their belief and goal. Their inner voice tells them that “this goal is impossible to achieve,” which always keeps them anxious. However, proper goal setting prepares us well, and helps to ease out anxiety and tension.
- Build strength: As we all know that life is full of hurdles. Everybody keeps encountering problems every now and then. However, with goal setting, we ensure that we are well-prepared for every situation, hence helps to overcome challenging times.
Conclusion
We live in an aspiring world. Everybody is aspiring for something or the other. In fact, it is human nature to always keep expanding, and gain more and more in life. Once we get a human birth, we cannot escape that feeling of enhancing our experience of life even further. However, how many of us are ready to pay the price for it? How many of us are ready to stay committed for years and years? Only those people stay committed for years, who have well defined goals, and not merely day dream.
We must always remember that we must have a big vision, but our focus must only be on making ourselves competent. This is because, everybody dreams, however, only people who work on themselves, truly awaken. We all want success, but only those people taste success, who deserve it. We hope that you liked our article: how can goal setting help with academic performance, and 5 points that show the importance of goal setting. Let us know in comments that how you set your goals, and we would be happy to help you.
FAQs
How does goal-setting help you as a student?
Goal setting if done right can help a student in countless ways. Mostly students keep their focus on getting good grades, however that is not a good goal because everyone wants that. Only those students score well, who prepare well. Therefore if our focus is not merely scoring well, but set our goals in a way that help us prepare well, then success becomes inevitable. Here are some points showing that how goal setting helps a student:
- It helps them prioritize. They can identify their weal subjects, and work on them.
- When students focus on being better every day, then that helps them to build a robust confidence.
- Goal setting most importantly, gives a sense of direction. It helps to lay down a path where one can walk and reach a fixed objective.
- When students set goals, and work on themselves, then it helps to kick out stress which is a result of lack of preparation.
- Last but not the least, effective goal setting keeps students motivated, as this feeds their mind with positive thoughts.
