Goals are the New Resolutions

I've never liked making New Year's resolutions.  I used to say I make Martin Luther King Day resolutions instead (makes more sense anyway..."I Have a Dream...") but lately I've waited to spring forward with the clock and maybe walk a little when the time changes.  This year, I planned to sit it out again... that is, until my sister gave me a PowerSheets Goal Planner.

I was pretty excited about this little gem from the get-go even though I'm not a planner person or a resolution person.  I'm really trying to focus on growing my TPT store this year, so I thought this would be all business.  However, when I sat down to work on it this past weekend, I was surprised at how intensely personal it was-- I've never been to therapy but I imagine this experience was pretty close.  There were sections on getting to know yourself, letting go, what fires me up, and so on.  Probably the scariest question was, "Where do you want to be when you're eighty?" Honestly, I paused and tried to decide if I even still want to be alive by then! 😜

All that led to deciding what matters enough to focus on for the year and developing goals.  I want to focus on growth- spiritually, professionally and personally- so I decided on these main goals:

1.  Engaging in daily Bible study and focused prayer time
2.  Blogging at least once weekly
3.  Creating one new novel unit monthly
4.  Getting (and staying) ahead on lesson planning
5.  Continuing running, building up to 5 consecutive miles

This planner also encouraged you to write down a "word of the year" and I chose "productivity."  First of all, it reminds me of my TPT products, which I want to both revise and create.  Secondly, I want to use my time more wisely on school work now that I am finally getting the hang of what I'm doing.  (I swear it takes a decade to figure out what you're doing in this career.)  Last but most importantly, this Bible verse came to my mind:

"But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." Galations 5:22 (NLT)

What more could I strive for this year?

After all this goal-setting for myself, I decided to start back to school this week with the same idea in mind for my students.  I found this amazing resource from Student Savvy on TPT and ran with it...

The only change that I made to her plans was that as a way of introducing SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely) to my students, we set whole class goals together.  My students came up with ideas to improve both their behavior (at specials and in the classroom) and their academics (late work and quarter test scores).  We had meaningful discussion about what was "attainable" (I had to convince them we won't ever have NO late work from anyone in our class), and about what was "relevant."  For example, they  wanted to improve a behavior stat on our Class Dojo that was already at 97% positive and I had to explain that wasn't an area we needed to focus on.

We were all pleased with the four goals they finally decided on. It will be fun to observe, measure and see if they can improve as a class on these SMART goals.  Somehow, we got through the first couple of days back at school without technically making any resolutions.  But it seems to me that goals are the new resolutions. 😉  What are your goals for 2017?