SMART goal setters rate progress toward their goals regularly. How? An easy way is to use this EFTI Poster Coach:
Why the emphasis on measuring progress? Three reasons:
- Honors what you have done.
- Focuses you on what needs to be down.
- Alerts you to faltering motivation. Often when working on a new goal, people push hard initially, but eventually motivation and effort decrease. When that happens, it is time to examine priorities and either recommit to the goal or change it.
As the above Poster Coach demonstrates rating scales make measuring progress easy. Free download at the EFTI Store.
Some feelings rev you up and urge you to act quickly without thinking. Not always wise. Taking just a minute to rate something, slows down the rush to act and strengthens your Emotional Intelligence. Hp\ow?
- Orders priorities
- Reminds you what matters
- Reduces stress by easing decision making.
- Improves critical thinking
As this poster coach illustrates anything can be rated.
When starting to set a SMART goal, the first measurement you should make is how motivated you are to pursue this goal. Here’s a Poster Coach for Measuring Motivation.
Parenting tip
You can start teaching your child rating skills as soon as s/he starts walking and talking. Here’s a Parents Are People Too blog post to help you get started.
PRACTICE KINDNESS
Thank you for all you do. Thank me by remembering sharing is caring; so is liking, or commenting. Your caring keeps me going.
Katherine
Links to the other posts in this SMART Goal setting series:
- Know Your Mission and Get The Good Life
- When a Goal is Not Met the Wrong Goal was Set
- Three More Tips for Reaching Your Goal
- Know Your Strengths and Weaknesses
- What Do You Want
CRITICAL THINKING EXERCISE
WordPress Daily Prompt suggested this: Sink or Swim: Tell us about a time when you were left on your own, to fend for yourself in an overwhelming situation — on the job, at home, at school. What was the outcome?
I did not read it when writing the post, but it does relate to SMART goal settings. Let me tell you a brief story about my older brother. He was twelve and I was six. We were had been sent to my grandmother’s for part of the summer. He was made responsible for my care.
My grandmother had dropped us off at the Point Pleasant beach. It was a lovely day. However, there was a strong undertow and I got pulled under. Fortunately, someone saw me being swept out and grabbed me, but a bit of excitement was created. I was fine, not scared.
That night my brother took me in a row-boat out on the Manesquan River – my grandmother’s summer home bordered it and heaved me over board.
I totally panicked and almost drowned myself in three feet of water before John told me I could stand up. Not only did I fear for my life, but finding out I could stand added shame to the experience.
Curiously it did not change me relationship with my brother, although I do suspect I didn’t accept any other invitations to go rowing. It did make me terrified of trying to learn to swim; I only conquered that fear in college.
Some things are best taught by the sink or swim method, many things are not.
Do you see how this relates to the rating scales? Look at number 3 on the motivation poster coach.
OTHER LINKS OF INTEREST
These links are for those not familiar with Emotional Intelligence or the idea of Emotional Fitness.
Easy Emotional Fitness Exercises (www.emotionalfitnesstraining.com
The five components of Emotional Intelligence (www.sonoma.edu)Emotional Intelligence (en.wikipedia.org)Emotional Fitness Tips for Parents (parentsarepeopletoo.com)
An Emotional Fitness Program for Parents(amazon.com)