The excerpt of the book YES I CAN continues today. Last week, we did an excerpt from Chapter 1. Today, PassNowNow is giving its readers an excerption from Chapter 2. In this excerpt, the author gives great advice on how you can work towards your academic goals and not just ‘verbing’ – saying words of action without following them with action. Enjoy.
Chapter 2: Counting The Cost
Talk Is Cheap, Action Is the Real Deal pg 12
I had an interesting discussion with a course mate of mine at the University. She told me her previous results and her academic plans for the new semester. She gave me an impressive breakdown. Then I asked her a simple question ‘Where have you written all these?’ and she went blank. The first step from cheap talk to the real deal is to write down what you have defined for the session i.e. your academic goals.
I have heard students say over and over ‘I know what I want’, ‘I’ve got it in my head’ but I have observed that the action after this statement is contrary to the statement itself. At the middle of the semester they forget what they want and are carried by the tides of the semester.
“Write the vision and make it plain upon the tables, that he may run that reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie……” Habakkuk 2:2-3 (KJV)
The next step is to set goals, set written goals for each subjects in the semester. A goal is something you want to achieve. In this case your goals can be an A, a B or a C (but here we are striving for A’s because it is possible). Note that your goals have to be SMART; Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time bound. This acronym is explained below:Specific: Goals need to be something specific. Often we set goals that are loose. For example, you make a statement saying “I want to have a good result this term”. This is too vague. How will you know if and when you’ve reached your goal? Instead, it is better to say “I want to have A’s in all my subjects”. You can also be more specific by setting goals as to what you want to obtain in your Continuous Assessment (C.A) as well as your examination scores. Being specific reduces the chances of playing trial and error. You are either aiming to hit the bulls eye or not.
I had just began applying what I had always heard about setting specific goals (I had always known about this but I had never practiced it), so I decided to write out what I wanted as a result for my C.A which was a cumulative of 30 marks. As I allocated what I expected for each course I set my mind to work towards those scores I had set. At the end of the day some of the scores I got were above what I had expected, exactly what I expected and a few were below what I expected, but in general it was a good percentage of success on my part.
Also Read excerpt from Chapter 1 of YES I CAN
Omozino Eguh is a career development practitioner with over 50 hours of active coaching, education technology enthusiast and social innovator with ample experience in social development & reform projects. Contacts: Twitter handle – @zedtells; Facebook page – Zedtells
