How To Set Goals and Keep Them | How To | PragerU Kids

Hey parents! Before we start this episode, remember that your family can enjoy hundreds of fun and educational free videos like this one for kids of all ages. Be sure to subscribe to get all the new shows and updates at PragerUKids.com You know that person that sets goals in January? I'm gonna get swole in three weeks! No, three days! I gotta stop yelling at old people this year. I'm gonna learn five languages this year. We all know it's easy to set goals, but accomplishing them is where it gets hairy. In this episode, we're showing you the smart way to make goals and keep them. Before we can figure out how to set good goals and stick to them, we need to figure out why we're setting the goal to begin with. The why gives you the motivation to actually do the hard work of accomplishing a goal. A good place to start is to ask yourself, if I could shape my life any way I wanted, what would it look like? Get a strong vision in your head of a future that's very inspiring and exciting. This vision in your mind will help you know what goals to set, and it'll provide the motivation to actually stick to those goals when you feel like giving up. Once you have a picture of what you want your life to look like, it's time to make smart goals to make that picture a reality. So, what are smart goals? Let's start with number one, make specific goals. The first step to making successful goals is making them as specific as possible. Avoid being vague or fuzzy. Don't say, I need money to get a bike. A specific goal would be, I need $200 for a road back to hit the streets. One of the biggest reasons people fail to achieve their goals is because they keep them too vague. It's tempting to make vague goals because it takes less effort, and it protects you from feeling like a failure. By keeping you from knowing specifically when you haven't reached your goal. So, you're going to have to throw your fear of failure into the trash. Number two, make measurable goals. You've probably heard the saying, How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Let me help you out there, son. It's definitely overused, but it's a really deep truth. Remember the first point about deciding what it is you want out of life? Whatever it is, it's big, like an elephant. You probably won't be able to accomplish it all in 15 minutes or an hour. In fact, you may not even be able to accomplish it in a week. The more you think about how much time and effort it will take in total, the more you will get overwhelmed and discouraged. So, don't think about that. Think about simple, measurable steps you can take one at a time. Instead of wondering how you're going to make $200 to get a bike and having a panic attack, start breaking that number down into manageable steps. If you want to buy that bike in, let's say, two months, you would need to save $100 a month. If it still seems overwhelming, just keep measuring down. That's $25 per week. Or that's just $3.33 a day. Now we're talking. It's actually not so overwhelming. Just skip the fancy coffee drink each day and you're there in like eight weeks. Based on that little goal, you know if you're on track to make your big goal or not. And you can ask other people to help hold you accountable to stay on track every day. Number three, make achievable goals. There's a saying that goes like, If you shoot for the moon, you'll land among the stars. I think whoever came up with this meant well, and it definitely feels good posting it on social media. But it could also be bad advice, depending on the situation. Like, are you riding in a NASA space rocket ship? Or are you just riding in a minivan? It's important to be honest about your situation and set goals that excite you. If you set a goal too high, you'll quickly become overwhelmed and crash and burn. And that's exactly what we're trying to not do. Sometimes it's the goal itself that's unrealistic. I'm never going to eat sugar again for the rest of my days. Or sometimes it's the timing that's unrealistic. I'm going to learn Spanish in three weeks. When setting goals, you want to find the sweet spot where they're big enough to inspire you, but still reasonable enough to not overwhelm you. Number four, make relevant goals. Remember the overused elephant analogy? One bite at a time. Okay, I get that it's an analogy, but the bigger question than how to eat an elephant would be why you would even want to eat the elephant in the first place. Unless your job is an exotic animal eater, eating an elephant is probably not a goal you should have. Obviously, this is a dumb example, but we all have an example of an unnecessary goal that just steals time and energy away from more important goals. Like, do you really need to finish one more video game level? Do you really need to be taking that selfie to get a few more followers on your social media account? When making a goal, ask yourself, is this really the best goal that I could be spending my energy on? And some goals are kind of tricky to distinguish. Maybe it's good, but is it actually best? For instance, maybe you want to learn French, but everyone around you speaks English or Spanish, and you have no plans to actually visit a French-speaking country. Learning French in this case would be a good goal, but probably not the best goal because it's not really directly relevant to your life. It would probably be better to focus your time and energy toward a skill that you're going to more realistically use. Number five, make time-bound goals. Imagine you've been exercising outside and you walk inside to get some water to drink. There's a pitcher of water, and you ask your friend if you can have some. Hey, bro, can I have a glass of water? He says, Only if you don't use a cup. Now, if your friend told you this, you'd probably be looking for a new friend. What are you staring at? Because without a cup, trying to drink the water would be wasteful and almost impossible to do effectively. Water is a lot like time. You need a container for time to be able to use it most effectively. The principle is known as Parkinson's law. It basically says that work expands to fill the time you give it. For instance, having three weeks to finish a one-page assignment and not finishing it until 1159 p.m. on the due date. We've all been there. This is just evidence that your work will generally take as long as you allow it. So when making a goal, give it a specific deadline. This not only makes it more specific and measurable, but it also pushes you to get it done because goals without deadlines are just dreams. Although dreams are great, the sad truth is just wishing upon a star is not going to cut it. Dreams can come true, but not without a good plan and a lot of hard work. But you can do it because now you know how to make actually smart goals. Thanks for watching this how-to video for PragerU. And I hope you learned something new. If you're still watching this, post an emoji of a dog. This is the studio dog, Buddy. Meet Buddy. Buddy, meet the people. You don't have a harp. You're nothing to me. One bite at a time.