Achieving Your Dream: Mapping the Journey to Success

Achieving Your Dream: Mapping the Journey to Success

Gavin Henning, Ph.D.

I always enjoy the start of a new academic year. While I mourn the end of summer, I look forward to a new year ahead. Students are back on campus and there is a buzz of rejuvenation and the promise of what can be. The beginning of a new academic year is a time for a fresh start. It could be a fresh start for a new program or project at work or even something more personal.

I think we all have experienced those great ideas and best intentions that never get realized. How many New Year’s resolutions have gone unfulfilled? Something always seems to upend our hopes. In my case, the reason is usually because I don’t have a plan for achieving those dreams. Research suggests that goal setting leads to higher performance (Locke, 1981), achievement and motivation (Locke and Lathan, 2002), as well as engagement and optimism (Medlin & Green, 2009). Thus, goal setting seems to be the key to success.

If goal setting is central to achieving dreams, how is it done? I believe there seven steps to mapping your journey to success.

Specify Your Goal

The first step is to set your goal. You can’t achieve your dream unless you specifically delineate what that dream is.  Having a “successful” career isn’t a specific enough goal. Increasing participation in programs isn’t a specific goal either. Think precisely about what you want to accomplish. A professional dream might be to be a dean of students at a mid-size private institution in the southern California. A project-related dream may be the implementation of an academic support program for 25 at-risk students who all return to college the following year. Defining the goal specifically makes it easier to create the map.

Wonder What’s Your Why

Dreams and goals are not achieved without commitment. Decisions need to be made. Priorities set. And, in some cases, sacrifices made. To help you persist on your journey, you need to know your “why” – why you are following this dream. Do you want to make yourself better personally? Do you want students to graduate? Do you want students to fulfill their developmental potential? Do you want to reduce oppression in our society? Understanding your why will provide the ongoing motivation and commitment needed to achieve your dream.  

Envision Your Destination

The next step is to envision your destination, considering what it looks like when the goal is achieved. Athletes often talk about visualizing their sport as a way to get into “the zone.” They see themselves hitting the ball, shooting on goal, or diving into the pool below. A similar process is helpful here. If your goal is to lose weight, think through what will be needed, such as exercise and eating healthy. If your goal is to revamp orientation to include equal amounts of academic and student development activities, consider what this would look like. This vision is your “destination postcard.” Once you have that image you can then strategize how to get to your destination.

Create Your Roadmap

For any trip, the roadmap is critical to getting to your destination. Goal setting is no different. There are usually multiple routes to the same location, but what each offer varies. One route may be scenic. Another may not be scenic, but most direct and expeditious. Another route may be a little longer but have frequent service plazas along the way ensuring spots for resting and refueling. Your roadmap is your action plan; the list of strategies you need to implement to achieve your goal. If your goal is to create a new leadership retreat for student organization leaders, your roadmap may include reviewing the literature on leadership development, talking with colleagues about retreats they run, developing an outline for the event, enlisting presenters, etc. All of these are action steps to achieving your goal – a transformative student leadership retreat.

Create Accountability Measures

Any doctoral program is rigorous. The doctoral program at New England College is also intense as it is an accelerated program with the goal of students graduating in three years. To achieve this goal, many students in the doctoral program get accountability buddies. Some students text each other early in the morning to make sure each other is up and working on their dissertation. Each cohort sets up multiple ways to communicate as a group either through a group text, Facebook, What’s App, or Zoom. One of the main purposes of these groups is to support and hold each other accountable. In my experience the students who engage in these activities are more likely to graduate in three years.

To achieve our goals, we need to find ways to hold ourselves accountable. Perhaps an accountability buddy will work best. Another approach is to track progress and milestones, like one would monitor distance, time, and gas mileage when traveling. There are a number of apps who can help with this type of project management, but I prefer going low-tech. For larger projects, I create an Excel file to list all of the action steps. There is a column for the action step name, one for description of the task, and one for the deadline. A fourth column notes the status and I use the colors green, yellow, and red as indicators to quickly see progress on various tasks. The final column is a description of the current status. This project management sheet helps me hold myself accountable and keep me on track. Accountability measures will vary by goal and personality. Find the one that will work for you.

Keep Your Eye on the Prize

There are times when moving towards any goal is difficult when the process gets challenging. Bumps in the road arise. Detours happen. Motivation wanes. Keeping your eye on the prize, or the end result, can help keep enthusiasm buoyed. Some doctoral students in our program have pictures of the doctoral gown on their wall to remind them what this is all about. Some professionals re-read student stories or stay in touch with former students to remind them why they are doing this work. Keeping your eye on the prize helps you stay on the path to success.

Reward Yourself

We all know that positive rewards are more effective for behavior change than punishment. Despite knowing this, we don’t do a lot of rewarding in our personal or professional lives. Little rewards on the journey to fulfilling a goal will lead to a higher success rate. Similar to accountability, different people are inspired by different rewards. Some people are driven by recreation – getting on a lake with a kayak or on a trail with a bike. For others it may be spending extra time with family. At work, it may be leaving a little early on Fridays. For some projects the reward for success may be an increase in the budget. Think about what rewards will work for you and place them along your path. along with accountability measures, rewards form a two-pronged motivational tool.

Conclusion

August and September are time for new beginnings, both personally and professionally. To reach our goals, we need to create a map to success. My hope is that the seven steps I outlined here provide a process for you to achieve your dream.

References

Locke, E. A., et al (1981) Goal Setting and Task Performance: 1969 to 1980. Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 90, No. 1, pp 125 – 152.

Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35­year odyssey. American Psychologist, 57, 705–717.

Medlin, B. & Green, K. W. (2009) Enhancing Performance through Goal Setting, Engagement, and Optimism. Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 109, No. 7, pp 943 – 956.

Gavin is professor of higher education and director of the master of higher education administration and doctorate of education programs at New England College. He is also president of the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education. He can be reached at ghenning@nec.edu.