The Practice
The New Year features a lot of conversation about resolutions, habits, and health. Goal setting is a powerful activity that can instigate change; however, creating sustainable new habits can be challenging, causing people to feel let down when goals prove difficult to reach.
Learning how to talk about a goal and the process required to achieve it is a useful skill, whether one is a middle schooler engaging in habit stacking or a younger student beginning to grasp follow-through and accountability. Engaging students in these conversations can lead to insightful reflections, fulfilling journeys, and rewarding results.
The Language
For younger students: You may have heard people talking about resolutions lately. A resolution is a goal that somebody sets so they can be healthier or happier. My goal is ____ [share something concrete—i.e. “to say three kind things every day that make someone feel good”]. To make it happen I’m going to ____ [this should also be a concrete step—i.e. “I’m going to give out compliments and track my progress on this calendar”].
Is there any goal you want to work on? What do you think we need to do to make it happen? Let’s set aside some time every day before/after ____ [dismissal/dinner/bath] to reflect on our goals and track our progress together on this poster.
For older students: Our brains are amazing things. From the day you are born, your brain acts like a sponge, taking in information and making connections. As you get older, your clever brain makes itself more and more efficient by pruning away the connections it doesn’t use often and strengthening the connections it does. Over time and with repetition, these connections become strong networks of neurons that support specific behaviors and make them feel natural and easy. For example, you probably don’t have to work hard to remember to get out of bed, brush your teeth, and get dressed in the morning. That is a strong, established neural network.
We can use our existing neural networks as a jumping-off point to achieve new goals. To do this, think of a specific goal you’d like to achieve. Now let’s make a list of three things that you do every single day. Do you see an opportunity to “stack” your goal on something that is already part of your routine? For example, if you want to get stronger you might stack 20 push-ups on top of every time you brush your teeth. In other words, brushing your teeth (an action that’s already hard-wired into your brain) can become a cue to remember to do push-ups. To get started, put a simple reminder like a sticky note next to your toothbrush to remind you to do your push-ups until that action also just becomes a regular part of your routine.
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