The Adventure of Reaching your Goals - CAPER
Every Spring semester, I teach a class which helps the student explore what they ‘want to do with their life.’ But before we start, I have them go through a goal setting exercise, and then we check in every week for the rest of the semester.
The students get to choose, and many of them choose the same goal week-in and week-out. But some change their goals, and some aim for a goal that is academic, and will conclude when the semester ends.
About a third of the way through the semester, I start challenging them - have they actually started meeting the task that will lead them to successfully meet their goals? Where are they on their path?
And let’s be frank: We all wander off the path. But when things go awry, we just need a quick way to get back to where we really want to go.
So I have an acronym – It’s easy to remember, and as I told one of my struggling students last week, “It gets you back on the path you need to be.”
So our acronym is “CAPER.” According to ChatGPT, a caper can be an ingredient in many recipes (think salmon with a lemon caper sauce) OR an adventure, scheme, or escape! Perhaps I’ll utilize the first definition later, but let’s hone in on the second: You’re headed on an adventure with a strategy (scheme)!
C – Collect
Collect all the things you need to do. List out all the tasks that will get you from here to there.
One example I can use is a student who fell far behind in her classwork. After we realized that her overall class load was just too much, she dropped a few classes. We sat down and went over every assignment she hadn’t turned in and the ones that were coming up. And yes, by the end, she was feeling very overwhelmed! However, it was a great moment for her to grow in strength to see exactly what she needed to do – more on that at the end!
A – Assess
Assess every task you need to do and rate them from easy (‘not a problem! 5 minutes or less!) or challenging. I usually encourage a 1-5 scale. The other way to figure it out is called The Eisenhower Matrix.
P – Plan
Then plan.
This can be broken down further, and I’ll write a more thorough explanation in another post, but at this point keep it simple.
Do the easiest or smallest things first. This gives you a strong sense of accomplishment and gives you fuel to motivate you. If you’ve used the Eisenhower Matrix, still choose the easiest and fastest urgent tasks.
If you have a number of big items, break them down into the most manageable, “bite-sized pieces” as you can, in order to push away overwhelm.
E – Execute your Plan/Steps
Then do it! For someone like me, Executing is actually the hardest part of this process – I love to plan, I love to make my day planner attractive and helpful! I like journaling and processing, and all those things can be thought of as “planning,” but you’ll never move forward if you’re not actually DOING the things.
R – Review
Finally, Review. This can be at the end of the week, and often evaluating your goals weekly will help you acknowledge the road blocks, check what you didn’t get done, and then reschedule those things.
Reviewing is also where I can come in to help – sometimes really looking at what *didn’t* happen can be painful. It might feel like you failed, and you might be unwilling to do the Review because you don’t want to know how bad you did.
But as you review and see what still needs to be done, it can do two things: It can teach you valuable lessons, and it can make your will stronger to complete that task that’s hanging over you.
Still need a little nudge or encouragement? Make an appointment or email me. I’ll respond!
