Army MRT Goal Setting

What do you need to know?

What is the skill?

When do I use it?

How do I use it?

Participants will learn a set of skills that will enhance their effectiveness and well being by building their mental toughness. These skills will also develop your ability to understand your own thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, and the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors of others.

What Is Goal Setting?

• Goal Setting helps build Self-Regulation
• Goal Setting can be an effective means to grow and thrive, especially following adversity.
• Goal Setting is an effective way to facilitate the achievement of dream goals as well as enhanced performance.
• Goal Setting is a process to deliberately energize, direct, and sustain behavior to ensure progress.

How to set a goal

• Step 1: DEFINE YOUR GOAL
• Step 2: KNOW WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW
• Step 3: DECIDE WHAT YOU NEED TO DEVELOP
• Step 4: MAKE A PLAN FOR STEADY IMPROVEMENT
• Step 5: PURSUE REGULAR ACTION
• Step 6: COMMIT YOURSELF COMPLETELY
• Step 7: CONSISTENTLY MONITOR YOUR PROGRESS

Step 1: Define Your Goal

Think of a goal you would like to achieve over the next month, year, or several years. Select 4-5 values from the list and complete the practical exercise.

Example

Goal: Pay off student debt

Suspense: 1 year

Step 1 Example

Value: Accountability

Fill in the values and how they will achieve each goal on your worksheet.

Be realistic with my budget and stick to it, adjust if necessary

Value: Hard work

Put in extra hours at work to make extra payments

Value: Self Regulation

Halt any unnecessary spending, make sure all payments are paid in full before the due date.

Step 2: Know Where You Are Right Now

Identify Benefits that will help you achieve your goals:

Identify Obstacles that could get in your way:

If I’m feeling sad, I might choose retail therapy over using my resiliency training, which could slow down my progress.

Unexpected bills might pop up or I might get hurt at work and postpone my goal outcome.

Achieving this could would give me more financial freedom and would get me closer to my next goal of purchasing a home.

I could decrease some clutter by selling a few things around the house to put towards my debt.

Step 3: Decide What you need to Develop

Based on the obstacles you identified in Step 2, break down your goal into approximately 4 Priority Areas (broad areas that you cannot fail to address in order to achieve your goal).

Example:

1. Budget

2. Effective Planning

3. Responsible Time Management

Step 4: Make a Plan For Steady Improvement

Choose one of your Priority Areas and create at least 3-4 Action Statements that identify the work you need to do to move towards your goal in this area, and at least 1-2 Power Statements that tell you how you need to think so you Stay Motivated to complete the Action Statements to the best of your ability.

Priority Area : Budget

Action Statements

• Go through my high-importance bills, monthly spending history, and identify the total payoff amount and create a budget spreadsheet.
• Look into ways to increase monthly income and cut out unnecessary subscriptions and expenses

Power Statements

• Financially freeing yourself of this debt will be a huge weight off your shoulders and would allow you to live more comfortably without the extra bills.

Step 5: Persue Regular Action

Prepare to put your goal into action.

Action Statement to complete within the next 24 hours:

Power Statement that will motivate me to complete the Action Statement:

What is your strategy or system to ensure you implement your SMART actions regularly?

How/When will I check on my strategy/system to ensure I complete my SMART actions?

Step 6: Commit Yourself Regularly

Develop a strategy for maintaining your motivation to achieve your goal.

Strategy to stage my surroundings to automatically trigger pursuit of my goal:__________

Person to share my goal with who will keep me accountable, energized, and on track:______

When I (obstacle from step 2)______

Then I will (Action Statement)_____________

Step 7: Continually Monitor Your Progress

Plan for checking in on your progress toward your goal.

How often I’ll check in:___Once a week___

First Check-in date:____New Year’s Day____

When I face an unexpected obstacle, then I will leverage my value of___becoming debt-free___ by __adjusting my budget__.