It's a Marathon not a Sprint

Two weeks ago I got to experience running in the Chicago Marathon.  However, the marathon was just the conclusion of a goal I set for myself back in March when I signed up for it.  There were many steps that led up to achieving this goal of finishing a marathon.  I had to train hard for 18 weeks putting in endless miles, rearranging travel plans over the summer to get my long runs in and much more.  In the end, I am proud to say I reached my goal!

As I was running for 3 hours and 57 minutes, I had A LOT of time to think.  Naturally, I thought about my students and how I could use my goal setting to help them.  Often times, kids that come to my classroom talk about things they want to be better at, but really have no idea where to start. I decided to do goal setting with a group of 6^th graders but told them the goal could not be related to academics; it had to be a personal goal.  I related this to my goal of running a marathon. 

 I was worried how this activity would go because I have tried goal setting before and it never goes well.  However, this time I was determined to make it a meaningful lesson. 

This is what one student came up with:

In the end I was pleased with how insightful all the students were.  The goals are not perfect, the steps are not as specific as they can be,  but they identified things they needed to work on and can now start taking the steps!  It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, "It's a marathon not a sprint".  Our goals take time and effort to reach them and we have to pace ourselves along the way by setting goals!