Looking Towards the Future
Ellen Olszyk
Ashford University: PSY 202
November 2nd, 2014

Looking Towards the Future When I was younger my parents always taught my siblings and I to set individual goals for ourselves and family goals for everyone to achieve. We would each write down one or two goals on New Year’s Day and we would sit around the dinner table and read our goals to the rest of the family. After all 7 of us read our personal goad and goal for the family we then would go and put them on the fridge where they stayed for the majority of the year. When our goal(s) got accomplished we would cross it off or put a check by it. Of course when we were all younger our goals were definitely not as specific as they were when we got older. At the time I thought my parents making us do this was dumb and ridiculous but as I got older I realized what a blessing it was, and how much it truly did help in our family life, and personal life. Since I’ve had to set goals my entire life I have learned that by doing this it makes projects, assignments, daily life, etc. a lot less stressful because I know what I want to achieve, how I’m going to do it, and by when I will accomplish these goals. Goal setting is also psychologically healthy. It helps you feel more purposeful, and that can stave off a sense of stagnation and mental health issues like depression (http://vizedhtmlcontent.next.ecollege.com/pub/content/9ab3605a-5a33-4b14-8048-143db6e60251/Setting_SMART_goals.pdf). Setting personal, professional, and academic goals has always been an easy task for myself, however I know some people have a hard time with goal setting and then keeping up with the goals. A personal goal that I have for myself is to become debt free within 10 years. I want to be able to pay back my student loans, the money I have borrowed from my parents (yes, I admit I’ve borrowed money when times were tough for us from them), pay off credit cards and bills that have been in collections. As soon as all those are paid off and I become debt free I can start saving which I hope can happen before 10 years. I know it’s not going to happen overnight, and it takes baby steps to become debt free but I am making it a goal of mine to work those baby steps so within 10 years we can be debt free. You attack the smallest debt first, still maintaining minimum payments on everything else. Do what is necessary to focus your attention, and keep stepping up to the next larger bill (http://www.dave ramsey.com/article/get-out-of-debt-with-the-debt-snowball-plan/). My husband and I don’t have a savings right now and that makes it so much harder to plan for the future when we don’t have this. My oldest daughter will be graduating and hopefully off to college in 9 years, so that’s why I am giving myself /husband 10 years to get out of the hole, therefore we can help pay for college, and be there to help her and give her what she needs and I can’t do that unless I pay off my debt, and start that savings account. We have another 17 years before we have to worry about the second going away but I want to start with the oldest first and make sure we give her what we can, and do the same for the others. As soon as all that debt is paid off I know a huge burden will be lifted because I won’t have to worry about monthly payments anymore and have that lurking over my shoulders. My accountability plan to make sure that this goal is achieved is planning to use the Dave Ramsey approach. Ever since I set this goal for not just myself, but for my husband as well a few months back, we went out and bought his book and just started reading it, and eventually will start applying his techniques into our everyday life. This will not be an attainable goal unless my husband is on board because we are together when it comes to everything especially making decisions financially. I know he is on board with this completely because we have talked and made plans as to what we are going to do, but if he wasn’t this goal wouldn’t be attainable. My professional and academic goal coincide with each other, because without achieving my academic goal I won’t be able to achieve my professional goal. My professional goal is to teach in an elementary school, preferably K-3 students, but before I can do this I have to achieve my academic goal of graduating with my bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education. To teach elementary school students in a public school has always been a dream of mine since I was little. I remember being in 2nd grade telling my teacher that I was going to be just like her, and have my own classroom one day. I have taught preschool in both a private school, and independent school and loved every moment of it, and being there made me realize I need to achieve my goal of being in the elementary school. I want to achieve this goal so I can provide a better life for my family, even though we have a good life now, I want to achieve this goal so I can make more money and in return help achieve the goal of becoming debt free. My accountability plan to achieve both these professional and academic goal is to first have my family supporting me, because without their support, love, and guidance neither of these goals would be achievable. I am going to make sure to stay on top of my work load for each class like I have been with this particular class, by designating certain times of the day for school work. I also have written everything down and when everything is due on my calendar, as I showed in our week two discussion. I have given myself a year and half to finish my degree, provided all my credits transfer over. However, if for some reason they do not then I will use the SMARTER option of evaluating and perhaps change my time frame of my completion date.
As with anything in life, there are obstacles to get through, and when it comes to goal setting no matter how long you’ve been doing it, there are going to be things that will come in the way. That’s life, it’s not easy, but it’s worth it! When I was a senior in high school, my goal was to go to community college for a year, and then to Michigan State University and get my degree, so that by the time I was 22 I would be graduated and on my way to teaching. I learned that what I had was not the plan God had planned for me. I got accepted into MSU my first semester at community college, however I got pregnant and didn’t go to MSU. At that point, I had to re-evaluate my goals and remembered back to when I was younger writing down goals that some take longer than others. Even at that point I didn’t think my goal and dream of graduating college would take me another 11 or 12 years, however I have never given up. I refuse to give up on myself for any of my goals and let myself down because I not only would be giving up on myself, but letting my husband, kids, and family down and I can’t do that. Instead of giving up, I have and will continue to always re-evaluate my goals to make them “SMARTER” goals. Throughout my many years of setting goals, I have realized that when setting goals, you have to be somewhat flexible and learn that you may have to change and tweak the goal you have in mind around a bit to fit whatever situation you’re in or obstacle you have encountered.

References
Get Out Of Debt With The Debt Snowball Plan. (2009, August 1). Retrieved November 2, 2014, from http://www.daveramsey.com/article/get-out-of-debt-with-the-debt-snowball-plan/
Mossler, R. (2013). Adult development and learning. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education.
Student Health 101. (2013). SMART goals. Retrieved from
http://vizedhtmlcontent.next.ecollege.com/pub/content/9ab3605a-5a33-4b14-8048-143db6e60251/Setting_SMART_goals.pdf