Target pRACTICE GOAL SETTING Support Materials & Resources visualisation Bins. Small balls or bean bags. (If using the juggling exercise, these work well). POSITIVE THINKING Running the exercise: You’ll need waste paper bins or small boxes plus a lot of small balls (like juggling attentional control balls). Position waste paper bins somewhere safe and mark out a line about 4 metres ANXIETY CONTROL from the bin or box. Explain that: Phase One You will have 10 balls each which you will toss into the bin from behind the line. We want to see how many of the ten balls you get into the bin. That will be your score. Before we start you must estimate how many you will get into the bin. That’s your goal or target. Run the exercise. Teacher Review: How many of you did better than targeted? How many did worse and how many achieved the target? How did you feel about your result? (Some will have got more than others and yet been disappointed). What does this tell us about goal setting? Addressing those who got high scores – what did you do that helps? Addressing those who got low scores – what do you think happened? (One of the factors should be that some “tried too hard” or were “frightened” by the challenge/risk of failure and as a result tensed up). Try to relax a bit more when trying to do something challenging. Phase Two We’ll repeat the exercise now and this time you will set a new target. Let’s see how we do. Run the exercise. Control Confidence Commitment Challenge
tTarget pPractice Teacher review: How many did better than before and/or got closer to their target? How do they feel now? What did they do that they didn’t do the first time? How does it feel to set a realistic goal and achieve it or get close to it? Background This is an exercise in goal setting – being realistic and in doing something that carries risk. Setting realistic goals means that there is a reduced risk of disappointment or feelings of failure. This can impact on positive thinking which in turn impacts on control, commitment and confidence. Goals shouldn’t be easy. Achieving easy goals can be equally unsatisfactory. The other element of this exercise is doing something challenging and doing it in front of your peers. This can cause some people to feel stressed. The lesson here is that relaxing and visualising success can help, and importantly learning from mistakes and failures is positive, it’s how we all learn. Discussion Guides: Built into the exercise above. Explore the notion of learning how to do this better by having a go and not fearing the consequences. Explore the idea that setting goals too high and too low can result in disappointment, even if your score might have been OK.
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