Advisors list success goals to achieve academic dreams
by Jason Holt, reporter

   Why does it seem that some people get further in life than others?

  That was one of the major questions posed recently during a seminar on South Campus concerning setting goals and making the right decisions.

  Dennis Lee, academic advisor of the STARS program, and his co-presenter Greg Shortes, instructional associate in the program, presented The ABCs to Success.

  Lee and Shortes played a game of Pictionary using the topic of success to illustrate that goals should be timed.

  “You should have a framework for your goals,” Lee said.

  Shortes said the journey to achieve goals might be like passing through an obstacle course.

  Lee distributed a handout titled The Processionary Caterpillar.

  Processionary caterpillars move in a line, one behind the other until they die.

  The writers of the article found that if the caterpillars formed a circle, they would continue moving until exhausted and starving.

  “What was the caterpillars’ mistake?” Lee asked. “They mistook activity for accomplishment. They surely meant well, but they got nowhere.”

  Lee said the real tragedy in life is not setting goals at all.

  “The tragedy in life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goals to reach,” he said.

  Once goals are set, a person can begin to accomplish the goals.

  “Why does it seem like some people are getting so much done?” he asked. “They have goals.”

  Lee had participants fill out goal-setting sheets with three time periods of one year, one to three years and three to seven years.

  Lee said many successful people reevaluate goals from time to time before they accomplish what they want.

  “Goals allow us to make life happen,” Lee said. “They make you get up in the morning so that you can accomplish those goals.”

  Lee used the acronym SMART: goals have to be specific and measurable. People have to take action, think about what is realistic and establish a time frame.

  Lee also said it is a good idea to write down goals and post them around the room.

  It is not always a good idea to share goals with friends, Lee said.

  “They know you and may not believe that you can really do it,” he said.

  Lee told the power of six P’s.

  The six P’s are power, present tense, personal, precise, possible and powerful.

  Shortes said to achieve goals people have to make the right decisions every day that will get them closer to making their goals happen.

  “The little decisions can affect your life more than the big ones, sometimes.”

  “We make so many more of the little ones than the big ones that they can have a bigger effect in the long run, he said.”

  People make the decision to go to college, but if they never show up for class, the decision to go to college means nothing, Shortes said.

  Shortes asked students to list decisions they have to make every day.

  “Life is choices,” he said. “Everything you do is because of a choice. Even choosing to not chose is still a choice.”

  If a person cannot decide what choice he wants to make, then he should make a chart, Shortes said.

  One should list the good and bad things about each of the choices and decide which one is best.

  “Of course, we will choose more often in favor of things we think are important, such as a family gathering or church,” he said.

  Shortes shared the four types of decision-making: intuitive, planning, impulsive and delaying or procrastination.