Planning is a good thing. There's a saying that 'no one plans to fail, but many fail to plan.' To make a plan, you must have a goal. There are two types of goals: (a) performance goals & (b) learning goals. A performance goal is to obtain a specific level of performance, or a specific outcome. Examples of performance goals are being a millionaire, hitting 62 home runs in a season, and getting an A in psych 11.

Learning goals do not suggest a particular level of performance, but rather suggest that people improve themselves, and try to do as best they can. Examples of learning goals would be learning something new about psychology from a psychology class, and developing better tennis skills from a practice session.

Each type of goal has been linked to a type of motivation. Learning goals are linked to intrinsic motivation, while performance goals are linked to extrinsic motivation. Generally, people perform better when they have been given learning goals rather than performance goals. This is especially true as the complexity of the task increases.

Once you have set your goals, then you need to take action. Taking action is just two words for work. Working is a good thing. For example, you will do better in this course if you work at it. If you don't work at it, you may do OK. But I assure you that if you work at it you will do better than if you don't.

Let me show you some statistics to support my point that working is a good thing. These are the statistics for Gary Roberts, who played for the Calgary Flames. Notice the difference in his point production in the years prior to 1991-92 (0.61 ppg) and since 1991-92 (1.20 ppg). The difference in goals is also remarkable. Over his first 4 full NHL seasons, Roberts averaged 22 goals a season, and in his next 4 full seasons he averaged 33 goals a season (44 if you don't count the injury shorted 1994-95 season). Basically, Roberts's scoring doubled from years 1-4 to years 5-8. Why might this have happened?

The reason is that there was a Canada Cup in 1991. Perhaps you are thinking "oh, so Roberts played on Team Canada, won the Canada Cup, and that boosted his career." If you are thinking that, you are wrong, because. Roberts was not a member of Team Canada in 1991. Oh, he did get invited to their training camp. But he failed to make the team. However, what Roberts saw at the training camp was that other good players, superstar players, were not only talented but those star players worked really hard. They worked harder than he himself had been working. The star players' achievements were not simply because they were talented, but the star players also worked at improving their skills. Thus, after getting cut from the training camp, Roberts realized that he could be an even better hockey player than he had been, if he worked harder. So he did. The results are remarkable.

Also, John Irving, the author of The world according to Garp and A prayer for Owen Meany among others, was a competitive wrestler when he was in high school and university. But he didn't have much talent for wrestling. Irving wrestled, because he really liked it. His wrestling achievments were the product of hard work. Irving's high school wrestling coach, Ted Seabrooke, told Irving that he didn't have much talent for wrestling, which sounds pretty discouraging. But Seabrooke also told Irving "talent is overrated. That you're not very talented needn't be the end of it."

Irving feels the same way about his writing, as he did about his wrestling. Irving doesn't think that he is a talented writer, but he works at it, and works at it, until the final draft, which I think is pretty darn good.

Set annual, monthly, weekly, and daily goals. Then work to achieve them.

The person that is most important to your achievement is you. If you can convince yourself that you can achieve your goals, then you are already on the way to achieving them.

* Set specific goals (measurable)

* Set difficult but realistic goals

* Set long term & short term goals

* Set performance goals

* Record the goals set

* Develop goal achievement strategies

* Get goal support

* Get goal evaluation

* Failing to set specific goals

* Setting too many goals too soon

* Failing to adjust goals

* Failing to set performance goals

* No follow-up evaluation