Youth Mentoring Programs: Youth Goal Setting
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WHY IS IT IMPORTANT FOR YOUTH TO SET GOALS?
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WHEN SHOULD YOUTH SET GOALS?
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HOW DO YOUTH SET GOALS?
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PLANNING FOR ACTION
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HOW DO YOU REVIEW AND ADJUST MENTORING GOALS?
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT FOR YOUTH TO SET GOALS?
From time to time, everyone experiences difficulty getting started on the path to success. Each of us has a unique set of strengths that help us, as well as challenges that hinder us on the way. Goal setting helps us separate our strengths from weaknesses and make realistic plans for improving our lives.
Goal setting provides focus and context to a mentor pair. Once you have established a relationship with your protégé, the two of you together can start deciding on goals for the relationship and the coming year.
- You may wish to develop a contract for your relationship, outlining personal, and social and educational goals for both the short term – the next month, the next six months, the next year – and the long term – two or three or five years down the road
- You can periodically assess your protégé’s progress in reaching their goals
- You can celebrate when your protégé reaches goals or achieves something significant
WHEN SHOULD YOUTH SET GOALS?
The purpose of most mentoring programs is to help youth reach their goals. While it may seem that goal-setting should be one of the first things that happens in a mentoring relationship, that’s not always the best strategy. The various forms in the Tools part of this section are useful, but they’re long and call for a certain amount of soul-baring. They can also be intimidating or off-putting to a youth, especially if their reading skills are poor, or they have low self esteem. If they are to fill out these forms honestly, they have to believe that you, as a mentor, will respect their decisions and their aspirations.
For that reason, it’s important that you firmly establish your relationship before you start any formal goal-setting. Protégés need time to get to know and trust mentors before they’re willing to reveal themselves and share their goals and dreams. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t talk with your protégé about the need for setting goals in some areas – school is a good example – but they have to see you as something more than just another adult trying to get them to do things they don’t want to do before they’ll actually buy into goal-setting, and approach it seriously. These are their goals, after all, not yours, and they have to believe that, and believe that you care about helping them to achieve them before they’ll put in full effort. It’s far better to take some time and have the young person set goals they believe in, care about, and are willing to work toward than to have them pay lip service to the process, with no intention of doing anything about it.
More.
Access Checklist, Examples, Tools & PowerPoint.