Students like to see proof of their accomplishments by reaching personal goals. This helps build self-confidence and self-esteem.

The best goals are ones students set for themselves. They should be specific, challenging, and focused on the individual (not compared to others). Here are a few ways you can point them in the right direction:

Be realistic.
You want goals to be challenging, but attainable. An unreachable goal will only discourage students. Even if a goal is reached too easily, students can always set a new way.

Think short-term.
Students live for the moment. Goals must be meaningful and reachable in the near future.

Write it down.
Teach kids to write down their goals and put them somewhere they can see them every day. Be sure to include the desired behavior needed to accomplish the goal. Goals should be simple and restricted to one major behavior.

Examples of well-written goals:

• I will play soccer with my friends for 60 minutes each day for a week.
• I will increase my activity time by 5 minutes each week until I reach 60 minutes a day.
• Each week, I will spend 2 days practicing a new activity I want to learn (jumping rope).
• I will put on my pedometer first thing in the morning and take 11,000 steps today.