Life Skills & Leadership: Unit 3, Session 2: SMART Goals | Page 20 of 67Keep in mind that the best SMART goals may come from a combination of several versions of the same
goal. Then lead the group in a discussion with these questions:Note: Among the discussion questions, those in BOLD are the most important.Of the goals you rewrote, which were the most difficult and why?
Which aspect of writing SMART goals do you still have questions about?
What are the advantages of writing SMART goals?
Of the five parts of SMART goals, specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound,
which do you think is most important? Why?
What advice would you give to someone who is writing SMART goals?Note: Step 8 of “SMART Thinking” is an assessment of Learning Objective 1.B. Summary
Summarize by saying:
“By making our goals SMART, we can add enough detail to a dream so we can begin to know how and
when we can reach it.”III. Practice ( 30 minutes)
Materials:
Handout 3: My Surprising Future
A. Where Are You Going?
Participants speculate about their future and identify steps they will need to complete in order to make
that future a reality.
- Remind participants of the importance of knowing one’s dream or goal in life. Say:
“Let’s use SMART goals for something that you want in your life. To help you do that, let’s begin with a
dream that you have. As we learned in the previous session, being able to describe a dream for yourself
can help focus your energy and enable you to make better decisions. We want to take some time now
to be much more specific about what that dream is for each of you.”- Distribute Handout 3: My Surprising Future to each participant. Say:
“I’d like you to imagine that it is a few years into the future and you are now an adult. Take a few
moments to think silently about what you have achieved and which of your dreams have become real
for you. You can imagine the future you visualized at our last meeting or it could be something
different.