Your goal statement
Identifying a good goal is one of the most important parts of your project. These are some ideas to help you develop a strong project.
- What is it? As identified on the handout drawn from Walter and Peller (1992), your project should identify something you will do (rather than not do), something you will do rather than be or hope for, something specific that you can identify carefully and observe readily, and something you (rather than someone else) controls.
- Why is this an important project? A good project is one that you see as important and are committed to. It is incredibly easy to choose a project that others see as important, but you aren't ready to address. I end up feeling "bad" or acting oppositional when I change because others think I should. How important do you see this project?
- What obstacles do you anticipate? So, why shouldn't you change? What will make this difficult? What are the disadvantages of change? Students have told me they want to stop smoking, but that they don't know how they'd get through finals. Another developed a wonderful project, but realized that her weight protected her from having to deal with dating. While each of these projects can continue to be successful, they have the greatest probability of success when these obstacles have been addressed -- with, respectively, stress reduction techniques or social skill training.
Page by jms
URL= http://psy1.clarion.edu/jms/btgoalst.html
Last updated January 28, 1999
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