Personal Success Plan (PSP): A tool that helps you establish SMART goals, build action plans, evaluate your outcomes, and revise your plans as needed.

FEATURE: The Personal Success Plan provides students with a structured platform for SMART goal setting and action planning. It incorporates key elements of student success such as critical thinking, self-knowledge, and the use of campus and community resources. Further, it emphasizes the importance of reflecting on progress toward goals and modifying goals or action plans if necessary. Finally, the PSP includes a section that encourages students to think metacognitively about skills they develop as they set and achieve goals and to consider how those skills might be useful in a career.

You can reinforce the use of PSPs by requiring the completion of a certain number of PSP goals (however many you choose). If you meet with students individually during the term, consider requiring students to bring a PSP to the meeting and to discuss the goal-setting, action-planning, and evaluation process.

The PSP in Action

In this section, you’ll get a firsthand look at how the PSP functions. You’ll read about the experience of one student, Kayden, as he sets up his PSP, and you’ll see the steps he takes to create and accomplish his goal. This is goal setting in action!

Gather Information. Kayden has enrolled in a first-year seminar course, and one of his assignments is to establish a specific goal and action plan. As a first step, Kayden gathers information about himself by reflecting on his strengths and weaknesses. He knows that he’s a very motivated student but that he also struggles to manage his time. Therefore he decides that setting a regular study schedule will help him stay on track.

39

Set a SMART Goal. Kayden decides on his SMART goal: “I’ll study for my first-year seminar at least one hour each weekday.” This is a specific and measurable goal. Based on his existing schedule, Kayden believes that this goal is achievable. He’s motivated to get good grades this term, so it’s also personally relevant to his success. Finally, the goal has a clearly established time limit, which will help him check his progress within a day or two.

Make an Action Plan. To identify the steps he must take to meet his goal, Kayden considers his class and work schedules and upcoming personal commitments. He knows that his brain doesn’t kick into gear until noon, so studying after lunch is best. He also knows that he prefers studying in his own apartment, but only when it’s quiet. With this information in mind, he makes a plan.

List Barriers and Solutions. On his PSP, Kayden lists several barriers that might prevent him from achieving his goal and brainstorms solutions for overcoming those barriers. For example, his roommate may need to use the apartment when Kayden wants to study. (Perhaps his roommate is a music major and needs to practice his tuba.) As a backup plan, Kayden decides to look for alternative study areas in the school library. Also, Kayden might not always be able to follow his set schedule or might feel pressure to socialize when he’s supposed to be studying. In case these things happen, he develops strategies for staying on track.

40

Act and Evaluate Outcomes. For the next two weeks, Kayden implements his action plan and records his results in the PSP. He does the following:

He experiences a setback in week 2, when he misses two study periods. But he doesn’t give up; instead, he makes up his study time over the weekend and revises his schedule to make it more realistic. And he’s so pleased with how useful this study strategy has been that he decides to build a study schedule for his other courses, too.

Connect to Career. On his PSP, Kayden has identified three skills he is learning as he works toward his goal:

These are skills he can use in any current job or any future employment. By recording these skills on his PSP, he can refer to them when he prepares a résumé, writes cover letters, and describes his qualifications during job interviews.

41

42

Create Your First Personal Success Plan

Kayden is off to a great start this term, and now it’s time for you to create your first Personal Success Plan. To begin, follow the steps below and sketch out your ideas on the provided template.

Once you’ve filled out your Personal Success Plan, you’ll have set your first academic success goal of the term. Congratulations — this is a great first step! Remember, though, that goal setting is an ongoing process that takes practice, and that’s why you’ll get the chance to set multiple goals over the course of the term. How many goals should you set? Your instructor may provide guidance on the number required for your particular class. Some instructors may ask you to set one goal for each chapter, while others may require only a few goals over the course of the term. Either way, we have included a sample PSP at the end of each chapter to inspire you and to walk you through the goal-setting process. If you aren’t setting a goal in a particular chapter, the PSP will still be there to offer suggestions and serve as a model.

43

You might need some time to get used to the PSP, but as you progress through this course, you’ll become an expert goal-setter. By the end of the term, you’ll have set and achieved a number of goals, and you’ll be well on your way to academic and career success.