The process of setting goals is relatively simple, yet it is fraught with difficulties. One of the key difficulties lies in the fact that goal setters must desire to achieve their goal in order for the process to work.

A goal can be defined as ‘the object toward which an endeavour is directed’.  I give this definition to highlight the fact that all students have goals. Indeed, it would be entirely incorrect to assume that a student is goalless based on low performance at school. Intelligent students don’t fail tests because they don’t know how to set goals; they fail tests because they are probably concentrating their efforts on non-academic goals.

It is fine for a teacher to encourage their students to set goals in order to achieve good grades, but this effort will likely be fruitless if the students don’t care about their grades. The real problem facing teachers is not how to get their students to set goals; it is how to get their students to want to set the right goals. The process of aligning a student’s goals with those goals that will best benefit that student will be an immensely difficult task, and it will vary for every student.

There are certain ways of helping students to develop resiliency that will encourage positive goal setting.