Library blog

Finding Success in School and/or in Life—We Have Books for That

by Karen Jury on 2021-07-13T13:42:59-04:00 | 0 Comments

The topic of “success” is a popular one: there are thousands of books, dozens of lists on websites that claim to have the “5 best tips” or “insider rules” about what success is and how to achieve it. Although the modern concept of “success” has often become equivalent to fame, fortune, or especially both—a basic definition of success is simply “the state or condition of meeting a defined range of expectations” or “the accomplishment of an aim or purpose.”

In other words, anyone and everyone can be successful if they decide on a goal and then meet or exceed that goal. If my goal is to go to the grocery store tonight after work, and I then arrive home with groceries, then I have been successful.

Setting and meeting the goal of getting groceries is a relatively small and easy goal for many people (especially if you have your own car and have 2 grocery stores on the road between your work and your home like I do). But I start the discussion about being successful with a small goal because almost every large goal, aim, or purpose can only be achieved through meeting a number of smaller goals. The concept of being “successful in life” or even “successful in school” can be daunting if not overwhelming for many of us to consider. However, if you determine and plan a logical series of small goals/steps on the way to achieving your larger goal, then you will have a much greater chance of finding your success.

Let’s consider an example of setting goals that could be applicable for our students at Central Penn College as they work toward success in school. Like most colleges and universities, Central Penn has a set number of weeks in each term—11 weeks. And although not all professors organize their courses around a weekly schedule, many (if not most) do use that period of time each week (Monday 12:00 AM through Sunday 11:59 PM) as the basis for many due dates for assignments, quizzes, tests, etc. This is especially true of our online courses, where more often than not a bulk of the week’s work is due, at the latest, by Sunday night. And although most work is due by Sunday night, generally the week’s learning materials and assignments become available no later than Monday morning (if not earlier, depending on the professor).

Knowing how a course is organized, a Central Penn student could make several small goals regarding how to get their work accomplished for the week. Most courses at Central Penn are 3 credits, and the standard assumption/expectation of workload is at least 1-2 hours—per credit—studying, doing homework, and reviewing material outside of class time. So for an online class, students need to add the time they would have spent sitting in a face-to-face course, making the total time a student should plan to schedule for would be at least 6-9 hours a week for one online course (3 hours for “class time” plus 3-6 hours for homework and studying). If a student would then make a goal to spend at least 1 hour each day doing some kind of school work (watching video lectures, homework assignments, etc.)—they would be well on their way to finishing their work for the week if they met their goal. Or perhaps a goal of spending 2 hours a day, while taking a day or two off, would fit better in their schedule—and they would still likely have enough time to finish their schoolwork if they reached their goal.

Looking at all of the work necessary to complete an entire course (online or face-to-face) can be overwhelming—so simply setting the goal of getting an A in a course without also setting smaller, incremental goals could be so discouraging that students might quit without trying. Breaking down a large goal, like getting a good grade in a course, into the smaller goals of getting all of the work finished each week, will go a long way toward reaching the larger goal of successfully finishing the course.

For those of us who are finished with school but maybe have a large project at work—the concept of reaching a large goal by setting and reaching smaller, incremental goals applies to our work lives as well. Even if your profession does not give you many large projects, you can probably still find and set small goals to help you reach even larger goals. Expected to complete 25 forms/items/calls per day? If you work 8 hours, that means your goal should be to complete 4 forms each hour—you’ll exceed 25 items per day at that pace.

Ready to improve your goal-setting and goal-reaching skills and find (or at least get closer to) success in school, work, and/or life? Check out our latest New @ the Library lists, highlighting books from the library catalog. The lists include the books below: several are all about goals and goal setting; while we have many others addressing organization, time management, priorities, and more.