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CNN Chief Medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains how your brain responds when you receive a compliment.

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Social & Emotional Learning (SEL)

When middle and high school students set short- and long-term goals, they can see a path to the success they hope for.

"If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves."
-Thomas Edison

I learned that quote from Wendy Beth Rosen's Self-Smart. Taking it seriously, Wendy suggests some areas where students'-and adults'-self-assessments can lead to greater accomplishments and personal satisfaction. Many distractions and challenges in our lives threaten to throw us off our path, or keep us from knowing what our path is. Setting explicit goals for success and tracking our progress toward them is a way to increase our chances of finding the success we hope for.

I'd like to share a method of goal-tracking that can be used by students and educators in ongoing ways, as well as at specific points when they're experiencing uncertainty or setbacks. These also have value for promoting positive mental health in school.

Setting and Tracking Goals

Middle and high school are particularly important times for students to become consciously aware of and intentional about key choices: what they're putting into their bodies; how the way they are spending their time helps them reach their larger purposes; who they're spending their time with; and what they're doing to contribute to their families, schools, and communities.

At the beginning of the school year and at each marking period, students in middle and high school should record in a journal their goals in these eight areas:

1. Academics

2. Social life

3. Sports and exercise

4. Healthy eating

5. Family and community

6. Hobbies and interests

7. Screen time

8. Long-term plans

In working with middle school students, for example, I have seen them set goals ranging from "eating better food at lunch" to "being a great guitar player" to "being an NBA star." In all cases, we want to help students be clear about their goals (in the first case, "to be a healthy person") and to set realistic short-term goals on the way to their long-term goal (for the guitar and basketball players, finding time for regular practice with feedback). For these students, and all students, goals provide anchors, especially valuable in high winds and rough seas.

All of the eight areas of life above matter, and academic success is related to all of them. Having a way to separate them, document progress, and create priorities is important. Students need help to be successful even when they have positive aspirations. A sure way to not succeed is trying to make progress in too many areas at once, so help students find one, two, or three areas to prioritize for a marking period. Revisit these priorities with them and see if follow-up goals need to be set in these areas or if new areas should be prioritized. Keeping to no more than three at a time is vital, because even if we might need to change in eight areas, we can't track that many. Slow and steady wins the race.

Tracking also helps ensure that a given area is not neglected. When we see that things might have been neglected, we can make some adjustments.

The main point of setting goals is to help students take realistic steps to achieve them. Many educators find that using the SMART format -goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely-is practical and reasonable, and keeps students on track.

When Can This Happen?

This kind of journaling is ideally suited to advisory or extended home room periods. Advisory periods are supposed to focus on the whole child, and the eight areas provide broad coverage. Journaling also fosters communication between advisory teachers and those who focus on these areas in schools, including subject area teachers, "specials" teachers (including health and physical education teachers), and staff running extracurricular activities. In addition, the advisory period can be used for pair and group problem-solving to help overcome obstacles students face as they pursue their goals.

One way to help students achieve their goals is to pair them up to help one another with goal-setting and monitoring. Students see each other in various school contexts and can be helpful outside of formal class time.

Having communal, whole-class conversations about goal-setting creates a new mindset in students and fosters cooperation and mutual improvement because students' goals are not solely their responsibility. We all get better when each of us gets better. So there is an expectation that goals set will be shared-perhaps with classmates and certainly with other teachers. (This expectation of sharing should ensure that personal goals related to family issues stay out of these conversations, as they require more professional and confidential follow-up.)

A helpful way to introduce the journaling is to ask students to reflect on the opening quote from Edison, taking a position as to whether they agree, disagree, or are not sure about it, and why. Have students share their rationales in small groups and then share out with the larger class. Ensuring that students understand they have more potential than most of them realize is a critical preliminary step to making goal journaling an authentic activity for them.

The Same Goals Are Useful for Adults

This activity is also relevant for adults. Educators have a lot on their plates, and having a way to make sure that one's learning, family, health habits, interests, and long-term plans are front of mind (even if not always front of action) keeps us grounded.

Devoting regular time in professional learning communities and faculty meetings to discussing goal-achieving strategies can provide a power morale boost in schools. In particular, discussing long-term plans can stimulate broad faculty collaboration to shape the school. And sharing with students that you're doing the same thing you ask them to do makes it more likely that they'll value the activity.

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Social & Emotional Learning (SEL) When middle and high school students set short- and long-term goals, they can see a path to the success they hope for. "If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves." -Thomas Edison I learned that quote from Wendy Beth Rosen's Self-Smart.

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I have been writing something about myself or my everyday for almost 5 years now. It has been one of the greatest and most freeing experiences in my life because I can actually slow myself down to think about what's truly happening around me as well as my part in it.

Most people treat journaling as something they "know they should do" but rarely ever take up the practice. And if they do, they fall off the wagon within a few months.

It doesn't have to be this way, especially when you learn about the amazing benefits of journaling. Here are 6 ways that journaling will change your life:

1. Dig into your true feeling

Journaling can help you get out of the way of what you truly feel on the inside. In other words, taken the time to sit and write about something that is affecting you can lead to a deeper and more realistic view of what feelings you are actually feeling.

When we are caught up in the "rat-race" of life, we tend to disregard our feelings and keep ourselves, busy and jaded. It isn't until we slow down for some time to let the feelings inside be what they truly are.

2. Give you a point of view

Another thing that journaling can give us is a better understanding of our own point of view as well as what others may think of a situation.

It's always thought to know exactly what others are thinking, but journaling can allow us to slow down enough to start to try to understand someone else's point of view.

3. Remind you of a life worth living

I like to think of journaling as "my life's story". That alone makes it fun, enjoyable, and inspiring to write a little about myself and what is going on with me every single day.

After you have journaled continuously for sometime and you look back on the things that you have written you may realize that your life is much more interesting and deep than you once thought.

In fact, if you are down on yourself a lot, journaling is a great way to get around this and discover that your life is truly worth living.

4. Reassure yourself of who you are

Do you know yourself? Without thinking too hard about it, you may just simply say, "of course I do," yet if you haven't done some serious introspection and work on who you are, chances are you may only know who you think you are.

This was definitely the case for me before I started writing for myself every single day. I thought that I knew what I liked and disliked, who I was, and where I was going in life.

But in reality I these aspects of myself were what I thought I should be; not actually who I was.

With journaling, I uncovered dreams and goals that I never imagine would be mine. I realized that there were so many things that I just couldn't stand to do and therefore gave myself boundaries to say "no" more.

Journaling can do this for you too. You can finally say hello to yourself.

5. Help you record your legendary stories

The idea of being able to write for your life and then pass that writing onto someone else, whether it be old friends, children, grandchildren, etc. is inspiring.

I could only wish that my father or grandfather would have been able to pass on something like that to me. It wouldn't have mattered if the words they wrote were deep or insightful; just as long as they were words that I could read and feel more connected to them.

You can journal every day and then pass this legacy on to loved ones later in life. They can learn about you and what made you tick as a human.

6. Build your serenity

Getting back to number one; when you start to write about your feelings and how situations in your life change your feelings you gain the ability to start to process those feelings.

Rather than leaving feelings completely bottled up inside, you can put them down on paper and get them out of your heart and mind so you can process and understand them more which will lead to a more serene existence.

This especially works well with feelings like anger, jealousy, resentment, etc. Putting these feeling out on paper and letting them take their course is a great way to stay balanced.

Final thoughts

The simple act of writing a few words, sentences, or paragraphs everyday can have a profound and instant effect on your life for the better.

Journaling can change your life. It makes you a more interesting person through the years and makes you feel more interested in your life.

Featured photo credit: Unsplash via unsplash.com

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6 Unexpected Ways Journaling Every Day Will Make Your Life Better - LifeHack

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Keeping a journal is a tough practice. But you can be inspired to keep going by learning 6 different ways journaling will change your life. Then making it a habit will be a lot easier!