The Critical Roles of Long-Term Goals
Long-term goals help keep your eyes on the prize.
Whether you’re a high school student, a post-graduate student, a factory worker, or an entrepreneur, keeping on-track for your long-term goals is a real challenge. Even the most goal-oriented and organized of us stumble along the way.
So why do we expect high-schoolers and even middle-schoolers to have it all together?
Well, as parents we start stressing out when our kids seem to be behind the schedule of expectations we’ve created for them in our heads. We all feel like our kid’s entire future is riding on getting straight As in high school, excelling on all the standardized tests, and getting into the top schools in the country. So we tell them, “Hurry up!” “Study more!” “Practice harder!” “Do more activities!” until our stress becomes doubled in them.
Most kids don’t respond well to that kind of pressure. The ones who do sometimes end up with dangerous levels of stress.
Of course, it’s only out of love and concern that we push them so hard. We try to appeal to them with talk about working hard to get into “great colleges”, “have a good life” and “make good money”; or we try to scare them by suggesting that failure will net consequences such as “working at a fast-food restaurant” or “living on the street”.
Yet every time we’ve complained about them neglecting to take initiative and responsibility for their future success, most of us are overlooking something immensely important.
Most parents have never really shown our kids how to choose their long-term goals and build a road to them. Parents don’t even realize how vague these concepts are to the average pre-teen or teenager: a great school; a great job; a great life; lots of money...
What does that even mean?
Even if you explained world-class facilities, highly-accomplished professors, alumni networks, fulfilling careers, work-life balance, the importance of personal/family time, and the effects of the economy on one’s income, they may gain an intellectual understanding of everything, but they won’t feel the point you’re trying to make. It won’t resonate deeply with them.
In their minds, a great school is one that sounds cool or one where their friends are. A great job is being a social media “influencer”, a professional athlete, or a professional gamer—real jobs that seem like easy shortcuts to all they want, but actually have vanishingly low opportunities for entry or success.
So what can I do to teach long-term goal-setting and focus?
There is nothing wrong with rewards. The real world works the same way. You will be rewarded for doing certain things; and rewards are more effective motivators than punishments.
The big issue with long-term goals is that frequently, kids can’t see or appreciate the reward, can’t fully understand the tasks needed to get the reward, and can’t grasp the amount of time needed to reach the reward. That’s three strikes against motivation.
Imagine if you tell your twelve- or thirteen-year-olds, “If you clean up the table after dinner, I’ll give you [chocolate / a game / money / tickets to someplace fun / etc].”
In this scenario, they understand all the concepts perfectly.
They know the reward—it’s probably something they’re familiar with or have already expressed a desire for. You may even be showing it to them. Both it and its value to them are clear in their minds.
They understand the task. They see the table every day and presumably someone cleaning it every day, so they understand what they have to do to fulfill the arrangement. They also know where to go for help.
They understand the time frame involved. They can look at the table, and from observations, experiences, and logic, estimate reasonably well how much time it would take to complete the task; and because the amount of time required is relatively small, the short wait for gratification is worthwhile and therefore bearable.
And one more point—they trust that the reward will be given. If they’ve made similar deals in the past and been rewarded, they have no reason to believe this time won’t have a similar outcome. This reinforces confidence in the process.
Under these conditions, the likelihood that your table will be clean within minutes after dinner is complete is very high.
Now contrast this with the next scenario:
Imagine telling the same twelve- or thirteen-year-olds, “If you study really hard and prepare every day for the next six years, you’ll get into a great school; then if you work hard for another four years, you’ll be able to get a great job when you get into the real world!”
What do the kids really understand here?
The rewards are getting into a great school and getting a great job. They have no real concept of these abstract ideas—what’s the motivation besides what you tell them it should be? They have no idea what college is like and most haven’t had jobs.
The task is studying and preparing really hard—something that they may have an idea about since they are in school. However, the hard work it takes to be a top achiever is a different level of studying, practicing, preparing, and working. There’s a learning curve there that will most likely be frustrating, emotionally exhausting, and even physically taxing. That kind of grit does not come easily for most people.
The time frame of this task is six to ten years. That’s 50% to 80%+ of their lives! They cannot really understand what it feels like to do something consistently for 6 years; and most barely have any clear memories from ten years ago. They understand the numbers and literal meanings of 6 and 10 years, but such lengths of time are still too far beyond their frames of reference to grasp in real life. Think about it—adults can easily talk meaningfully about something they did ten years ago. At twelve, however, we’d find that much of our memory from ten years earlier would be missing as our hard drives weren’t quite fully wired yet.
Moreover, the abstractness of the rewards and the extremely long (to them) investment time diminishes their valuation of the rewards. They have no confidence in a practical payoff at the end because the long wait makes it seem meaningless. So where’s the motivation to try hard every single day with no reward in sight?
We like to say that this generation is only interested in instant gratification. Well—that’s true for every generation. We’ve just found desperation, fear, and other motivators to make us work for the long-term goals.
The process for the kids doesn’t have to be so dark, however, The idea is to start them on short-term goals and slowly extend the breadth of the task and the length of the wait to receive the reward. This will build confidence that the reward will actually come, and it will help them build stamina for the work routines needed to gain the reward.
You may need to get involved in the study process, too. Kids sometimes need help—it may be a subject or a problem they just don’t understand (Khan Academy, Google, and ChatGPT are your friends here), or it may be a matter of offering moral support by just sitting beside them for a little while.
Now let’s imagine you’ve set the task of completing a home study course over the summer.
1. Start with a goal of completing ten pages each day and clearly communicate the rewards:
“When you finish the first 5 pages, you can get a small snack of your choice.”
“When you finish all ten pages, you can play a game you like or we can go grab a bubble tea.”
2. Continue with larger goals and longer terms—weeks and months:
“Each week you complete 50 pages, we’ll [set aside $5.00 / make the dinner you want.] At the end of the summer, you’ll have [$40~$50] to do with what you want.”
“If you complete 200 pages in a month, we’ll excuse you from chores for a weekend and make the dinner & dessert you want.”
“If you finish all 450 pages by the end of the summer, we’ll take you and some friends to a local theme/amusement park.”
You can get creative with the rewards—it all depends on what is feasible for you to do and what your children are interested in. It may take some planning and experimentation to make it work, but it’s important to involve the kids in the discussion about rewards and motivation. Remember, if they’re not invested, and if you don’t deliver on the rewards, it all collapses.
As they get into the routine, you can extend the goals to getting the best grades they can in their classes. Leveled rewards for A, B, or C work on report cards will have them thinking about their GPA, homework, and assignments. They’ll try to study to reach their rewards goals by the end of the marking period (in quarter systems), which is about 9 weeks.
The idea is to encourage them to continue using short term goals while keeping them focused on the benefits of the long-term goals. When they reach the long-term goals and receive the rewards, they begin to believe that rewards will be there for other far-off goals as well—even if they cannot see them.
As you do this, it is also very important to name and discuss the silent rewards that were not highlighted at the start:
“You got straight As, and now you’re on the High Honor Roll.”
“You scored in the 97th percentile on your standardized test! That means you placed out of taking [a class everyone else has to take]!”
“Your GPA is 4.3! The school district invited you to an awards dinner for all the best students!”
“This is because of all your hard work and excellent study habits!”
This introduces them to the value of the real rewards which were not originally on their radar. Now their value system includes this and bolsters their sense of pride and their desire to achieve. Hopefully before you know it, they’ll be thinking about college themselves. Nevertheless, keep having the college and career goals discussion and introduce the next steps. No later than 8th~9th grade, have them start thinking about what they want to study, and what schools offer those majors. Choose a few goal schools and begin making plans to get there!
Also—keep this in mind: Rewards do work better than punishments, so keep the negative reinforcement to a minimum. And never ever punish students with study, reading or practice. You’ll just condition them to hate these beneficial things in a deep, visceral way—and that’s the last thing you want. Don’t do things like sending them to bed without dinner, either. Not only is it unhealthy, but bedtime then becomes trigger for resentment. As a matter of fact, sometimes the reason children can’t focus is because they need a little food and a nap. So encourage healthy eating and sleep habits (balanced meals and 9 hours of sleep nightly).
Preparing for college is a family team effort! With all the pressures of everyday life, it’s easy to accidentally sabotage your own goals. So find what positive, encouraging methods work for you and your children and teach it to them with patience and understanding.
And keep your eyes on the prize!
The Mugenn-Sensei Team
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