Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Identify goals

Clearly identifying (and writing down) your goals is the first step to attaining them. This step is super important! You will likely have multiple goals for each of your multiple roles in life:

Your role in life and matching goals

The role in your life:	The goal to match:
Student	educational goals
Family member	family goals
Employee	work goals
Friend	social and recreational goals
Community member	community member goals
Individual	health and financial fitness goals

Identify effective goals using the DAPPS method

• Dated
  Effective goals have specific deadlines: “My dream is to become a Drug and Alcohol Counselor in three years.”
• Achievable
  Effective goals are realistic: “My dream is to become a Drug and Alcohol Counselor in three years and finish school with under $10,000 in debt.”
• Personal
  Your goals, not someone else’s: “My dream is to become a Drug and Alcohol Counselor in three years and finish school with under $10,000 in debt.”
• Positive
  Effective goals focus on what you do want rather than on what you don’t want: “My dream is to become a Drug and Alcohol Counselor in three years and finish school with under $10,000. I will borrow $825/term or less for tuition, fees, books, and supplies.“
• Specific
  Effective goals state outcomes in specific, measurable terms: “My dream is to become a Drug and Alcohol Counselor in three years and finish school with under $10,000 of debt. I will borrow $825 per term or less for tuition, fees, books, and supplies. I will complete my remaining 72 credits by taking two courses each term.”

Prioritize goals

Once you have a long list of goals, you’ll need to decide if they are:

Now you can rank the ones that are the most important to you. It’s good to keep a couple in each category, so you can maintain your focus. As you accomplish goals in each category, you can move on to the next short-mid-long-term goal on your list!

Do your goals support or compete with each other?

While in college, your goals are probably related to your education- especially your short and mid-term goals. It’s important to remember though: your short and mid-term goals should support your long-term goals. If your goals seem to be competing with each other, you need to go back and prioritize again. If your long-term goal is to buy a house, do you really need that car? If your mid-term goal is to graduate from college in 3 years, but you can’t afford classes with your current budget, you might need to make getting a campus job and reducing housing costs your top short-term priorities.

Figure out resources

The resources and actions required to meet your goals will depend on the goals themselves. Resources can be money, time, people, and/or products that are necessary to accomplish your goal.

For example, if your mid-term goal is to complete 72 credits in three years with minimum debt, you would need:

• Money for tuition, fees, books, supplies, and transportation
• Time spent in class and studying each week
• Access to a computer and printer
• Sufficient academic skills to be successful in your classes or access to tutoring

Some of these resources are money, and some of them are people or non-monetary resources you can develop while you are taking your courses. You already know from the Academic Track that developing relationships with peers, faculty, and other college personnel can provide you with access to letters of recommendation for scholarships and employment, tutoring, and referrals to other resources.

Remember, PCC has academic resources like counseling, Advising, Tutoring, and Computer labs.

Create action plan

Generally, an action plan has four parts:

1. Your clearly identified goal
2. The date the goal will be achieved
3. The resources and tasks required to achieve the goal
4. The activities and timelines (between now and your goal date) that help you check your progress

In Steps 1 through 3 you clearly identified your goal, set a date when it should be achieved, and identified the resources that you would need. Now all you have to do is to identify your plan to evaluate your progress! So let’s look at your goal above: to complete 72 credits in three years and keep your debt under $10,000. Each term you need to ask yourself:

• Am I borrowing $800 or less?
• Am I successfully completing at least two courses?
• Are the classes I’m taking going toward my degree?

If you find that you answer no to any of these questions, your action plan gets more complicated. If you are borrowing more than $800, look at your spending plan and budget to see if there are places to save money. If you are not completing your courses successfully, what actions do you need to take to improve your success in college? Step 4 is all about evaluating your progress and taking action to keep yourself on track.