Lesson 1: Define goals and goal setting.
When you refer to what interests you, knowing who you are and what your strengths
and weaknesses are, we refer to Self- knowledge/ self-awareness.
Self-esteem is a term that describes how you feel about yourself.
Often, we have the desire to change, but not the plan as to how we are going to make
those changes happen. Without a plan we end up in a cycle of never achieving our
goals. So how do we make these changes a reality? We start by writing them down!
A goal is something you hope to achieve so that you can live your life to the fullest. A
goal with no plan is just a wish and if you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to
people or things. Knowing this, it’s helpful to know that you get three types of goals
each linked to a certain time allocation
Three types of goals:
✓ Short term goals they are goals that you can achieve in a short amount of time.
Usually in less than 1 year. An example would be, setting a goal to increase 5% in
your next maths test. Learner provides another example in his/her own life.
✓ Medium term goals - goals you aim to achieve in 1 to 3 years. An example would
be to get into university to study engineering at the end of next year. Take 3 - 5
examples.
✓ Long term goals - goals you aim to achieve in more than 3 years. An example
could be to head up your own engineering firm within 20 years.
Achieving your goal makes you feel like you have purpose which leads to happiness.
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It is important when you have set your goals to make sure that you can actually achieve
them, otherwise you set yourself up for disappointment from day 1.
Make sure they are SMART goals.
✓ Specific- you know exactly what you want it’s not a wish.
✓ Measurable- you can measure the progress along the way.
✓ Achievable- It’s possible to attain this goal
✓ Realistic- Its within your reach not unrealistic
✓ Timely- You can achieve this goal in the time frame you set out for it.
We know now that you need long term goals to determine where you want to be and
many short-term goals to help you get there. This means that you would need a plan or
strategy on how to achieve your goals.
An action plan includes the following questions:
✓ What?
✓ When?
✓ How?
✓ By when?
✓ Evaluate
Firstly, you will need to make sure you have the right attitude that you choose to
approach this problem with. This means remembering Why do I want to achieve this
goal?
This includes:
✓ Persistence: the determination to continue doing something- never give up
attitude.
✓ Perseverance: the determination to keep trying to do something difficult.
✓ Prioritise: to organise things that you deal with the most important things first.
• It’s important to prioritise life goals relevant to a certain time of your life.
Examples of life goals includes goals for career and family one day.
• Your personal values impact your choices and the goals you make. Know your own
values supports by our South African constitution.
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Problem solving means to have an IDEAL plan:
✓ Identify the problem: Describe the problem in detail
✓ Define: What information do you need to solve the problem? What do you need
to know?
✓ Explore: What are the possible solutions? Try to consider TWO solutions. What
would the positive and negative impact be of this decision?
✓ Action: Once you’ve evaluated and chosen an action plan, ACT! Confront the issue
head on.
✓ Look back: Reflect weeks / months later on the above points. Consider how well
the issue has been resolved.
Lesson 2: Relationships and their influence on well-being
• Your values impact the kinds of goals you choose and whether you will reach
those goals.
When you define your personal values, you discover what's truly important to
you.
• The way you relate to the people around you impact your well-being. Healthy
relationships and communication with others result in a happy well-being.
Well-being can be defined as the state of being comfortable, happy, content.
• Just as the relationships we have with others influence our well-being, so do we
influence the well-being of those we have a relationship with.
Lesson 3: Factors that contribute to relationships that are detrimental to well-being:
• We ended the last lesson looking at the positive contribution that you as an
individual could bring into another person’s life as well as the positive influence
that others have been in your life. Just as someone can be a positive influence,
they can also be a negative influence. We refer to these relationships as
detrimental to your well-being. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if a relationship is
positive or negative to your well-being.
• Being in a relationship, everyone has different rights and responsibilities. If you
want to be in a long-term relationship that is good for your well-being, you need
to be the kind of person that is encouraging and makes others, feel valued and
accepted.
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With this responsibility comes an appropriate action. A right could be to be
respected, the responsibility would be to respect others and the action to respect
the values, opinions, feelings of one another.
• Those rights include:
✓ The right to be respected: this means that you also have a responsibility to
respect others. You can do that in actions by respecting their values,
opinions as well as your feelings for one another.
✓ You have a right to loyalty, trust and truth: this means you also need to be
loyal and trustworthy. You can do this through by never cheating, gossiping,
embarrassing or hurting one another.
✓ The right to say “NO!” and refuse sex- to accept the other persons decision
as well. Don’t put pressure on your partner to have sex. There should always
be consent from both parties involved.
✓ The right to be safe- and to keep others safe through not putting yourself
and others at risk.
✓ The right to privacy- this means that you also respect the privacy of others.
Don’t read private letters, emails, diaries etc.
• It’s important to note that we all cultures would respond the same way to these
rights and responsibilities. In some cultures, it might be acceptable for a man to
have authority over a woman in a marriage relationship which impacts her rights.
In these societies the relationships are based on the role in society and not on the
individuals needs and feelings.
• Consider how Social Media impacts relationships.
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