3 Discussion Questions, 3 Student Reponses .. and 2 Assignments

JGR100: Finding Your Leadership Purpose

Week 7 Discussion Question

Part 1: Your Goals

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Joe Gibbs learned at an early age that being a professional football player was an unrealistic goal based on his strengths and abilities. So, he decided to pursue his dream job as an NFL head coach. It took decades to achieve that dream, but setting effective goals helped him get there!

To find success like Coach, we need to set SMART goals. Have you ever set a goal that was unrealistic? What happened? What did you learn? Using the SMART goal framework, identify a past goal that you made for yourself and explain why it might have been unrealistic.

Note: To receive full credit, remember also to write 2 posts in the discussion: one original and a response to another student.

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Part 2: Student Response (Respond to Student)

Theresa Thompson 

RE: Your Goals

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Good afternoon Professor,

A very unrealistic goal for me happened back in 1992 while living in Chicago and the gangs were starting to get worse and it was hard for my children to go to school I was at work for a company that really did not appreciate my skills and it felt as though the walls of the city started closing in on me. I wanted so badly to move somewhere anywhere just so long as it wasn't Chicago. So I start writing down how much do I think I would need to save in order to reach the goal of leaving the city and starting over with my family. So I started researching and looking into different cities I even thought about going to California where my sister and brother n law lived. I loved it there but for some reason, it just wasn't the place for us. So I gave myself a year to try and come up with a plan to move. I kept writing down my affirmations so that if I see it I will begin to believe it. Surprisingly I did not reach my goal of leaving Chicago in 1993 like I wanted to. One Sunday in November of 1993, when we were at church one of the Deacons, stood up and spoke over us saying he saw us leaving Chicago and moving to another city we were going to have new jobs and a house and things were going to work out for us. Well at the end of 1993 my other sister had moved to Indianapolis Indiana and she invited us down so in December and the place was so beautiful and quiet my kids fell in love with it. My daughter asked could we live there I promised her and her brother when they came back from New York summer vacation we would be living in a new place. So when we got back to Chicago I started to work on a plan of leaving the city. I put an application in for an apartment then I filled out job applications and waited for a response. Well in June I was approved for an apartment and since I had a vacation coming up I put my 2 weeks' notice in and sold what furnishings we had and packed our car and left. We moved to Indianapolis Indiana in June 1994 and I have not looked back since.

The main reason for leaving Chicago and moving to another city was an unrealistic dream is because of my finances. I just did not think that the money I was earning and trying to pay bills would be enough to achieve my goal. But God made away.

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