Winning Futures – Inspiring and preparing youth to succeed through mentoring.

Posts Tagged ‘goals’

You know the old saying “Don’t drop the ball?” This activity puts those words into action! The balls represent all the activities and responsibilities that we have to deal with on a daily basis. Time management enables us to keep all our balls in the air, especially during times when there’s a lot going on in our lives.

For example, we all have things we have to do (such as work and chores) and things we want to do (like hanging out with friends or seeing a movie). Managing our responsibilities – our “have to dos” – makes it a lot easier to make room in schedule for our “want to dos.” Establishing a regular routine and using tools such as a calendar and a to-do list are simple and effective ways to manage our time.

Here’s how this activity works:

Round One
• Have students and mentors stand in a circle.
• Explain that you are going to gently throw a ball to someone.
• Pick someone out and ask them their name.
• Then say: “Hi Brad, my name is Laurie… here you go!”
• Laurie then throws the ball to Brad, then turns around backwards. (She is now out for the rest of the round.)
• Brad then says: “Thank you Laurie.”
• Brad then picks someone else out and asks their name.
• Brad then says: “Hi (Student’s Name), my name is Brad… here you go!”
• Brad then throws the ball to that student and turns around backwards. (He is now out for the rest of the round.)
• Continue this until the entire group has received the beach ball.

Round Two
• Take the second round slow, helping the group to have a successful second round.
• Then say to the group: “Let’s see if we can do this again making sure we use the same order and using each other’s names. Remember to say the name of the person you are throwing to, and thank the person, by name, for throwing it to you.”

Round Three
• Repeat the process described above, but during this round, increase the speed at which the balls are thrown.

Round Four
• During this round, you want to really pick up the speed of the game. With enthusiasm, say: “I think we can do this faster!”
• After the first ball has passed through a few hands, take a second ball out by surprise, and say: “Hi Brad….” and repeat the process described above.
• By now everyone is so well trained, the second ball will automatically keep going, and there will be a detectable sense of challenge and excitement.
• After a bit, introduce a third, fourth and possibly fifth ball into the group.
• At this point the game get a little crazy and the group will lose control!

As this activity shows, setting a routine and managing to keep one ball in the air was a lot easier than trying to “wing it” and keep several balls in the air. Life is exactly the same way: Pace yourself, manage your time and establish priorities, and you won’t drop the ball on any of your “have to-dos.” Procrastinate and try to do everything at once or put your “want-to-dos” at a higher priority than your “have-to-dos,” and things will get hectic, stressful and eventually, a ball or two will get dropped.

This fun and easy exercise takes just 20 – 30 minutes. Many lessons like these that you can implement in your own classrooms and youth programs are outlined in Winning Futures’ workbooks; this one will be included in our new edition which is set to be published soon. Click on the “Purchase Books” button at left to learn more.

Personal beliefs and values keep our lives running smoothly by helping us to make positive choices. If we know what is important to us, it will be easier to set goals and to achieve happiness in life. This is an important lesson that Winning Futures’ curriculum strives to impart to students, particularly through this activity.

To begin, describe to your students the two basic types of values: character and personal. Character values are ideas about right and wrong. Personal values are beliefs, ideas, and feelings about what is really important to each individual.

Every person’s values are linked to their conscience, beliefs, personal experiences, upbringing, and culture, along with relationships with family, friends and the environment in which they live. People also have unique values based on interests, differences, and backgrounds.

Values are the nuts and bolts that help “keep us together” in tough times. As we travel down life’s bumpy road to success, we will be faced with many choices, decisions, and obstacles. Knowing our values and being proud of them will help us make good decisions about our personal lives and futures.

A fun way to explore and express our values is to make personal masks that outwardly display what we feel and believe on the inside. These masks (which can be purchased at a number of outlets such as www.orientaltrading.com) can be decorated with markers, crayons and paint. Give one to each student and ask them to write, draw or embellish their mask with words, symbols and colors that express their values and show who they are on the inside. Each student will leave the classroom with a little more clarity as to who they are and what they believe – and they’ll have a cool piece of personalized art to hang in their locker or room, too!

This fun and easy exercise takes just 20 – 30 minutes. Many lessons like these that you can implement in your own classrooms and youth programs are outlined in Winning Futures’ “Road to Success” workbook. Click on the “Purchase Books” button at left to learn more.

When racing down the road to success, everyone needs a good pit crew to help them maintain their speed on the way to achieving goals. As the driver of your own destiny, it is up to each of us to find a well-balanced pit crew to help us succeed.

Positive support teams – or pit crews – are the people in our lives who encourage us, coach us and teach us. To build a strong pit crew, we all need to set positive relationship goals and work to maintain good relationships. One way to do this is through “random acts of kindness” such as writing a letter to those in our lives who make up our pit crew.

Use this activity from Winning Futures’ “Road to Success” workbook with your students or youth group members to help strengthen relationships with their family, friends, and others:

Have students write a surprise letter to their mothers or fathers, guardians, brothers, sisters, grandparents, teachers, etc. Let the students know that the letters should be forwarded to the person addressed in the letter (if you have access to the addresses, you can do this for the students).

Encourage students to include their feeling from the following statements in their letters:
1. How much that person means to them
2. What they admire about that person
3. Why they appreciate that person

After writing the letters, ask several students if they would share with the group who they wrote their letter to and why they chose that person.
This simple but powerful exercise takes just 20 – 30 minutes but can result in impacting and nurturing a positive relationship for a lifetime! Many lessons like these that you can implement in your own classrooms and youth programs are outlined in Winning Futures’ “Road to Success” workbook. Click on the “Purchase Books” button at left to learn more.

Choosing a career path isn’t easy for everyone. Sometimes a student’s passion for a subject clearly sets them down the road to becoming a doctor or a teacher for example, but for some identifying what type of work they ultimately want to do is an ambiguous task.

The following activity from Winning Futures’ “Achieving Success” workbook was just performed by students at Detroit’s University Prep High School to stimulate discussion on determining what they want in a career. Try it with your students or mentees:

Tell the students that they are going to take a survey about options in a career. Let them know that to answer the questions in the survey, they will stand up if they like the first option or stay seated if they prefer the second option. Tell the students that they should choose the answer that most reflects who they are. Encourage them not to let their decisions be influenced by their peers.

Ask:

Would you rather…
1. Be the president of the student council (stand up) or be a member of it (sit down)?
2. Have the same two or three tasks every day (stand up) or have different tasks everyday (sit down)?
3. Attend a concert or put on a concert?
4. Work inside an office or work outside at a job site?
5. Manage a group of people or only be responsible for yourself?
6. Discover the cure for a disease or be the doctor who uses the cure?
7. Be a senator and make laws or be a police officer who enforces them?
8. Work with a large group of people or work by yourself?
9. Read a report or make a presentation?
10. Start your own business or work for someone else?
11. Sing, dance, or play an instrument or be in the audience?
12. Create your own web site or explore other people’s site?
13. Make important discoveries or teach about discoveries that others have made?
14. Work with machines or work with people?

Following the activity, discuss with the group what this game has taught them about themselves. Questions that may motivate discussion are: How can knowing these answers help you make a career decision? If the job you pick makes you a great deal of money, but is the opposite of your work preferences, how could that affect you? What are the things you definitely would NOT want in a job? What are the things you definitely WANT in a job? Understanding what your preferences are will help your students decide on a career.

Many lessons like these that you can implement in your own classrooms and youth programs are outlined in Winning Futures’ “Achieving Success” workbook. Click on the “Purchase Books” button at left to learn more.

Winning Futures has been coaching students on the “dos and don’ts” of job interviewing now that the school-year is ending and many students are starting down their chosen career paths or looking for summer work. To begin this exercise, mentors and students wrote a 30-second interview pitch, a technique useful to “sell” the job applicant to their potential employer by highlighting applicable skills and attributes in a succinct and confident manner. Essential elements of this pitch are:

• Appropriate attire
• Proper handshake
• Good posture and eye contact
• Good voice tone and speed of speech
• Enthusiastic attitude
• Examples to back up strengths
• Avoiding negative comments
• Using Winning Futures in the pitch
• Using interviewer name and company name
• Thanking the interviewer

Next, students and mentors took part in a mock career fair where each mentor moved from team to team to hear students’ pitches and give them feedback. This enabled students to hone their pitches based on advice from a working professional – someone they may one day actually interview for a job with!

You too can use this process to help students get comfortable speaking about themselves and delivering their interview pitches in a natural and fluid manner. Many lessons like these that you can implement in your own classrooms and youth programs are also outlined in Winning Futures’ “Achieving Success” workbook. Click on the “Purchase Books” button at left to learn more.

Many of Winning Futures’ lessons and activities are designed to help students develop long-term goals. A session held with high school students last week stressed why financial independence and earning potential should be important factors when setting their education and career goals.

Studies show that more education leads to bigger paychecks; i.e., the more you learn the more you earn. To demonstrate this, students were shown average salaries for American workers based on the amount of education they had attained:

• Less than a high school diploma – $9.47 per hour/$18,000 annually
• High school diploma – $12.50 per hour/$24,000 annually
• Associate degree – $15.24 per hour/$30,000 annually
• Bachelor’s degree – $19.28 per hour/$38,000 annually
• Master’s degree – $24.04 per hour/$48,000 annually

Throughout the lesson, mentors worked with students to explain other benefits of continuing their education and setting achievable career goals other than earning power, including:

• Having a lifetime of increased opportunities
• Being more empowered as an agent in your their own lives
• Being better able to weather adversity
• Increased personal marketability

Many lessons like these that you can implement in your own classrooms and youth programs are outlined in Winning Futures’ “Achieving Success” workbook. Click on the “Purchase Books” button at left to learn more.

Winning Futures students from Warren, Michigan’s Community High School recently visited Oakland University (OU). This annual tour illustrates Winning Futures’ Achieving Success workbook lessons on the benefits of continuing education and career goal-setting.

While at OU, students went on a peer-guided tour to experience college’s academic and social environment, including:

• Lecture halls and science labs
• Campus bookstore and library
• Student newspaper and radio station
• Financial aid and admission offices
• Student Union and dormitories.

Students rounded out their day by dining in the campus cafeteria.

“This experience opened a lot of students’ eyes to the fact that college is an option for them,” said Winning Futures’ Vice President and Program Facilitator Laurie Tarter. “In fact, while on our visit, I bumped into four Winning Futures alumni who were currently attending OU. They told me they’d never considered continuing education past high school before taking part in last year’s tour!”

Education and career goal-setting are just a few of the important lessons taught through Winning Futures’ Achieving Success workbooks. To learn more about this unique curriculum, click on the “Purchase Books” button at left.

Winning Futures’ students at Detroit Public School’s Cass Technical High School discussed the importance of attitude with their mentors last week. Groups talked about how developing and projecting a positive attitude can benefit all aspects of their lives, from forming successful personal and professional relationships to increasing general health and well-being.

A fun activity that demonstrates this is building a spaghetti tower! Here’s how it works: Break students into teams of three or four. Give each team a box of uncooked spaghetti and a bag of regular size marshmallows.  Tell them to build the tallest FREE STANDING tower they can with just the spaghetti and marshmallows.  Give them 10-15 minutes to build their tower and award a prize like a bag of candy to the team with the tallest tower!

Close out the activity by explaining the purpose of this exercise: To show that the key to developing a positive attitude and achieving success in life is building a strong foundation. Those that build a strong foundation are then able to stand tall, strong and independently, just like the spaghetti tower.

Lessons like this are outlined in Winning Futures’ “Achieving Success” workbook. Click on the “Purchase Books” button at left to learn more.

At the beginning of the school year, set your students up for success.  This will help them kick-off their school year with confidence that they can be successful this year.

• Have them set small, obtainable goals.  These should be short-term (one to two weeks).
• Keep encouraging them to take the steps to reach that goal.
• Ask if they need any resources or help.
• Teach them how to ask for help…many do not know how to.
• Celebrate small successes!

At Winning Futures, we believe that goals need to be written down in order for you to make a true commitment to your goal.  Take time with your students to create a goal journal!