Early in the Fall semester of Luke’s second year at Anser Charter School, he was asked to set a character goal. Goal setting is a bi-annual tradition for all students, starting as early as kindergarten.

The goal

Luke’s choice, much to my pride and likely his teacher’s surprise, was to be a leader. Up until this point in school, Luke had received consistent encouragement to contribute more profoundly in classroom conversation while maintaining greater focus when reading, writing and doing arithmetic. He probably wasn’t the most likely candidate to aspire for greater leadership skills.

Even at the time of setting the goal, his teacher was quick to tell him that it was alright to misstep. If he happen to be misbehaving and not exhibiting leadership qualities, it was ok to course correct.

A little background…

The goal setting process at Anser is admirable. Each time we go through the process, I’m thinking to myself, “I wish we parents could make our goals at the same time as our children.” The process is broken into 3 steps, with responsibility/resources for each, along with a timeline and other small factors. It actually looks like this:

Though it’s common to set goals in a performance review, how often do we set goals outside our place of employment? Maybe we’d be more likely to set our lives in a meaningful and fulfilling direction if we had short- and long-term goals to guide the path.

The outcome…..

The semester is almost over and it was time for me to evaluate his progress in developing leadership skills. I sat down to ask him a set of guided questions, the last of which was:

What are the other things you want us to know about how you are moving towards meeting your character goal?

Luke’s response was, “Well, Mom, I’m still learning a lot. It’s hard to be a leader sometimes.”

The silver lining

The recognition by my little second grader was pretty astounding. Aren’t we all trying to set a good example and be a better leader – among whatever circles we interact and travel? And like Luke said, it’s not easy!

All goals, whatever shape and size they happen to be, can be very challenging. Especially ones that pertain to eating well and exercising! We all goof. Fall short.

But like his teacher said, it’s ok if we don’t get it right every time. We simply have to be aware our missteps, cut ourselves a break, and try to do better next time.

After all, life is hard sometimes. And we’re always learning. Whatever the age may be.

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