CASE STUDY #20 RAMONE (Setting Goals)
​
​
Nothing but a professional baseball career will do… It’s important to have goals. Many of the kids in our program have no idea what they want to do “when they grow up”.
I find this fascinating for many reasons. My time in the Peace Corps involved teaching in a third world nation. The introduction of a group of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed new college grads was a harbinger of changes to come for the indigenous populace. My main accomplishment was the introduction of the sport of track and field. I learned so much more than I taught.
A huge revelation was the speed with which the students picked up skills in activities that they had never seen before.
In my high school it took me three months to develop the skill set to clear 7’ in the pole vault. One gifted young man watched me jump one time then picked up the bamboo pole we cut from the jungle and cleared 9’ on his first try!!! This is the equivalent of jumping into the pool without knowing how to swim and breaking the world record for the individual medley! (Okay, I tend to exaggerate a bit.)
The point to this discourse is that many young people aspire to lofty goals (pun intended) with no grasp of how much work it takes and how impossibly rare the 9’ jump would be on your first ever vault. When we discuss future goals in the “I CARE” program lots of people answer “rock star” or “movie idol” even specific honors like Academy Awards or Pulitzer Prizes.
In the world of sports an Olympic medal or a World Championship ring are dreams that require natural talent, tremendous work ethic, dedicated coaching and phenomenal LUCK. Sometimes being born into a gifted family opens doors (not to mention a gene pool).
We never attempt to discourage a young person from even the most improbable goals but we feel the need to look at some statistics that have bearing on their goals. With that in mind we developed the “Fall-Back Plan” exercise.
​
Exercise #7 Learning Styles Inventory
​
Exercise #11 Victim, Persecutor, Rescuer
​
​
Exercise #29 Formula for a Positive Attitude
​
