Dr. Thea Murphy, TBSAA Chairperson

The Oxford Dictionary lists one of the definitions of success as the “accomplishment of an aim or purpose.” One of the definitions of success in the Webster-Merriam Dictionary is a “favorable or desired outcome.” Drawing from these definitions, to have success you must have an aim, purpose, or outcome. This is why goal setting is one of the keys to both organizational and personal success. Goals, if done well, provide us with our aim, purpose, and the intended outcome. They also help us develop action steps which are manageable bite-sized steps which will help us achieve our goals. Goals also help us hold ourselves and/or our organization accountable. Another benefit of goal setting is that it allows us to identify resources that we might need to help us achieve our goals. Knowing the resources we will need for our personal or organizational goals will help us with budgeting, connecting with people and places that can help us, and pinpointing material and supplies we might need.

Now that we have talked about the importance of goal setting, let’s talk about the why. Before we can set goals for us or our organization, we must determine our why, identify what we value, and ascertain the result we want. For organizations like our LAAs, the Tau Beta Sigma mission and vision, the Tau Beta Sigma Alumni Association mission and vision, and your LAA’s mission/purpose are our why, and should serve as critical starting points for goal development. The revised TBS vision statement ends with the two lines below.

“Through shared values across an engaged membership base, we are empowered to flourish beyond our collegiate careers in all areas musical, professional, and philanthropic. We are committed to fostering connections and creating a meaningful experience for our members, band directors, college communities, and the band world.”

Using the bolded words above in the Sorority’s vision statement an LAA could develop goals around engaging members, fostering connections, and creating meaningful experiences through social activities and programming.  LAA leaders could also aim towards increasing the LAA’s philanthropic endeavors such as service projects and awarding scholarships. The TBSAA LAA ACES Challenge Program was developed based on the bolded words above in the TBS vision statement. The ACES Program includes challenges around programming, giving, service, convention attendance, social events, and LAA collaboration and are another great starting point for LAA goal development. The same holds true for personal goal development. You must identify your why. Are you tired of apartment living and want to own your own home? Do you want to earn an advanced degree or certification to increase your career opportunities? Is your savings account low and you want to build it up? Do you want to read or exercise more? These are all great whys to develop into your personal goals. 

Now that we have identified our why, the next step to goal setting, outlining the how, is one of the most important steps. This step is where we make the goal concrete and actionable. This step is where we write the goal, list the steps we will take to achieve the goal, and identify the resources we will need to help us achieve the goal. There are several methodologies to goal writing, but the one we will discuss is using the acronym SMART as you write your goals. As you turn your why statements into goal statements, you want your goals to be specific, measurable, actionable, realistic/relevant, and timebound. Using the SMART framework for goal writing helps you be clear about your purpose, hold yourself accountable, ensure that it is aligned to your why, and makes room to celebrate your success. Are you trying to read more books this year? Making sure your goal is clear and specific makes your goal easier to achieve and to start. Writing a measurable goal helps you know when a goal or action is complete, allows you to measure progress, and celebrate your success, for example, reading 12 books. Making your goal actionable ensures you have direct control over the actions needed to achieve the goal and that the goals are challenging, yet achievable. Let’s take our previous example of reading 24 books. This seems like a reasonable goal, two books per month, but once you look at your work and personal schedule and consider that you only read three books all last year, making the goal 12 or 6 books might be a more actionable and achievable goal. For our LAAs increasing membership is always a worthwhile goal, but we must be specific and ensure our goal is actionable and achievable. If your LAA has 20 members, and over the last two years has only added 2 members each year, your yearly increase has been about 10 percent. A specific and actionable goal might be to increase membership by 20 percent. Do you just want to read more books, or do you want to read more books for pleasure? Or do you want to read for both self-help and pleasure? As an LAA, do you want to just increase membership, or retain current members as well. Remembering our why helps us make our goal relevant to our mission, vision, and objectives. Making our goal time bound helps us stay focused and motivated, inspiring us with a date to work towards. This is the point in your goal writing that you should determine if the goal you are writing is a short-term goal, a year or less, or a long-term goal, more than a year. In our personal and organizational lives, it is important that we make both short and long-term goals. This will encourage us to keep striving and building on our success. If reading 12 books for pleasure by May 2025 is your short-term goal, then reading 24 books for pleasure by May 2026 could be a long term goal. 

Now that we have our SMART goal, it’s time to expand the how into action steps. Action steps outline all the tasks we need to do to meet our goal. The action steps should also be specific as well as identify any resources (e.g. money, library card, books, email addresses, and social media) and support (e.g. reading buddy or communication chair) you will need to achieve the goal. Trying to read on a budget? Getting a library card or locating the closest Free Little Library to you might be one of your action steps. Need book ideas? Joining a book club might be an action step for your list. If increasing membership is your LAA goal, then hosting a membership drive should be one of your action steps. If retaining members is also part of your goal, then sending personalized reminders to renew might be one of your action steps. 

After you have taken the time to identify your why, outline your how with SMART goals and action steps its time to get to working on those goals. Tell others about your goals, so they can help encourage you. Keep track of your progress by journaling or keeping a tracker in your personal life or reporting progress regularly to the membership of your LAA. Remember working towards a goal is a process and you won’t always get it right the first go around. It is acceptable to reevaluate your goal and rewrite it if needed. It is okay to ask for help from your support system. Your Executive Council wishes you success in achieving your personal and LAA goals and we are here to support you! We look forward to seeing all your great personal and organizational achievements in the next twelve months.