Turning Vision Into Action: The Role of Goal Setting in the PBL Movement | E163

Discover the spark that will transform your educational landscape as we explore the electrifying power of goal setting in the PBL Movement podcast. Feel the rush of excitement as we, Movement Makers, gear up to conquer the year with audacious objectives and an unstoppable drive. I'm thrilled to share with you my journey, reflecting on the intersection of self-discipline and integrity in reaching the peaks of success, much like the strategies outlined in Brian Tracy's influential book "Goals." Together, we'll uncover how the simple act of writing down your goals, crafting a plan, and committing to it daily is not just a task but a ritual that molds educators into architects of change.

What does it truly take to set clear goals and see them through to fruition? This episode dives into the heart of determination, where the art of saying no to distractions becomes your most trusted ally. By anchoring our focus on a well-defined goal, daily actions transform into strides toward our vision. I personally take you through launching an ambitious PBL community, sharing the milestones and challenges faced while nurturing a space where over a thousand members find value. Every moment is an opportunity for 'mindstorming,' where brainstorming marries unwavering purpose, guiding us to strategies that elevate our goals from dreams to the palpable impact in our schools and beyond. Join me, and let's set the stage for a year where our PBL visions bloom into reality with every inspired step we take.

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Transcript

Ryan Steuer: 0:00

Hey, movement Makers, welcome to the PBL Movement podcast, where we help you lead with integrity, vision and inspiration so that you can create a PBL movement worth fighting for. When I started PBL school, we didn't have a roadmap, so Magnify Learning has spent the last decade creating a PBL movement roadmap that you can customize directly for your school. Today, the very first episode of the year in 2024, of course we're talking about goals. We had some goals setting episodes last year, so hopefully you're already set up. But if you're not just want to reiterate how important goals can be as we move into 2024, our podcast can take a bit of a shift for you, movement Makers, and we're going to move more towards the inspirational side. Now, if you want to know how to do project-based learning like that's our jam. We live PBL day in, day out. We're writing a, wrote a book on it, we're writing other books about it. They're coming out as we speak, writing one on coaching, on leadership, on the six a's, these books are moving out there. So we have all the geekiness that you need to bring PBL to your school, but do you have the inspiration? Have you set the goals? Are you fired up enough to create a movement? I think that's a different idea If you are like we've got design days that help you create a three-year plan that brings clarity. Clarity brings confidence, which we'll probably talk about today as we talk about goals as well. But what I really want to get into your head while you're listening to this or watching this on YouTube, is that you need to be an inspired leader, because inspired leaders inspire others, and one way we do that is we set very clear goals Large, as Jim Collins would say, these BHAG goals big, hairy, audacious goals, these huge goals.

Ryan Steuer: 1:51

And other people are asking, like, well, how would you do that? That doesn't seem possible. And you're just literally asking how do I do that? Like, I see that goal. I see that we're going to transform our school. We're going to transform our staff into a staff that's completely inspired. We're going to transform our students into learners who are empowered doing real-world work out in the community. So how do I do that? Not like, how is it possible? Like, you get it. You just see the big goal and you're like I could do that. We can do that. Now, how do we do it? Well, one great way is setting goals. So one of the things we're going to do is we move forward with the podcast. We're going to have these solo episodes where it's you and me talking through a leadership idea, and when I do that, I want to bring in other experts.

Ryan Steuer: 2:34

So today I've got Brian Tracy. He's not going to come on the podcast, but we're going to look at his book called Goals. So when we look at his book, let me give you a couple of quotes. It's going to start with this success is goals. All else is commentary. So again, if you don't have written down goals, you need to stop and create goals. Well, you could probably listen to this to get the inspiration right on down. After this, if you aren't fired up to write down your goals, I've failed. But I think I'm going to get you so fired up that you will write down your goals.

Ryan Steuer: 3:10

He says all successful people are intensely goal oriented. They know what they want. They are focused single-mindedly on achieving it every single day. What is the main goal? Where are you taking yourself? Where are you taking your school? Where are you taking your staff? You need to know this very clearly so that they can follow you. So how do you do that? Brian Tracy says, if you can take all of his talks, all of his books and really just condense it down to five minutes. Here's what he'd say.

Ryan Steuer: 3:40

Number one write down your goals. Number two make plans to achieve them. Number three work on your plans every single day. Day sounds simple enough, doesn't it? But how many of us have not done it? And some of you, if you're anything like me, like you're just like, well, I'm going to make the work happen. I know the right work, I'm going to do it. But what if you need other people to follow you to achieve your goal? And If you're achieving a worthwhile goal, it's going to change lives, change communities, change schools Then you are going to be other people. You cannot do it yourself. You're not going to pull everybody along. You can't work hard enough. There are not enough hours in the day for you to be able to do that. So it's really these three simple steps write down your goals, make plans to achieve them, work on your plans every single day.

Ryan Steuer: 4:28

And if you're like me, as a visionary leader, well, I've got so many ideas, so many goals. Like, where do I start? That's the whole point, my friend. The whole point is you have to be able to write them down, to make them clear enough for other people to follow. So let's see what else Brian Tracy said now. He breaks us down into 21 different chapters, gets into a lot of detail. So if the editor is, you're like, yes, but I need some help, go grab Brian Tracy's book goals. So here's what he says about the other side of the spectrum.

Ryan Steuer: 5:00

Unsuccessful people always wonder whether or not a particular goal is possible. High achievers like you, on the other hand, ask only the question how, then, they work to find ways to turn their visions and goals into realities? I mentioned that earlier, but the point here is that your goal is that important. Like you know, you can do the work. Whatever you set your mind to, you're going to make it happen. But what is that specific goal and how will you know that you've achieved it?

Ryan Steuer: 5:27

You have to be able to trust yourself. This comes from Brian Tracy, not just for me. To self-trust is the foundation of greatness. Self-trust comes from listening to your intuition, to your still small voice within. Men and women begin to become great and they begin to listen to their inner voices and absolutely Trust that they're being guided by a higher power each step of the way. You have to trust yourself. You have to trust your intuition, that gut feeling you're like. Is that enough to any more research? Like, research is great, I love research. I want to use best practices from reducing PBL bringing to schools classrooms. You've got trust yourself. You're the leader. This is why you are there, right. So trust yourself. If you don't, then up your skills right up your skill levels in those places where you don't trust yourself. So when you get in the game, you're completely trusting yourself.

Ryan Steuer: 6:20

Culture and community are pillars of project-based learning, and this applies to you, too. As a learner an adult learner you need to be learning in community. We have you covered. We have an online community and in this online community, it is different than anyone you've ever experienced. We have a whole section that's filled with resources and courses. You or your teachers can devour those individually whatever pace you'd like. On the other side, we have a community that's interactive and just in time. Within these communities, we have rooms for content areas rooms or PBL experience. Maybe you've never even taken a PBL jumpstart yet. We've got a room for you. We want to help you out right where you're at. Maybe you're PBL certified and you're really looking to innovate someplace different. We have a room for that. We've got tuning protocols. When you ask a question, you will not get crickets. You'll actually get an answer guaranteed. So go to the show notes, check out the online community. We've got it split out where teachers can look at it. What are the benefits, administrators, for the benefits for your school and your staff? Do not pbl alone. You also need to be in community.

Ryan Steuer: 7:34

The greatest question of goal setting. Now here's where I think Brian Tracy's book excels, and I've read a ton of other goal-setting books. There are a lot of great ones out there. I really like Jon Acuff's book, All it takes is a goal. He's got a podcast by the same name. My friend and mentor, Dan Miller's 48 days to work you love. He talks about goal setting. There's a lot of books out there.

Ryan Steuer: 7:56

Here's what Brian Tracy comes down to. Here's the question. I'll give it to you right away. I'm not going to make you wait for this one. What do I really want to do with my life? What do I really want to do with my life? And it's this guiding question that you, as a leader, need to be able to answer so that you can get to the work that needs to be done. What do you want to do? Do you want to transform a school so that you can transform kids lives? Or say, well, if I just transform one kids life, that would be worth it? Can we agree that that sounds good in theory, but that's not really true for you. If I said, hey, one of your kids did really well, so you're good, just stop, would you be okay with that? Like, no, like you're a movement maker. We're talking about a movement, not just one act. So what is it you really want? Like, separate that out, because you don't want to just change one life. You want to change a whole bunch of lives. You want to change the lives of your staff, you want to change the lives of your learners. You want to transform your community, your movement maker. So let's start answering that question now.

Ryan Steuer: 8:59

Here's another aspect in Brian Tracy's book that goes along with this great question. He says my favorite word in goal setting and in success is clarity, and this is where I think we might miss it. So I want our school to be better. Well, what does that mean? Right, if one kid goes from B to A, is it better? And you're done.

Ryan Steuer: 9:20

Like, now you need to be very clear. Like, when you bring clarity, you bring power. When you bring clarity, your staff can join you in your vision and this movement that you're creating. So you've got to bring clarity to your goal setting. There's a direct relationship between the level of clarity that you have about who you are and what you want and virtually everything you accomplish in life. So you're going to create goals, clear goals, measurable goals, and don't get too caught up in the smart goal aspect. But it's got to be something you're fired up about, passionate about, for like, yes, like I want to go after that. That's big, I'm for that. That's a movement. Now you're getting close to your goal, but now it needs to be clear enough that other people can follow. Then you're going to set up some clear steps to get there and then you're going to do those things every single day, and that's how you get closer.

Ryan Steuer: 10:14

And what needs to happen this is why the clarity is so important is that it almost puts blinders on you where somebody says, well, what about this other thing I heard that works? Nope, I'm doing this thing, this is my goal. Somebody says, well, I'm doing this thing, I'm doing this, I'm doing this. You know you could also do some consulting. That's true, you could do some consulting. Can I just tell you, like your consulting gigs, they'll come as you do great work, like people will just say hey, can you come help me Now? If you're towards the end of your career and you want to transition, that's fine, I can help you with that If you want.

Ryan Steuer: 10:40

It's a different conversation, though, but sometimes we get so hung up on well, there's this other thing that we miss our single, clear goal. That's what you should be working on every single day, and if it's outside of that, you just say no to it, and you don't have to be rude about it. You just say, well, that doesn't line up with my goal for today, so, or even this year or the next five years, so that's not something I'm interested in. I'm sure it's a great product, but I don't need you to walk me through that. I don't need your free demo on this new piece of tech. Like it doesn't fit with what I want to do, and that's okay because you have a goal.

Ryan Steuer: 11:17

Brian Tracy, again, determine the price. You will have to pay an additional work, additional time and commitment to achieve your goal and then get busy paying the price If you wanted to be an average leader of an average school or below average school, you probably wouldn't be reading this podcast or listening to this podcast or watching on YouTube. You definitely aren't going to check out Brian Tracy's book. You're a movement maker. Movement makers are going to pay the price to achieve their goal. So count the costs. Count the costs, like, put it down. What are you going to need? There may be some extra time, and I'm not saying burnout, but I'm saying count the cost. Is there an initial time where you're going to have to do some additional work or you have to bring in an outside expert to do this? Are you going to need additional funds?

Ryan Steuer: 12:03

Like, once you have a clear goal and you have a clear path to get there and you're working at it single-handedly every single day or with your team. But every single day now you go to central office and say here's my goal, here's my plan, I need an additional $40,000 to do this. How can you help me? And they say, oh, that's a clear goal, I like the outcomes. And they go and find that money. Like that's how that works. When you go and say, hey, I don't have enough money, I need more, there's no clarity of that. People can't see how it batters the district and you're likely going to hear no from that, but if you have a clear goal and a clear plan, it's a whole different ball game. Goals with clarity change things.

Ryan Steuer: 12:45

The next thing I'm working on it every single day actually is going to tie right into a book that I have right here on my desk and that's going to be self-discipline, also by Brian Tracy. So great little tie-in for us. If you're on YouTube, I'm going to show you the book right now If you're listening on the podcast, Brian Tracy, the power of self-discipline. And right on the cover it just says no excuses. It's got this big kind of no sign through it and I love it.

Ryan Steuer: 13:13

He goes through in this book on self-discipline. It's funny cause it's just no excuses over and over again each chapter. But he does it in all these different areas Success, character, responsibility, work, leadership, business, sales, physical fitness. Guess what he says no excuses, go work out. How do I get to work on time? No excuses, get up, go do what you need to do. No excuses. It's about self-discipline. Well, it comes up in this book on goals because you're not going to achieve your goals if you don't have self-discipline.

Ryan Steuer: 13:44

The single most important quality for success is self-discipline. Self-discipline means that you have the ability within yourself, based on your strength of character and willpower, to do what you should do, when you should do it and whether you feel like it or not, which actually ties right into my favorite definition of integrity Doing what you say you will do when you say you will do it. Well, guess what? As movement makers, as movers and shakers, people that have vision and then go achieve those things, when you put a goal down with clarity and sometimes this is why you have trouble writing it down so clearly is you're committing to it because you have integrity. I don't know if I can really write down a three year plan to completely move into project based learning and being completely student centered. I don't know if I can pull that off. Well, write it down and let your integrity push you in that direction. Your self discipline's got to kick in and you're going to make those things happen. Persist until you succeed is the name of that last chapter. So how do you set this goal?

Ryan Steuer: 14:48

Let me give you an example for magnify learning. We've just launched the PBL movement online community. It's a place where any educator who's using PBL with your brand new or even doing as a veteran, can go and interact with online community. It's got on demand courses, it's got webinars, it's got a Facebook community where you can interact and ask questions. Literally, there is a launch section where you're brand new, you can build, you can launch or you can innovate. So we have these different levels and we've just opened it up to the public and the goal is to have 1000 members. And I write it down 10 times every single day in my notebook, in my journal. I carry a coin in my pocket that every time I touch it, 1000 members in our community and that's my goal. It's a big, hairy, audacious goal.

Ryan Steuer: 15:40

I joined several communities to learn how to create communities, which is a little meta, right. But and everybody in there says, well, ryan, you can't do that Like, that's not how it works. You build slowly and okay, but I set the goal of 1000 members. Now how do I get there? Like, you can tell me I can't do it or you can help me get there and you just start to brainstorm all the different ways you can do this, and actually in Brian Tracy's book he calls it a mindstorm Mindstorming. You put at the top how do I get 1000 members in the PBL movement online community and you just start putting down ideas of how you do that, and that's what I've done. And right now, how many members do we have? You've got 20. I've got 20 members. We're going to get to 1000 by the end of 2024.

Ryan Steuer: 16:23

Now I've got several schools that are signed up to put a couple hundred people in there already. So I can see it. I can see individuals coming in. I can see schools coming in. We're supporting them every single day with new content. We're supporting them with live feedback. I'm in there. Our coaches are in there.

Ryan Steuer: 16:38

It's not like this online community that you're not a part of and or you're a part of it. Like you ask a question, you just hear crickets. It's not that. It's totally different. It's creating a PBL movement. It's part of it. So how do I not get discouraged? 20 people in there going to 1000.

Ryan Steuer: 16:53

Look at that gap. Well, I know that this podcast started with one download. Like I watched it, right, like I watched it pop up and 20 downloads, 30 downloads. Well, now we've got 50,000 downloads. Whoa, it's like top 5% of all podcasts that are out there. I can see the growth. I know the work that goes into it. I have the self-discipline to do this every single day.

Ryan Steuer: 17:19

We have a YouTube channel, started with one view right and we watched it grow through the PBL simplified series with PBL simplified for teachers, pbl simplified for leaders. We started to grow those things. Now it's got 42,000 views. It started with one. Like I've seen that process.

Ryan Steuer: 17:35

Some people in their business they might not say, hey, I'm looking for 1000 members, I only got 20. And then invite people in. But I know the process so I just authentically put it out there there's 20 people in there right now. You know what that means, that if you're 21, you are going to get amazingly customized experience because I'm in there, our coaches are in there. Like, whatever you want we're going to create. Like, if you want a webinar, I can be partners. Okay, next Wednesday we're going to webinars to be partners. You can be a part of it and ask questions, or you can ask questions Now. We'll send you the replay. Like, whatever you want you get. So I know that we were going to over serve the first hundred people in there, so I'm not worried about that. And then I know, as we grow, we're going to create more tools, more processes and structures and get better at all those things. So we're going to serve the backend of that. The last 500 or 1000 people are going to have a great experience too. We're going to take them right through this PBL movement roadmap so that they grow and their PBL expertise and confidence in the classroom, wherever they're at, whether they're a rookie or a veteran like I can see that.

Ryan Steuer: 18:35

So, as you set these very specific goals and then make them public, now your integrity kicks in, because if you're listening to this, you're a movement maker. You have integrity. When you say things, you do them. When you say you're going to do them, we'll set your goals. Be bold, be audacious, be clear. Don't let yourself wiggle out of it and say, well, I'm going to work out, so I feel better. You can't measure that, so you're going to work out six days a week for an hour. I don't care what it is, but put it down to be clear. If you say that you're going to have these staff meetings and they're going to be well-structured and that your staff can voice in it how well-structured staff meetings with voice from your teachers you say, well, I don't know how to get their voice in there Right. Set the goal, figure out the how. That's what you do. You're a visionary leader. You're a movement maker. That's what we do, so you're going to go. You're going to set very clear goals and you're not going to back down from it. You're not going to say, well, not sure I can do that, because that's not what we do as movement makers. Go back to the very beginning.

Ryan Steuer: 19:38

Number one write down your goals. Do you have written goals? Mine are right here. They're actually on post-it notes right now, but I'll write them down in my journal and I'll write them every single day. I'm going to write them down, so they're very clear. You're going to write down your goals, and that does not mean put them into a computer. Can I just say that there's enough research that says you need to write them down. I won't even use my iPad and my Apple Pencil for this. When it comes to goals, I actually physically write them with a pen so that my brain can be a part of the process of writing them down.

Ryan Steuer: 20:12

Write down your goals, make plans to achieve them and three work on your plans every single day. If you do that, you will be a part of the many, many folks that have followed Brian Tracy to say this work did amazing things. In fact, he says many university graduates have told me that this simple concept has been more valuable to them than four years of study. Why? Because it gets things done. You know that you get things done. When you get things done, you learn more. You get better at things.

Ryan Steuer: 20:47

So set your goals, if you haven't already, and write them down. Write them down every day. Write them down so they're clear. Hail somebody. If you need to tell me, you can put it in the comments or you can email me. Like tell me, I'll hold you accountable. I'll send you a text that says here's your goals. How are you doing? I'll do it once a quarter or once a month, whatever you want. Come into the community, I'll be great. Come to the community, tell us your goals. We're going to help you achieve those goals, but you need people around you that believe in this huge goal that you have. Can I tell you that I left one of the communities that I was in? Right, sometimes I learned about how to do online communities. I left this online community because I told people my goals and they didn't believe me. That's not the right place to be. I need to be in a place where I say, a thousand members in one year and they say, yeah, let's do it! Like, let's make this happen, because that's the change that we want to see in the world. And your movement maker and you want to see change. So write down your goals, create a plan and get to work. As you do that, you will see change come about in your school, in your district, in your community. The world needs more movement makers, just like you. So go out and start your movement.

Ryan Steuer: 21:57

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the PBL Simplified Podcast. I appreciate you and honor that you tune in each week. Would you please take two minutes to leave a rating and a review? When you leave a review, it lets the next person know that this is a podcast worth listening to. When they go into their player and search project-based learning, and PBL Simplified popped up. When they see those reviews, they know that high quality, visionary leaders are listening. So they tune in too and they can find their way into the PBL journey. Thank you so much for leaving a review. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate you.