“Be mindful of the present, and the future will take care of itself.” Lord Chesterfield – Goal-Setting

Transcript

Steve Fouts: 0:00 

Hey everybody. Steve and Dan Fouts here. We are teaching different with British diplomat Lord Chesterfield with a quote about goal setting. Here’s the quote, “Take care of the minutes, and the hours will take care of themselves.”  What a great phrase to talk about the importance of being mindful, of being in the moment. Focus your energies and concentration on the things you need to do in a given moment to get you to where you want to be. Leave the hours for consideration as to how you want to plan out your life.  Let’s look at a claim.  Dan, how would you put this in your own words? 

Dan Fouts: 1:00 – Claim

As you said, be mindful of the present moment when you think about achieving goals in life. It seems like Lord Chesterfield is saying that if we think short term, we’re going to be more successful. We’re going to have more opportunities to show that we can accomplish things.  We can get overwhelmed with the big picture.  He’s telling us to take care of what’s going on now, at this moment, and the big picture will take care of itself. So, focus on the short term. Narrow your vision to the short term in the present. 

Steve Fouts: 1:41 

What do you think a good storytelling prompt would be? How can you get the students to share an experience about goals?  What would really bring out their experiences with a quote like this? 

Dan Fouts: 1:59

In class, when you introduce a multi-week project, the kids can get overwhelmed thinking about it.  I think the reason is because it takes them too far into the future, and they can’t see their success.  What do we do as teachers, we say just try to relax. Let’s focus on the title today; let’s get the title of your project. Let’s take care of what we have right in front of us. The idea being that if they can be successful coming up with a title, that will give them confidence moving forward with the project. So, I think asking the kids about the projects they’ve done in class where they found that doing something simple at the beginning was a way to get to a longer term goal would be a good storytelling prompt. 

Steve Fouts: 3:01 

Here’s a way to characterize the claim of the quote. You should set short-term goals to be successful, because they’re achievable. You can measure yourself very quickly as to whether or not you’re successful with it. 

Dan Fouts: 3:20 

Ask what are your short-term goals?  They’ll have a wide variety. 

Steve Fouts: 3:25 

Let’s push back against this with a counterclaim. What’s another way to look at this concept of goal setting, and especially the timeframes that are needed to set good goals and to accomplish things that can move you forward? 

Dan Fouts: 3:48 – Counterclaim

I think another way to look at this is when you set very short term goals in the immediate, you might have little successes, but you may lose your way to your destination. The counterclaim would be, set big goals. If you set a big goal with a clear vision, then you’ll be able to suffer through the minutes, because you’re  inspired to actually achieve something in the end. This makes me think of a storytelling idea. You could ask the kids, has your coach, teacher, or parents ever  asked you to visualize success before it happens?  With a team, have you been asked to visualize winning the championship? I think the strategy there is if you buy into the long-term goal, then you’re going to be successful. I think that’d be interesting to hear the kids talk about.  Have they ever practiced positive thinking?  Has it been successful or unsuccessful?  

Steve Fouts: 5:02 

The power of having that vision, and not thinking of the minutes, but thinking of the hours, days, and years. Think of your career goals. We’re always asking students about what they want to be or do, and what they’re good at. In order to get to those types of goals, you’re going to suffer through some difficult minutes.  He doesn’t talk about suffering in this quote, he says, take care of the minutes. It seems like he’s saying don’t disregard them, do the little  things. But, having a big vision is another way to get yourself oriented and ready to do the small things you need to do. 

Dan Fouts: 6:00 

I like the career example. You could ask the kids, does anyone know what  they want to do when they grow up? You can figure out right here who has a long-term goal.

Steve Fouts: 6:15 – Essential Question

It’s pretty straightforward. Goals are really the focus of the claim and counterclaim. That’s really where the pivot exists between the claim and the counterclaim. We have a conversation building here, and now we’re going to end it with an essential question, as we always do. This is designed to get the students to think about their own life and their own approach to goal setting. What is the best way to plan your life? 

Dan Fouts: 6:53 

This is a great question to assess this conversation. Coming out of the conversation, ask students to pick a side, short or long term. We don’t know how they’re going to answer this, but I bet they’re going to come up with a mixed response, that it’s both long term and short term. It would be interesting to see how they would process that question. 

Steve Fouts: 7:21 

Yeah, I agree. If it’s a good conversation, then it’s going to be a blend. In answering this question, the students will be reflecting on different situations  where sometimes thinking about minutes is more helpful than having a long term vision and vice versa.  

Dan Fouts: 7:46 

A curriculum connection idea for social studies would be with the civil rights movement. You have visionary leaders setting a tone, and a vision for the future.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was all about vision.  You have to know where you’re going to plan your life. This would be really good to pair with curriculum like that.  

Steve Fouts: 8:12 

Definitely.  We hope you enjoyed Lord Chesterfield this week. Make sure you visit our Conversation Library where we have many conversations like this, each with a different quote, a sample claim, counterclaim, and an essential question to get you started.  We will see you soon.

Dan Fouts: 8:40 Alright, take care.