Career Prep: Tips For Tracking Progress Toward Your Goals

Published January 4, 2024

Having Goals With An Active Plan For Tracking Progress Can Lead To Terrific Results

By Cassandra Taylor, K12 Student Advisor

Being an online student means it is especially important to stay organized and to practice learning on your own. It can also mean learning where you want to go after high school, what you want to do with the next stage of your life and decide how you’re going to do it. But, it also means that you get to feel more independent, proud of yourself, and you get to discover how to personally create realistic goals.

I’ve been with a K12-powered school for about two and a half years now, and it’s different from traditional schools. You learn to be more independent, and you learn how to focus and do things on your own, like making goals. Once you have a goal, you should consider a few things: Is it a long-term or short-term goal? Is it truly practical/doable? How do you plan on making it happen?

Now, some things are part of the goal-planning process, which is exactly why I have some tips.

Once you think of a goal you might like to strive toward, for example maybe you want to get into your dream college and have an acceptance letter before the last day of high school, then the first thing you want to do is create a plan. Think of what you need to do to make this goal happen.

Let’s say the steps for the above goal are achieving all A’s, having perfect attendance, having a clean and precise resume, and joining three clubs. Now, you should just complete the things that you can do right away, like join those clubs, fix your resume, and do the work towards that perfect attendance and earning straight A’s in a progression.

Finally, here’s how you keep track of those goals and your overall progress. Once a week, at the end of the week, check your grades and think about whether you attended every class and actively took part in it, or not. If that seems like too much of an investment of time, or even if you’re just confident that you don’t need to check that often, then do it at least once a month. All you need to do is keep track of your grades and attendance, be active in those clubs, and update your resume.

Keeping track of your progress is just a matter of planning, sticking to it, and checking that progress every chance you get (or at a scheduled pace that is realistic for you, as an individual). You can even write down the dates you checked your progress in various categories, and then record how you were doing on that day. Whatever helps YOU the most, because, in the end, it’s your goal.