Lesson:
Engage (10-15 minutes):
Ask your students to engage in self-reflection by journaling about their personal values and goals. Let them know that sharing their responses will be optional.
Suggested Journaling Prompts:
- What do YOU care about? This is about your personal values. What do you do that makes you happy every day? Think about what matters to you most at school, in your social life, and in your family life.
- What do YOU want to achieve? What are your goals as a student, as a friend, as a member of the school community, as a family member, as an athlete, or as a person – who do you want to be?
Lead a quick share, emphasizing the wide variety of your students’ values and goals.
Suggested Prompt:
Today’s lesson is about YOU, and developing habits to support your efforts in achieving the goals you’ve set for yourself. So let’s hear about you. What are your personal values and goals? How do they relate? Do they conflict at all?
Apply (15-20 minutes):
Lead a discussion on how habits can help us achieve our goals – or possibly keep us from achieving our goals.
Suggested Questions:
- What is a habit? What different types of habits do we all have? (Or suggested definition: frequently occurring patterns in thoughts and behaviors.)
- What are you already doing to get closer to your goals? How can you make that a habit?
- What patterns in your thoughts or behaviors interfere with achieving your goals? What could you do to interrupt these patterns of behavior? Is there a healthier alternative?
Break your students into small working groups of 2-4, and present this example scenario that will resonate with your student.
Suggested Prompts & Questions:
Given what you know about this sample student’s goals and values…
- Discuss amongst your group and suggest a new habit to help them achieve their goal.
- Write a mantra that this student could implement to help them interrupt patterns in thoughts and behaviors that get in the way of their goals. Check: How well does your advice align with what this student cares about?
If time permits: Have groups share and discuss each other’s recommendations, emphasizing the differences and strengths of each approach.
Reflection (7-10 minutes):
Give your students time to journal to identify a healthy habit they can develop to help them achieve one of the goals they identified earlier in the lesson. Their journal could be a simple free-write to brainstorm ideas for a contract with themselves, or maybe even a mantra – a short saying to help them redirect your thoughts to a helpful mindset – to support the development of a healthy habit.