PBL Simplified by Magnify Learning
PBL Simplified Podcast helps innovative principals and teachers like you bring Project Based Learning to your classrooms. PBL Simplified is in the top 5% of over 2 million global podcasts.
Hosted by Ryan Steuer, of Magnify Learning, we strive to empower school leaders and teachers with examples from Project Based Learning classrooms, leadership inspiration, and practical PBL resources.
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Whether you are a teacher or school leader, there is something for you on PBL Simplified:
1st Wednesday: PBL Leadership Episode
2nd Wednesday: PBL Showcase - a PBL facilitator shares a PBL Unit
3rd Wednesday: PBL Leadership Episode
4th Wednesday: PBL Interview.
Subscribe and listen to real educators like yourself, who are innovating in the classroom to help their learners become part of an inspiring story. For more Project Based Learning resources, visit www.magnifypbl.com
PBL Simplified by Magnify Learning
Mastering Intentional Goal-Setting for Success in 2025 | E213
What if you could harness the power of strategic goal-setting to revolutionize your 2025? Join us as we unlock secrets to mastering intentional goals, setting you up for success well before the year even begins. We’re unveiling strategies that go beyond the mundane, helping you craft goals with purpose and vision. Our upcoming 2025 podcast offerings are designed to be your guiding light, whether you're leading the charge in a Project Based Learning movement or enhancing your classroom techniques. With tailored series like "PBL Movement for Leaders" and "PBL Movement for Teachers," we’re committed to delivering invaluable insights and practical strategies for both leadership and teaching excellence.
We'll also dive into the art of personal goal-setting, offering frameworks like SMART goals and visionary tools such as vision boards to help you organize your ambitions across spiritual, physical, professional, relational, and recreational domains. By breaking these goals into quarterly milestones, you’ll achieve balance in personal and professional growth. Inspired by Dr. Nate Zinser's "The Confident Mind," we explore how writing down your goals daily can solidify your commitment and propel you to action. With our concise "Binge PBL" series, we aim to empower educators with a comprehensive, yet efficient, understanding of essential Project Based Learning topics, ensuring that both teachers and administrators are equipped to transform educational environments effectively.
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Three tips to crush your goals in 2025. If you set some goals on December 31st of 2023, I'm going to guess that you didn't hit them in 2024. That's just not really how it works. Those are resolutions. Most people give up on those before you even really finish out February, right? So that's not what we're trying to do. We're trying to set goals that maybe you set for the quarter, maybe you set them for the year, but they're intentional and they're on purpose.
Speaker 1:Now, I think last year actually advocated you start your goals in November. Right, like, set them up in November. Get a running start. I like that method. I still like that method. It's one that we use, but you've at least got to start. Like, today's your day. We're halfway through December, right, break's coming up. That's a time for you to take a day or two. I get it. You need to rest. Take a day or two and set some goals. It will be rest because you've got these great ideas. You've got a vision. You want to know what next year is going to look like. Take an hour and set some goals. Get some coffee brewing whatever you need. Find a great little place, a coffee shop, whatever you need and set some goals Get some coffee brewing, whatever you need, find a great little place, a coffee shop, whatever you need and set those goals, and I'm going to give you three tips to crush those goals for 2025. Before I do, I want to tell you about our new podcast format coming up in 2025, because we've been busy since November. We've kind of set these goals and we've got a running start. We're going have four podcast options for you in 2025.
Speaker 1:Because what you've told us is that you have very specific needs based on how you're leading your movement, and so if you are a principal, ap coach, maybe central office, or a lead teacher who wants to be in charge of the vision of the PBL movement in your school or your area, this podcast is going to stay the same. It will actually take a different title. It's going to be called PBL Movement for Leaders. Pbl Movement for Leaders Because we understand that you're leading a full movement. It's not just a dabbling, but you want to know how to have a vision, input a vision, start a grassroots movement and go. So that's what's going to be the focus. It's going to be for leaders and leadership teams. That's who we're going to be equipping with PBL Movement for Leaders.
Speaker 1:We're also going to have an ongoing PBL podcast called PBL Movement for Teachers. This one's going to be ongoing every week. It's going to be tips, tricks, skills, stories directly for and from the classroom. So what you told us is that during the school year, sure you'll love the motivation, you'll love the idea of habits and goals, but really you need some tips for your classroom. How do you get group contracts moving? How do you improve entry events or presentations? What tool do you need? That's what teachers are looking for, so that's what we're going to give you. Pbl Movement for Teachers will be an ongoing PBL podcast directly for teachers in the classroom. So if you're a principal listening, you're going to want to recommend that podcast for your teachers PBL Movement for Teachers.
Speaker 1:Now we also have two more podcasts that will be coming out in the new year. They're gonna be a set series podcast, so it's not gonna be ongoing. It's not gonna have 200 episodes, they're gonna have 20 episodes. So you're gonna have binge PBL for teachers and binge PBL for administrators, and it's exactly what it sounds like. You're going to binge everything you need to know the high level view of the topics that teachers need to know about PBL. So if you've got a teacher that's coming into your movement and they need an overview, this is going to be their podcast. It's going to be 15 minutes or less, 20 episodes. They can bust through it. Everything from mindset to driving question to presentation, everything in between. They're going to get that real quick. It's not going to be 200 episodes, right? It's not going to be an ongoing weekly podcast. It's going to be as soon as they plug in. All 20 are there and they can bust through. Same thing for administrators. What do administrators need to know to get a high-level overview of PBL really quickly? You're going to binge these 20 episodes and you're going to be up to speed.
Speaker 1:How do you start a vision? How do you empower your leadership team? How do you start a grassroots movement? How do you make sure it's not a top-down mandate? All those same topics and need-to-knows that we've been addressing in design days or in workshops over the last 10 years. We're going to put them into this binge format. I think it's going to be awesome.
Speaker 1:So what we're trying to do is meet your needs based on what you've asked us, and you all have very specific needs based on where you're leading right, where your movement is. So you're going to have PBL movement for leaders. That's going to be ongoing. You're going to have PBL movement for teachers. That's going to be ongoing every week stories and skill sets from the classroom. Then you're going to have binge PBL for teachers. You have binge PBL for administrators. So those are going to be your four options coming right in 2025.
Speaker 1:It's going to start off January 8th. You're going to have all these options. So figure out what you want to plug into subscribe so it comes up in your library and listen away. Right, listen and apply. We're still going to have these feedback loops so you can still go to pblsharecom on whichever platform you're on, whatever podcast you're engaged in, so you can still offer some feedback. Now, of course, on the binge podcast after like come, episode 21,. Like, they're done. So you're not going to get your question answered there. You've got to come back to one of the ongoing podcasts to get that done. But we're really excited about this podcast format. We think we can really serve you better based on what you're asking for and it's coming right. So I think it's also a great example.
Speaker 1:Let me transition into goals with this. Is we set this goal early on. We set this goal in October, solidified it by early November, activated right through November so that, coming the new year, we're ready to provide that service for you. So what does that look like for you if you're a leader or if you're in the teacher classroom? That means that when you're looking at January, how are you going to launch the year for your faculty meeting which I'm actually going to address on the January 1st podcast specifically and give you a resource just in case you don't hit this, but you really want to be thinking about it right now. As soon as you hit break, one of your first or second days is what are you going to do when you come back? And if you're really slick, before your teachers leave, you're going to ask them what do they want when they come back? So we want to be looking ahead with our goals. So that's your plus one tip that's not even your first tip yet so is to give yourself some runway moving into your goals so that you hit the ground running with them.
Speaker 1:All right, let's jump into our three tips to crush your 2025 goals. Number one I've got a couple of these that are going to be a little wishy-washy because I think there's so many different ways to do goals and there's so many different leaders and I've seen leaders be effective on either one of these, so you might have SMART goals or not, right? We've all heard that SMART acronym for goals. They're very structured and for some of you, that's your personality. You're going to have a SMART goal for first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter, and you're going to knock two or three of those out every time and I love it, like go for it. Some of us are not built that way, right, so we're not going to have SMART goals.
Speaker 1:We still want to be specific so we can track them, so that we know that we're on, that we're moving in the right direction, and we want to be able to communicate those goals. So they do need to be specific. You're gonna have some smart framework maybe, but for some of us, some of you, that framework just freaks you out. By the time you're done with it, you're like this is too much and I don't have any more energy to actually do the work. So, however, you want to set your goals, I want you to set your goals. Set them smart. Maybe you've got impassioned, visionary goals and that gets you excited. Maybe you do a futures protocol and we'll put a link in the description A futures protocol.
Speaker 1:You imagine yourself three years from now in that space of you achieving your goals. What does it look like three years from now when you achieve your goals with a staff culture that goes down into student culture? What do you hear? What do you see? How is your faculty meeting different? And you start to draw that out in a very visual way and that drives you. Maybe it's a vision board, maybe it's a vision board that you put up in your office and you've got all these different pictures that are cut out, or words or quotes, and that drives you. Maybe, again, maybe it's smart goals. So, however, you set your goals, totally up to you. I'm not mad at you either way.
Speaker 1:Now, when you're looking at goals, you probably have some different buckets of goals though, because we're people, we're not just a principal, we're not just a teacher, right? So we have other goals. So Dr X suggests these, and I like them. There's five. Everybody has their own buckets, but in some form they usually hit these spiritual goals, physical, professional, relational, recreational, and if some of you are like, well, what's recreational? That's called hobbies. My friend and you should have one or two, right, I don't care.
Speaker 1:If you like, pick up the flute, I occasionally play the guitar or try to right and just learning guitar, learning Spanish. That's a piece that has nothing to do with blogging, youtubing, podcasting, right. Driving educational change, right. It's totally different, right? Because if I pick reading as my recreational habit, I'm going to read leadership books. I'm going to read nonfiction leadership books. I'm going to be thinking about transforming education. There aren't a whole lot of songs that I'm learning on my guitar that revolve around education at this point, and I like that, right.
Speaker 1:So you need a recreational hobby, so set a goal. If you don't have one, set a goal to learn something new or get back into some kind of a hobby. Let this be your push. So those buckets, again, are spiritual, physical, professional, relational, recreational, and you're going to set one or two goals for the year on each one of those, probably tackle those by quarter. Again, I'm going to let that be up to you. As far as the structure, there's a bazillion different structures you can put that into, but I think it's important that you address goals for each of those, right, because they're going to cascade and waterfall into other areas, like when I do leadership coaching or we're talking like our leadership mastermind.
Speaker 1:People sometimes will say they'll push back because they're high flyers. Well, just help me be a better leader, okay? Well, to be a better leader, I need you to maybe be in better physical shape. I need your relationships at home to be solid, because if they're not, it affects your work, right? So it's not like I'm super soft and cuddly, it has nothing to do with that. I'm all about educational transformation and in order for that to happen in order for 51% of schools to be in PBL by 2051, I need your life to be together, because if your relationships are falling apart, it affects your work at school, which affects your teachers, which affects the kids, which affects a whole bunch of lives. So it's not that I'm a super emotional person, it's that I know what works and what helps transform schools, and that's a well-rounded leader with good goals.
Speaker 1:So set those goals, use those five buckets, and then the second tip is to write them down. Yep, write them down. And then write them down daily, that's right, daily, at least your Monday through Friday. Make it part of your habits that you have that's actually next week's podcast is habits, but put it into some part of a routine for you where you write them down. I like to do it at least three times for each of my goals, and I do that in the morning, I do that at night, so it kind of starts my day. It ends my day right before I go to sleep. My brain is subconsciously thinking about my goals, moving things around in my brain, moving me closer to my goals. Can't totally explain it, also don't need to. I just know that it helps me hit my goals.
Speaker 1:Writing them down daily puts them in front of you. If you put them into a big fancy journal and then never look at them again, it does you no good, right? You're going to be inspired for a week when you can remember them and then you're not going to be in front of you and it's not going to help. They need to be driving your behaviors and your actions and your mindset each and every day. So you're writing them down daily. It takes two minutes to do it. There's an awful lot of research that says it's a really good idea. If you need that research and you want a book behind that the Confident Mind by Dr Nate Zinser, one of my favorite books it's a game changer. He uses this with his clients at West Point Academy and many other Olympic athletes, and it's one of the tactics that they use. I use it. I highly suggest it.
Speaker 1:Third tip to crush your goals in 2025. Again, going to go wishy-washy on this one, because it's up to your personality, I think. Share your goals with someone or don't. Right, so wait, right, like, how do you do that? So I love the idea of sharing your goals with an accountability partner or someone in a mastermind, somebody that can remind you of those goals, because once you say it, like, you are people of integrity or, again, you're probably in the wrong, wrong podcast. You set goals, you say things out loud, you do what you say. So if you say your goals out loud to someone, you're going to do them because you are a person of integrity, like every, every part of your being just wants those things to come to fruition.
Speaker 1:At the same time, that can feel a little cheesy for some people. Maybe you're introverted, maybe you don't want to share some of your big goals. Maybe you can't share some of your goals, like if you're the person you're sharing with is on your staff. Maybe that doesn't work out right. So you need well, which is one of the reasons you need to be in a mastermind or in a coaching relationship so you can do that. But if you don't do that, I just want you to have some kind of accountability with yourself. So, again, another great reason to write them down daily is you're looking at them.
Speaker 1:If you're not doing that if that still feels cheesy to you, by the way it works, but if it doesn't you have to find a way where you look at them at least weekly right, are the things you're doing matching up to your goals? I like to look at them again at the beginning of the week, at the end of the week, when I look at the things I did this week. Did it move me closer to my goals? Hopefully, the answer is yes. If it's not because things happen, what can I do next week to make sure that I'm moving the ball forward on my goals? Because I said these were important. Right, I got to a quiet place where I could think and dream and vision, and these are the things I said were important to me. So how do I make them happen in my life? We've got to put our goals in front of us. Got to put our goals in front of us, and the other thing is we need to get them in our schedule, which might be a whole nother podcast, but I love the idea of kind of this diagram of the five buckets, your goals and then where you put them into your schedule or your calendar. So figure out how those goals actually fit into your everyday. Where are you actually moving the ball forward on those goals? So those are your three tips to crush your goals in 2025.
Speaker 1:The bonus tip remember before the tips was start right now. You know, if you're not on break yet, then as soon as you hit break, set a day to do goals right. If you're on break, do it right now. Do it tomorrow. Schedule some time at the coffee shop. Get up early if you need to set aside some time where that's what you're thinking about, and some of you might need to just journal, open up a Google doc and says what's important to me this next year and just see what comes out of you right, and then develop that into goals. Five buckets are spiritual, physical, professional, relational and recreational. You're going to set SMART goals, unless you don't want to Set the goals that make sense for you. You're going to write them daily and you're going to share them or you're not going to share them, but some kind of accountability for you so that they're coming back up and you're charting am I getting closer to these goals or farther away? All right, that is your podcast episode for today.
Speaker 1:Movement makers, remember, when it comes out in January, we're going to have four different options for you PBL movement for administrators. Pbl movement for teachers. Binge PBL for teachers. Binge PBL for administrators. I think you're going to love it. I'm super excited about the lineup that we have for those because it's not something where we're guessing. It's where we asked you right. We asked you the people that we're working with, coaching training every day across the country in all kinds of different schools. So when I say you, it might not be you, but it's a representative of you, right, and that's who we got the topics from and that's where we are moving forward. It you Right, and that's who we got the topics from and that's where we are moving forward. It's going to be super strong.
Speaker 1:Glad you're on the journey with us. Glad to be on the journey with you. Go lead inspired. 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 into 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.
