Reading + Experience = "Ah ha" Moment

Throughout my time at school this past month, I have read many sections of several books and traveled to different places, experiencing technology and social change. One of my experiences off campus was very eye-opening and helped me understand one of the readings I did. It helped me feel more connected to what I was experiencing and want to keep participating.

The Dragonfly Effect by Jennifer Aaker and Andy Smith is a very good book. It has great aspects of what it means to participate in social change. Specifically, the book breaks down its goals into five sections of a dragonfly, the four wings and the body. In reading about the first wing, I learned how to make an effective goal and start acting on that goal. One of the places I went to off campus was the St John's/St Ann's Outreach Center. I learned a lot about my community and the need here. I believe the section of Wing 1 from The Dragonfly Effect is what has led to this center's success. There are five parts to making a goal, which spell out the acronym HATCH. The first letter is Humanistic and talks about focusing on understanding your audience. With the outreach center, they found the type of people they were reaching out to and centered their work around them, their audience. Actionable is the second letter. This part is all about creating and using short-term or micro goals to eventually achieve your long-term or macro goal. The outreach center developed micro goals, like starting the soup kitchen and food pantry to achieve their macro goal of helping the city of Albany. For the third letter, Testable, you need to identify "metrics" which will help evaluate your progress along the way. This means creating deadlines and then celebrating the along the way. St John's/St Ann's establishes what they want to do and when to do this, like with the welcome table. They can then celebrate after they have served several hundred people, knowing they have been a very important part of these peoples' lives. The fourth letter is Clarity. Being able to focus on your goal and know exactly what is needed creates a better chance for success in the long run. I believe the outreach center made goals for each event or program they hosted, planning down to every type of food available at the welcome table. Finally, Happiness is the fifth and last letter. Every goal should mean something to you and make you happy to not only strive for but complete. You should gain great satisfaction. The outreach center has volunteers which have a love for helping the community. This shines through in everything they do, which means their goals are something that make them happy.

Combining the reading of wing 1 with my experience at the outreach center, I have a much greater understanding about how a goal should be made and achieved. The outreach center made me realize what goes in to creating a goal that means a lot to you. If you are passionate about what you do, the goals you set will most likely fall in line with HATCH and you will be successful.

In the future, I can use HATCH in setting a goal. This way will help me develop a goal that I know I will be able to achieve. Going along with the "ah ha" moment talked about in class, I think this is another moment that fits that category for me. Putting the book and experience together, I fully understand the idea of goal setting for yourself.