Katie Francis

Setting goals is awesome, but it does create the possibility of not reaching them. I’ve found that one reason that people don’t set goals is because they are afraid that they won’t reach them. That’s also a reason why people don’t set their goals very high. But I always say that even if you don’t reach your goals, by setting one and then taking actions to achieve it, you have achieved more than you would have without one. For example, you set a goal to read two books in one week, and you read when you can, but only end up reading 1. Although you didn’t reach your goal, you still took actions to do so and ended up reading one book, which is more than you usually do!

When you see that you won’t be able to reach your goals, you have a few choices. If it’s possible, you can extend the deadline or adjust what your goal is. You can also change what you are doing to reach your goal. Over the summer I set a goal to raise $10,000 through speaking to donate to a new urban camp that my Girl Scout council is building, but I found out very early on that that was easier said than done. So I adjusted my goal. Instead of trying to raise a specific dollar amount, I set a goal for how many businesses I would go to each month to see if they would be interested in having me speak. This turned out really well in the long run, because these goals were much more achievable and I was able to gain speaking opportunities to help me raise a lot of money. I also extended my personal deadline to raise money and am doing speaking events into the school year instead of keeping it exclusive to the summer so that I will be able to take more opportunities.

I am constantly setting goals, I’m sure that almost everyone has some kind of goal. Some may be more difficult than others, like getting out of bed on time in the morning, but no matter what, you have to take actions to achieve them, like setting the alarm clock. I’ve set a goal over the summer to raise money to donate to a new camp that my Girl Scout Council is building, and I’ve been making great progress on it so far! If you are interested in having me speak for your business or have questions, you can fill out the request information form and I can get in contact with you! I talk about both setting goals and how I achieved all of my goals (and how you can too!)

I had a great time this Thanksgiving getting to spend time with my family and learning a new recipe. I took the time to truly be thankful for all of the things that I have as well. Family, friends, and everything I need to be happy. The cookie sale is also something that I am truly thankful for. It has provided me with the opportunity to learn, which I believe is one of the greatest gifts. I have learned business skills and I’ve also gotten to interact with people outside of school and classes. I’ve heard many touching stories that have stuck with me about all sorts of different topics. I also know that none of it would have happened if it weren’t for my mom allowing me to spend all of my time during the cookie season selling cookies. Each year my mom spends all of her free time driving me around to different places all over the city so that I can sell cookies, and I am so thankful that she has done this for me.

Tonight I had a Girl Scout meeting that I planned as part of a thing that my troop is doing where each of us plan meetings for the month. I decided to do something a little different and volunteer at a nursing home or something similar. I called a nursing and rehab center to see if there was anything that my troop could do for them and found out that they love trivia and just visiting with people in general, so I set up a time that a majority of the troop was able to come and prepared a list of trivia questions and general questions. It was a wonderful experience to get to talk to so many kind people at the nursing and rehab center and I think that they had fun learning new trivia facts. We were able to do a service to our community for almost no cost and all I had to do was make a phone call, inform the troop of the time and date, and prepare a little bit of questions, it was that easy! It made me think about how we were able to help them so easily and why people don’t do that kind of thing more often. Giving back to my community is very important to me, and I am so glad that I have so many wonderful opportunities to do this kind of thing with my troop. I want to encourage everyone to find a way that you can enjoy spreading kindness and even if it’s just once a month, try to do something that can benefit your community, it might give you something else to look forward to and enjoy. After tonight, I know that I will definitely want to try and volunteer in my community more often.

A lot of people that I have talked with say that they have a quote that they really like or inspires them, and I wanted to share one of my favorite quotes. It goes; “Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do rather than the things you did, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” –Mark Twain. What this means to me is to take every opportunity that you can get. I think of this quote while I am making decisions, like whether or not to go for a big goal. I always weigh in all of the pros and cons when making a decision, and it usually takes a few days of thought for me, but when I remember to think ahead to if I will regret my choice, that usually helps. One example of using this kind of thinking is last summer, I decided between participating in a musical, which I have done for the past several years with the same theater, or going on a huge Girl Scout trip to Michigan. I decided to participate in the musical, because I knew what I would be missing out on and thought that I would miss that part to my summer if I didn’t do it. I’m really glad with my choice and I had a wonderful experience!