The skills you take away from Alpha Sigma Alpha membership are unique and pivotal to your success as a young woman. While my sorority experience has equipped me with many skills that I will use long after my young adult career, goal setting is perhaps the most crucial to my personal and professional development.
As collegiate members of Alpha Sigma Alpha, we are tasked with forming a legacy plan during the new member education process. In our first month in the Sorority, we set goals to leave a legacy with our sisters when we move forward. Sometimes, a goal that large can be intimidating and overwhelming. When we set goals for the big picture, we often become paralyzed by the fear of not leaving a significant impression, and we allow the smaller details of our experience to pass us by.
Setting goals on a smaller scale not only creates more accessible ideas for improvement, but it also allows us as individual members to consider our roles in our chapters. Setting these goals can be as easy as 1-2-3!
- First, identify your greatest strength. What are you incredibly good at? Maybe you excel in public speaking, have a talent for organizing your schedule or are a phenomenal hype-woman. Whatever your greatest strength may be, identify that skill that makes you a proud sister. Cultivating your strengths to help those around you makes for a more productive and more meaningful sisterhood. So think about that strength you’ve identified. How can you use that strength to be a better sister and leader?
- The next step in goal-setting is to identify how you can utilize your strengths to make an intentional impression on the sisters around you. If your skills shine as a writer, offer your help to your sisters in writing essays. If you are a brilliant listener, take a struggling sister on a coffee date to allow her to vent. If you love delegating, consider stepping into an executive board position. If you are a skilled event planner, lend the social chairman a hand in planning formal. No matter what that greatest strength of yours may be, there is always a way to use it to better your sisterhood.
- Now that you have identified your strengths and how to use them, the final step in setting a meaningful goal for yourself is to simply create your goal statement. Take out a post-it note, head over to your dry erase board or open the notes app on your phone. Document your goal somewhere that you can be frequently reminded of the influence you strive to leave with your sisters. As you write your goal statement, always use the phrase, “I will.” This allows your goal to evolve from something you want to do into something you will do. When writing your goal, consider the following formula:
Using my strength of _______, I will _______, to change my sisterhood for the better.
Allow your goal to guide you in your sorority experience. Membership in Alpha Sigma Alpha really is what you make of it, so make it special by setting goals to better your sisterhood. It’s as easy as 1-2-3!
Elizabeth Martin, ZY