How to Achieve a School Goal

Every person wants to achieve the goals set at the beginning of a new school year.

•【小题1】. When it comes to choosing your goal，make sure that it states exactly what it is that you want to achieve. If your goal seems too big，divide it into simpler，easier tasks.

•Write down your goal. You can write it in a journal or write it on a sticky note. Writing keeps your memory fresh and helps you clear up the useless things in your brain. Try to keep a journal or a diary.

•Break your goal down. By breaking your goal up manageable sections，it allows you to mentally make your way through the goal until the end of a year. 【小题2】 . Therefore you’re far less likely to give up or dodge your goal by taking shortcuts or refusing to do anything.

•【小题3】. Turn off all distractions（使人分心的事物）like TV，the Internet，your phone and every other devices you have at home. Keep emails，phone calls，texts，ete. to a minimum.

•Make it happen. 【小题4】 . Thinking is a useful start but thinking doesn’t do the heavy work and thinking certainly won’t move mountains. Go out every morning knowing what you need to do and then do it！

•Stay positive. Keep saying that you can do it. Stay motivated and be confident.

•Reward yourself. 【小题5】 . Every once in a while，if you complete a goal，treat yourself to an extra bar of chocolate or make time to read that book you’ve been wanting to read two months ago.

   Now a new study has showed a key trick in getting the best deal - asking for a range of pay, rather than a single figure.

The research contradicts（与……抵触）traditional wisdom that argues giving a range will automatically cause employers to focus on the lower end of the offer. For instance, if you want  $90,000 and you suggest a range between $90,000 and $110,000, the study finds employers are more likely to make a higher offer.

But simply asking for $110,000 in the first place increases the chances of the deal falling apart, as it is a sign that the employee is not open to negotiation（协商）.

The team made the discovery after running a series of experiments involving Amazon Mechanical Turk workers and business school students.

Respondents were asked not only what they thought their negotiation partner's lowest acceptable offer could be, but also questions designed to show how they viewed their partner.

One type of offer, called a “bracketing” range,places the figures on either side of the desired salary. For instance, if you want $90,000, you'd ask for a range of between  $80,000 and $100,000. This causes employers to offer the lower end of the scale,but, unlike single figure offers, the deals rarely fall apart as the negotiator is often viewed favourably. “If your goal is to get along with someone without losing money, the‘bracketing' range offers may be a good move,”Dr Ames told the Wall Street Journal.

The“backdown”range offer, meanwhile, uses the target salary as the high figure in the range. For $90 ,000, an employer would ask for a range between $70,000 to $90,000. These range offers , predicta-bly, give the worst results in terms of pay.

However, Dr Ames warns against setting the range too high and says the most successful range is usually within 20 per cent of the target offer.

   Communication is one of our most important ways of being in the world as human beings. 【小题1】 It is an art because if you practice it enough times you will master it. It is a science in that there are rules that must be followed for communication to occur. It is the communication that has changed our world. However, many of us have difficulty communicating with each other effectively. 【小题2】.

·Important contexts. For communication to occur there has to be a sender and a receiver. There needs to be someone who is speaking and someone who is listening. There has to be a context for that communication to locate the message. 【小题3】 The receiver can better understand the message behind the message, the subtext of the message and so on with the help of the context.

·【小题4】 Communication requires that barriers (障碍) be laid to rest so the sender and the receiver of the message can be in contact with each other. Barriers to communication include noises, not giving your full attention, speaking on your cellphone while the other is talking. In today’s multi-task work, it’s no wonder there are so many troubles — not only at home, but also in workplaces, places of worship, meetings, etc.

·Rewarding listening. Listening is hard work. It is difficult but with practice, listening can become as natural as eating an apple pie and an ice cream. 【小题5】 When you are not listening, the communication is not getting through. Listening does not mean being quiet and pretending you are giving your whole attention while your mind wanders to what’s for dinner or something like that.

   We often focus on building relationships with others but we forget the important first step: being friends of ourselves. 【小题1】. How can we have good relationships with others if we don’t even have good relationships with ourselves?

The problem might be worse than we expect. Maybe we don’t like ourselves without realizing it. Here is a simple checklist: Is there anything you don’t like about yourself from these lists?

Your past: Maybe you have made mistakes in the past which you feel bad about. 【小题2】 . Even if that happened in the distant past, your mind still has a reason not to like yourself.

Your background: You might wish that you were born in a different family, or that you had different background. 【小题3】. They seem to get whatever they want effortlessly because of their background.

Your personal characters: You might have some personality traits that you don’t like. For example, you may be an introvert（内向的人）and you don’t like it; you wish you were an extrovert. Others might have better achievements than you, and no matter how hard you tried, it might seem impossible for you to match them. 【小题4】. Is there anything that resonates（产生共鸣）with you? All these give reasons to the idea that you don’t like yourself. That in turn makes it difficult for you to be a good friend to yourself.

【小题5】. Here are some tips:

Forgive yourself.

Accept things you can’t change.

Focus on your strengths.

Write your success stories.

Stop comparing yourself with others.

Always be true to yourself.