Have you ever had one of those months where you apparently thought you had superpowers when you planned it? Recently, three programs I oversee each had major events that happened within 30 days. Each one required a great deal of planning, collaboration, and detailed work to complete. Months before all these events were to happen, it seemed “totally doable” to put them in the same 30-day timeframe. But as each event began to rise on the horizon of my calendar, I began to see just how much work it was going to take to make each event successful. That’s when I realized the benefit of working as part of a team.

At Camp Fire we teach the young people we work with about Goal Management. It’s something humans need to learn to do well if they are going to thrive in life. In my scheduling “brilliance”, I set the goal that these three events would occur within 30 days. When the big events began to loom, however, I knew it was time to draw on the team’s Goal Management skills.

We teach youth in our programs to choose their goal, stick to a plan, show persistent effort, check their progress, seek help, and substitute strategies as part of an overall approach to goal management.

When I looked at the events on the team calendar, we had a plan, we were putting in persistent effort toward preparing, and it was obvious that none of us could do it alone. We needed to ask each other for help to achieve our goals individually and as a team.

My colleagues on the Professional Growth team at Camp Fire are incredibly smart, capable women who always maintain a growth mindset. In short, they get stuff done and make it look easy while doing it! When something is a challenge, they rise to meet it. They look forward to the mental stretch and the growth that will happen as they work through the challenge. The team rallied together. We shared the load and we achieved excellent results. Our three events were great successes because of our willingness to ask for help, our willingness to support each other in many ways, and our excellent goal management skills.

Next time, you have a big goal to manage, look around…Who is on your team? Who can you ask for help? Who needs your help? It can make all the difference!

This blog is dedicated to an amazing team!

angela dikes

Angela Dikes is the vice president of professional growth at Camp Fire First Texas. Angela brings more than 25 years of social work and youth development experience to her position. Before coming to Camp Fire, she worked with various child placing agencies including Harmony Family Services, Specialized Alternatives for Youth (SAFY) of Texas, and Safe Havens of Kornerstone. She also worked with Big Brothers Big Sisters for more than 10 years. Angela holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Social Work from Hardin-Simmons University, and the University of Texas at Arlington, respectively. She is also a Licensed Master Social Worker.