TEDxEUR Talk by Michaéla Schippers

On the 9^th of October, the TEDx partnership with Erasmus University Rotterdam kindly invited Michaela Schippers, amongst others, to talk about the successful Goal-Setting Program of the Rotterdam School of Management (RSM).

Professor Schippers and her dedication, did not only stressed the importance of “life crafting through personal goal setting ” as a key to successful life achievements and find meaning in life, she also took the opportunity to share her own personal experience with the Goal-setting. Through simple goal setting; being more pragmatic and realistic towards them professor Schippers described having a “shift in her perspective” and life outcomes. She was able to transition from student to professor, to become a mother, create the goal-setting program and make an impact on students’ success, all this while also climbing the ladder into becoming a black-belt taekwondo champion.

“The process of setting goals is a deceptively simple task, but overly underrated by most of us” Michaéla explained. The goal setting intervention was primarily created to make students’ life a little easier. The three-stage online writing exercise asking students to clarify their ideas, values, social and work relations (1), to select and describe their goals concretely (2) and make public statements (3), has made a substantial impact on the lives of these partakers.

 Since 2011, professor Schippers pointed out to have noticed not only a “shift in perspective” but visible and optimistic numbers too. Every year, the scalability of the Goal-Setting program becomes evident, showing substantial increases in students’ academic performance, ranging effects from 5 to 44%, to almost entirely reducing the gender (98%) and ethnicity gap (93%). With such effects, professor Schippers outlined, it has become undeniable to expand the network of the Goal-Setting interventions to more schools in the Netherlands. Each year, the goal-setting program, makes an impact on students, on the university themselves, from a qualitative perspective and represents, without any doubts, the force of a positive change that RSM is standing for. 

The full video of this talk is coming soon. Watch the promo now!