New School Years Resolutions

With a new school year on its way students are faced with a number of new opportunities. In the upcoming year they can meet more people, figure out what they’re interested in pursuing later on in life, work on their grades, and become active in student organizations. While realistically not many students will be able to achieve everything on that list, the few first weeks of school are much like those of the new year, a time to make resolutions. Whether or not these resolutions will last depends on your approach and dedication, but hopefully, fingers crossed, you’ll manage to make at least a few of them stick.
New Years resolutions are all about personal improvement. Lose weight, get more sleep, join a club, read more. Your resolutions for the school year are also based on personal improvement and growth, not only academically but also socially and emotionally. Just because you’re starting school doesn’t mean that you need to aim only for stronger grades and extra volunteer hours for your resume; including some resolutions that allow you some more instant or personal gratification is just as important.
When you make these resolutions you need to examine what generally causes you to drop them. In the first few weeks or months resolutions are often promising and important, but often with time they begin to feel draining and dubious. This is often because of unrealistic goals which give little to no gratification until they’ve been reached, and while some people enjoy setting the bar high, there are a couple of things they should do so as not to burn themselves out.
The first thing when writing a list of goals is to write down as many as you can come up with, separating them into two columns entitled “long term” and “short term”. Depending on what type of goals you’ve set, you then need to go about eliminating impossible or less important goals, until you reach a ratio of three or so short term goals per long term goal. Some people should have no problem keeping their list to a minimum, but if you find that you’re struggling with too many resolutions try to determine which are needed more immediately and which could be achieved in the future. By working towards goals that are important to your immediate future and provide more gratification, the short term goals allow you to see the light at the end of the tunnel until you manage to achieve your long term goals. These small goals don’t have to be anything massive, and could be as simple as becoming an active member of the Thespian Society, but even these small steps allow you to last the duration of your other resolutions.
If, as the year goes on, you find that certain resolutions have become too time consuming or are simply not worth it, figure out why they didn’t work out and try to remember it when setting future goals. Some people to immediately complete a resolution and then replace it with another one, while others like to work their way through a list and wait until the next year to start again. The process of resolutions is extremely personalized and demands work only from you, so figuring out what pace and style works best for you is important. If you continue to work and balance your goals and resolutions, you’ll soon be able to reap their rewards.