Well Bears, as our first week back starts to wrap up, I hope y’all are glad to be back on campus. I know for myself, coming back to campus was a little nerve-wracking with it being my eighth and final semester (no, I am not ready to fully confront my future yet, that will be a later Zoë Says) but this week allowed me to settle in to a solid routine and establish game plans to ensure my success. I encourage you all to look at some of the strategies you used last year and evaluate whether they were successful enough to continue on into this semester, or if it may be time to revamp them.
My main goal this semester is to focus more on my health. Even though school is my top priority, I have determined that I have been pretty successful with the way I organize, plan and implement academic goals and assignments so that I feel comfortable putting some energy into an extracurricular category. It is also true that exercising can help one perform better academically, so ultimately my new goal will help strengthen my main goal (academic success).
I’m taking baby steps to eating better and exercising more regularly, but what would you like to improve on this semester? The beauty about semesters is that they are long enough to create a goal with long-lasting effects, while also having substantial checkpoints throughout to evaluate your progress.
If your semester goal is purely academic, a great way to keep track is looking at what you did well and what you could improve on after each test you take. Ask yourself questions about your study habits, note taking, class attendance/involvement etc.
If your goal is something similar to mine (not directly academic related) then I would first ask yourself why this is a goal of yours. Help yourself by creating a list of positives that will come out of you completing this goal. Just like the academic goals, natural checkpoints can be made by months or weeks, determining on what your goal is.
Basically, what I’m trying to say, Bears, is that goals are good! Goals help keep you motivated, they help with the continuation of self-improvement and success. So help your future-selves out, Bears, and start on a goal today.
Go get ‘em, Bears!
~Zoë