New Year’s Eve is a fantastic celebration and there’s no better time to start making changes to your lifestyle – that you will stick to! A New Year’s resolution is a great way to get your year off to a positive start, especially with regards to your academia.
Your resolutions could focus on bettering yourself in some way; whatever you choose should have a positive impact on others or yourself. With this being said, your resolution should be achievable, the targets or goals you set yourself should be within reach.
For example, it would be unrealistic to say you’re going to read five books per week or go to the gym for four hours a day. While these goals are possible, they are unrealistic and you will likely become disheartened and lose interest in the resolution when you don’t quite hit your targets.
To avoid this, there are three simple questions you should ask yourself when setting your resolutions:
- Is it achievable?
- Is it beneficial?
- Is it fun?
A resolution should enrich your lifestyle – even if you don’t want to focus on something too serious and want to have fun, you can still better yourself through a creative or therapeutic outlet such as, meditation, art or writing. If you feel like your spiritual or mental welfare would benefit from growth then you may wish to incorporate this into your resolutions.
I would also suggest you have two resolutions: one academic and one for personal growth.
Improving little by little in a certain aspect of your daily life could be one of your resolutions. I started Jiu Jitsu in September 2018, and although I may not be very good at the moment, I plan to work on improving throughout the next year. My resolution is to get to a level in which I can go to competitions as well as work towards belt stripes. This resolution gives me both long and short term goals and allows me to see progress over a longer period of time.
When looking for an academic New Year’s resolution it is still important to keep in mind the three questions. Perhaps you have struggled to keep on top of essays and hand them in on time and want to make a resolution to combat this. If you are not happy with the grades you received last semester then maybe a resolution surrounding grade improvement would be beneficial for you.
Examples of good New Year’s resolutions:
- Learn 10 new words of a language of your choice per week.
- Read a new book each month.
- Eat healthy vegetarian meals 5 nights a week.
- Increase your average grade by 10%.
- Try to hand your work in the day before it is due.
- Go for a run once or twice a week.
- Take up an artistic hobby like sketching or painting.
About the author
