Grant Ritchie // Unsplash
The start of a new semester is the perfect time to set yourself up for success.
With summer behind us and the start of the fall semester, Clemson students are beginning new classes, meeting new people and enjoying new experiences. It’s a time with high potential for productivity and progress, so don’t delay setting quality fall goals — similar to New Year’s resolutions. We should be confident in setting and sharing goals to improve and grow as people.
I understand that New Year’s resolutions usually hold up for less than a month for most people (if people even make them in the first place). However, I think this is due to the fact that the timeframe of 12 months gives people too much leeway.
Instead of staying on top of the resolution and setting themselves up for success, most people see that timeframe and think, “I don’t have to do it right this second. I’ve got a long time to do that.” Eventually, the resolution leaves their mind entirely.
A worthy reason to make resolutions for just this semester rather than the whole year is that, as a college student, the fall semester is a time when you’re back on campus in an atmosphere where you likely feel motivated to be proactive and productive. You have roughly four months to set and complete a goal instead of an entire year.
One thing that goes for resolutions in general is making sure to share them with others so that people can work together to help each other achieve their goals. Others can always help you in some capacity, and knowing you told someone your goals will encourage you — and them — to stay accountable and on track.
To take my own advice, my resolutions for this semester are to fix my sleep schedule, write daily and stop procrastinating. Following through on my ideas, plans and ambitions has always been a challenge for me, so I’m writing an article to encourage other people to do the same.
Normalizing fall resolutions (and by extension, spring and summer) and making them a tradition for each semester will encourage people to make them, just like New Year’s. But unlike New Year’s, people will be more likely to keep them.
We can’t keep our resolutions in the back of our minds 24/7, so we have to set ourselves up for success and remind ourselves what our goals are and how we are achieving them. Because that’s all resolutions are at the end of the day: goals. We should always want to better ourselves and should spot opportunities to do that.
Cole Jersek is a junior world cinema major from Murrells Inlet, South Carolina. Cole can be reached at [email protected].