At the beginning of each new year you always hear murmurs of New Year’s resolutions across campus. It might be the two girls at the gym talking about how they are going to make a workout plan or your roommate saying that they want to eat healthier, but all across campus people have hopes for 2019. The issue is that resolutions are often hard to keep, and even harder to keep when you are pursuing an engineering degree at Mines.
Although, keep in mind that just because New Year’s Day has come and passed, it doesn’t mean that you can’t make resolutions. Having resolutions and goals are about living your best life and feeling good. So, you could wake up any day of the week and resolve to achieve something.
Here are a few tips to make those resolutions more attainable while also keeping up on homework and exam schedules.
Set solid, attainable goals
The first key thing about any resolution is that they have to be attainable. Do not say you want to run a marathon in 2019 if you haven’t run in months. But don’t just say “I want to run”; you need to set a goal. For the running example, a goal like running a specific number of miles without stopping or running a 5k. Once you set your goal, write it down and post it somewhere that you will see daily, this will make your goals feel more real and not let you forget about what you are striving for.
Track your progress
Students at Mines like numbers and data, it is just who we are. Finding some way to track your progress will allow you to if you are actually moving towards your goal. You can track your progress in any way that is natural to you, whether that is on your phone or in your planner, just record where you are and where you want to go. This will give you accountability, motivation, and a way to credit yourself for success.
One easy way to track progress is to set milestones with your initial goal. As you achieve these milestones not only will you be closer to reaching your resolution, but you will also have little reasons to pat yourself on the back and see how far you have come along the way.
Go all in
If you have a personal goal, you need to take both the goal and yourself seriously. If for example, you want to eat healthy, get rid of all of your junk food. This will give you no option but to eat healthy. In order to really achieve a goal, you can’t give yourself an easy out. Another way to go “all in” with a goal is to get a friend involved. Maybe that is someone to go to the gym with you or to exchange healthy recipes with, but either way having someone else that you are accountable to will help keep you on track.
Reward yourself
When you reach your resolution, or a milestone along the way, acknowledge that you have and celebrate that. Resolutions are about living your best life and doing something for yourself, and you should be celebrating that. You can reward yourself in any manner that you want, maybe go out for ice cream after you make it to the gym 4 times a week for a month or have a movie night with friend to celebrate your healthy eating. If you have a reward set when you start, it will be just another form of motivation to drive you forward.
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