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Turn New Year's resolutions into an Action Plan for 2017
January 04, 2017
As a student, you probably have lots of goals for the New Year – whether you are a high school student and getting ready to go to college or you are already a college student and starting a new semester.
As a high school student, there are many things you need to do to accomplish your goal of getting into college.
If you are a college student, you no doubt have lots of projects and assignments this semester which will ultimately help you with your goal of completing college. It can all be overwhelming if you don't have a plan.
Here are some tips for developing a plan to accomplish your goals:
- Break the goal down into small action steps. If you have a big project for a class or are applying for college or financial aid, what smaller steps or actions can you take that will lead to you accomplishing the bigger goal? For example, can you do some research now or gather some documents you will need for your applications?
- Establish smaller goals on a weekly or monthly basis. Maybe you can have a smaller goal of creating a basic outline or abstract for your class project or gathering all your documents, which are needed for your applications by the end of the week.
- Keep track of and build on your successes. With any big project, it's easy to get discouraged if you don't feel or can't see that you are making progress. If you are a visual person, create a wall chart that helps you see your progress (much like the thermometers used to show progress on a fundraising goal) or keep a spreadsheet of what you've done, then you can have the pleasure of crossing it off once a step is completed.
Most of us have more goals than we really have time to accomplish. If the goal is important to your overall life goals – like applying for college or completing another semester of college – then it should be a priority.
Contact Mapping Your Future with questions about planning or paying for college at feedback@mappingyourfuture.org or (800) 374-4072.