New Year's resolutions are not just about making wishes; they're about creating actionable plans for self-improvement.
In this article, we'll explore some essential New Year resolution ideas for students, focusing on enhancing study habits, personal development, career planning, and community involvement. We'll also delve into why New Year's resolutions fail, and what you can do to actually stick to your goals.
The importance of goal setting for students
Why is goal setting important for students? There are countless studies covering the importance of goal setting for students, but one of the main benefits is self-efficacy.
Self-efficacy is our confidence in our ability to overcome challenges and successfully complete tasks. In other words, if you've done something before, you'll be more confident in your ability to do it again in the future, and even to overcome other challenges.
Self-efficacy has a compound positive effect, because we're more motivated to do things we're good at (because we feel successful), so we tend to seek out new challenges and get better at overcoming them.
“A willingness to take on important goal‐related tasks and self‐efficacy beliefs was associated with those who reported a readiness to set difficult goals.”
So, for example, you can target a certain (achievable) GPA or you can try tackling a subject you’ve been struggling with.
New Year resolution ideas for students
How to use the list
Student life is very rich, encompassing many facets of life, including social, educational, work-related, emotional, and others.
Below are examples of New Year's resolutions for students that cover lots of different aspects. You should:
1. Pick 3 goals you think would be great to implement
2. Decide which one of the three you want to focus on
Yes, you should only pick one goal. If you're unsure which goal to pick, you should choose the most urgent one. If there is no difference in urgency between the three, pick whichever is the easiest one to implement.
New Year resolution ideas for students
• Improve time management: Organize your weekly schedule with dedicated study, work, and leisure hours. Aim to establish this routine within the first month of the year.
• Enhance study habits: Dedicate at least two hours each day for focused study sessions and review your learning weekly.
• Maintain a consistent sleep schedule: Aim for 7-8 hours of sleep each night.
• Set clear academic goals: Identify specific GPA or grade targets for each course by the start of the semester and review your progress bi-weekly.
• Increase class participation: Participate in class discussions or ask questions at least once per week throughout the semester.
• Expand professional network: Attend at least two networking events or join a relevant club each semester to build new connections.
• Pursue internship opportunities: Apply to a minimum of three internships related to your field of study each semester.
• Improve physical health: Engage in physical activity for at least 30 minutes, 5 days a week.
• Prioritize mental health: Dedicate at least 15 minutes daily to stress-relief activities like meditation or journaling.
• Cultivate new skills: Spend at least an hour per week learning a new skill or language, with progress checks every three months.
• Reduce procrastination: Put your phone on silent, and leave it in a different room when you want to study.
• Read more non-academic books: Read at least one non-academic book per month.
• Advance your public speaking skills: Join an improv or public speaking group and attend their meet-ups regularly.
• Explore cultural activities: Attend at least one cultural event or activity on campus each month to broaden your perspectives.
• Curb screen time: Set technology-free days every month, or leave your phone at home when you go for a walk.
Note: You should adapt the specific amounts and time-bindings to your personal experience. The goal here is to give you inspiration and a general idea of how you should structure your resolutions: they should be challenging but achievable, with specific measurable outcomes.
Why do New Year's resolutions fail?
Simply put, most New Year's resolutions rely on hope, or overconfidence. Shooting for the moon in hopes of landing among the stars doesn't usually work in practice, because people tend overestimate their ability and motivation to achieve their goals.
“People overrate themselves. they overestimate the likelihood that they will engage in desirable behaviors and achieve favorable outcomes, furnish overly optimistic estimates of when they will complete future projects, and reach judgments with too much confidence”.
Going after (and failing to reach) unrealistic goals is not only demoralizing, but it also leaves you in a worse spot than where you were before you started - because you now know that you've failed, and it might make you less willing to pursue that ambitious goal again.
What's more, a lot of people fall into the "false hope syndrome" trap, where they attribute their failure to achieve their goal(s) to an external factor like a bad professor, rather than their own ability or poor planning.
So, how do unrealistic goals look? Here are a few unrealistic goals examples:
• Perfect grades in all courses
• Attending every single lecture and campus event
• Securing a managerial job immediately after graduation with no prior work experience
Are unrealistic goals always bad?
While setting unrealistic goals is not ideal in most scenarios, they can sometimes help you frame smaller goals within the context of a larger, more meaningful dream, which gives purpose (and thus, motivation) to what you do along the way.
For example, many people have been motivated to pursue a path to medicine or humanitarianism with the goal of curing cancer or ending hunger.
The reason why these motivators work is because the people
pursuing them aim to simply
make a difference - the goal is, therefore, the journey - not the end
destination.
How to keep New Year's resolutions
• Start small: Pick one of the goals from above, and begin with very, very, very small, manageable actions. For instance, if your goal is to read more academic papers, start by reading just one abstract.
• Anchor your new habits: Attach your new tiny habit to an existing routine.
• Celebrate small wins: Positive emotions reinforce habits. Each time you complete your tiny habit, celebrate in a small way. This could be a mental "Good job!" or a physical gesture like a fist pump.
• Gradually increase the challenge: Only once you're able to execute on your baby-step goal consistently, you can slightly increase its complexity or duration. If you started with reading an abstract of a journal article, increase it to an abstract and the first paragraph of the introduction, and so on.
• Be flexible and adjust: If you find that your resolution isn't working, be willing to adjust it. This could mean changing the habit slightly, or picking a different routine task to attach your baby step to.
