One goal I am guilty of making every year I have been 
Like a new year (hello 2016!!), a new semester never fails to get me in the mood to reflect on my goals. Goals forgotten, goals achieved, #goals that I aspire to move from the murky depths of my Pinterest board to real life and goals that are relevant to what I hope the new semester might hold for me.
At the beginning of last semester, I spent one particularly quiet night shift at work outlining the academic hopes and dreams that I would ‘surely’ have no trouble fulfilling — the steps that would have me on the road to university success in no time. However, upon revisiting said list, I can now safely say that my list was pretty unauthentic and maybe even impractical. My goal for this semester? Setting realistic goals.
Like me, you probably want it all. I want 8 hours of sleep, a 4.0 GPA, an exciting social life, impressive extracurriculars, updated podcasts to listen to while I commute, a weekly volunteer placement, a fitness regimen that just doesn’t quit, a job that I love and on top of all that — enough time do all my readings WITH notes, eat three meals a day (healthy snacking included) and watch a show on Netflix before bed.
Sadly, I recognize that as much as I might desire to be Superwoman, I am not her. I need goals that are conducive to my lifestyle: a very very busy university student.
To combat my yearly overzealous goal making extravaganza, I decided to make a list of short-term and long-term goals for myself. I found that organizing my goal making this way allowed me to be realistic about what I might be able to achieve in a semester. I tried to keep in mind that a semester is only four months long and that with all of my mandatory responsibilities, it’s a little crazy to expect myself to make multiple drastic changes to my lifestyle.
One goal I am guilty of making every year I have been alive in school is to do all my homework no matter what. It’s not unlikely that 16 years ago, I prepared myself for junior kindergarten, notebook in hand with a full page dedicated to how I was adamant about finishing all homework and daily readings if it was the last thing I did. My attitude about the importance of homework has not changed much since, and to this day I still feel a pang of anxiety when I know I don’t have the time or energy to do it all.
This year I have done away with my all-consuming homework finishing obsession and instead adopted a much kinder homework philosophy: start a week earlier.
Starting my homework, projects and papers a week earlier than I “need to” not only gives me the time to meet with the appropriate people (shoutouts to the Writing Centre) but it will hopefully relieve some of that nail-biting, hand-wringing, tear-inducing stress that comes from having less than enough time to finish an assignment properly.
To inspire you to be kind to yourself while #goal making this semester, I have lovingly drawn you a stick-figure rendition of the video that has delighted many a millennial in its time floating about the internet...
One goal I am guilty of making every year I have been
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