This is a note I received in December. It warmed my heart to see my student reach her goal. Graduation is the goal of every college student. But how do you get from freshman orientation to your mortar board and tassel? I’ll tell you.  Set goals.

Goal setting and January just seem to go together.  However, people I have asked since the New Year  have been very reluctant to talk about goals. It seems that goals is a dirty word. Goals make them feel like a failure. But January is the perfect time to set goals.

I personally love January. The month is named after the Roman god Janus. Associated with beginnings or transitions, Janus was depicted with two faces. One facing forward and one facing back.  It is the end and the beginning. January is a start over. The reset button.

January is a time to look at what worked and what didn’t. Clean out things that clutter our life. Clear out what weighs us down from reaching our goals. I never let go of the belief that tomorrow will be better than yesterday. And today will get me there.

Here are my five highlights to successful goal setting.

1. Ask yourself the tough question. What do I really want? Most of my students cannot answer this question. That’s OK. You might not know yet. Or what you thought you really wanted changed. That’s OK, too. We grow and learn all our lives. Our wants and desires will evolve. To help you figure out what you really want, ask yourself this. When and where do you feel most alive?
2. Imagine yourself five years from now. What do you see? Where are you? Who is at your side? What do you do for a living? How do you pay your bills? The mental image of yourself in five years may or may not come to pass. That’s OK. The image of your future self will also grow and evolve as you continue living.
3. Get real. If you want to be that future self in five years then what must you do now? You might not know. That’s also OK. You are a college student. The college campus is full of resources to help you map out your path toward your future self.
4. Once you’ve mapped out a tentative map toward your future self with all the help of the sources on campus, then what? Don’t quit. Keep going. How do you stay the course? This is where you decide the details. Your schedule, your work habits, your study habits. Who you hang around with. Where you spend your weekends. How you spend your money.
5. Revisit the goal periodically. This is where January comes into play. January is a perfect to remind yourself of your big goal and make adjustments to the little things. Evaluate what is helping you stay on course and what is making you fall off the road.

These motivational tips to goal-setting is my synthesis of 20+ years of teaching K-12 in the public and private school arena; 5 years of private practice as an academic coach helping college students reach their academic goals; and 30 years of being a mom.