I work with college students to help them reach their academic goals. Pretty straight forward, right? Reaching goals can be tricky. Particularly during midterms when all your professors decide to give exams all in the same week plus throw in a paper or two. Studying 6-7 hours daily becomes overwhelming. The stress levels increase. Sleepless is your middle name. You want to throw all this go-to-school-and-get-a-degree-so-you-can-get-a-job stuff out the window and find a beach somewhere.

How do you keep keeping on when the pressure is on?

 

Where do you find the grit to keep studying and writing and reading and hit your GPA requirements? To answer that question, first you must answer this question. What is your goal? Goals are often influenced by outside sources such as parents, the university or the department standards. Just the same, effective goals are more than someone else’s expectations.   Both the people in our lives and the times we live in influence our goals. For all that, when the pressure of the semester increases and you are faced with the choice to go out with friends or study, your parents’ expectations and your departmental requirements easily fall to the wayside.

What makes a college student persevere? Goals.

Goals are a target giving you a direction to point your efforts. A goal is a picture of where you want to go and what it will look like when you get there. A goal is a destination. A specific measurable goal will let you know you have arrived. Your task is completed. In order for goals to mean anything they must be authentic. An authentic goal is one that you own. It is yours. You want it.

It takes some introspection to know what you want and develop your own goals. Here are two pre-requisites: know yourself and value yourself. Easier said than done. To help us understand how to know and value yourself, I have come up with some if…then sentences. Kind of like, “You know you’re from Texas if…”

You know you value yourself if you…

…Accept yourself.

…Admire the strengths that come from your uniqueness.

…Recognize and respect rights and responsibilities.

…Take care of yourself.

…Develop and nurture positive relationships.

You know you know yourself if you…

…Dream.

…Know your strengths, weaknesses, needs & preferences.

…Know your options, supports and expectations.

…Decide what is important to you.

 

Each one of the above statements could be a topic for a blogpost. But I will stop here for now. Keep your eye out for the next steps towards setting your authentic goals.

Taken from self-determination model  Field & Hoffman (1994).