How to Set Effective Goals in College?

College Goals

In this world of ever-increasing competition, where people start planning on how to excel in their jobs, even before they get it; start to plan about their postgrads even before they get into a UG college, and kids start preparing for getting into colleges even before they appear for their boards; it cannot be too early to start working upon one’s dreams. While some college-going students think it’s too early to start thinking about the future and it’s better to enjoy college life, others start preparing for their future as soon as they get into college. Though both these approaches are extreme, what is required is a balanced approach to set one’s personal goals, professional goals, and academic goals. College life is indeed the best time to set and work upon both one’s personal as well as academic goals. College students are full of energy, full of youth, ample self-motivation, and of course, plenty of time.

College goals and a student’s success in achieving them can be different for different college students, depending on a lot of factors. Though, what can shoot up the success rate in fulfilling the goals is that we set our goals according to ourselves and not in unison with our friends or under peer pressure or family pressure.

Here, we enlist some key points on how college students can set their college goals regarding personal goals and academic goals and how to motivate yourself to fulfill them successfully and in time.

 

1. Decide what you want:

Foremost and most important of all is to decide on your aim. Be it something you want to achieve academically, in your career, or for your own personality. You need to decide what you’re aiming for. There might be multiple things or just one. After you’ve made a list, categorize it into personal goals, academic goals, and professional goals. For instance, getting a GPA of 8 this semester would go into an academic goal, becoming a technical officer would be a professional goal, and working upon your public speaking skills would qualify as a personal goal. Now, some of them may be long-term goals that you would attain gradually and some of them would be fixed time goals that need immediate action. What you need to understand is, all of them need to be worked upon. Even your long-term goals need hard work and your attention starting now onwards. Also, since nobody can have it all, you also need to decide on what is more important.

 

2. Prioritize what is more important:

There will be times when you face crossroads as to which aim is more important to achieve, based on its importance in your life, the time frame in which it has to be achieved, and what good it brings to you in a long term. For instance, if you are a GATE aspirant and you have to decide between a paid internship and GATE Coaching. The internship might fetch your experience and may also help you get a good campus placement but is that what you want in a long run or do you picture yourself in a PSU or in a post-graduation college? Of course, there is no point in compromising on any of your goals for another, unless you are sure and determined about it. What becomes crucial here is you do not decide on your career, especially, in haste. Give yourself time, analyze all the options, do all the research, think what best is for you and what really interests you. Once you have set your aim firmly and are determined to achieve it, with a little discipline, you are already halfway there.

 

3. Discipline will do the trick:

Once you’ve decided and prioritized what you are aiming for, a little discipline in your daily schedule will take you the rest of halfway. A disciplined life does not necessarily include getting up at 5 am or going to bed latest by 10 pm or being active 22 hours a day. In fact, it needs to be nothing hypothetical or extraordinary. Set smart goals in your schedule which are realistic and achievable. If you have never even jogged, you will not start doing yoga for an hour suddenly, one fine day. Do not put such expectations in your schedule, only to be disappointed later. What we are looking for here, is consistency. Try to do the same thing daily at the same time, the same way. This way, your brain always knows what’s coming next. Once your brain is trained in this manner, it always works the most efficiently. No matter, whatever you do, how you do it, or how little you do it, be consistent and keep improving gradually. You will automatically get closer to your goals.

 

4. Aim for the stars, but give it time:

Even despite consistent efforts, 100% of your determination, and your inputs, sometimes failure may follow. Failure is bad. Yes, it is, not because it does not let you achieve success but, because it stops you from trying again and that is when you actually fail. Failure can as well be an opportunity to start afresh and attain success; there are so many legends who proved this: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, Michael Jordan, and the list is endless. What you only need to do is try the same thing with a different methodology and try a little harder this time. What you need to avoid is getting demotivated or doubting the goals you have set for yourself. Don’t change your goals, don’t think they are unachievable or that you need to redefine them.

 

5. Stay motivated:

There are uncountable number of distractions, disturbances, and hurdles in our way that leads us towards our dreams. You see other college students enjoying their college life, some of them already getting very close to what they had aimed for. There can be many reasons for that, maybe they did not set a very big goal for themselves, maybe they are working harder than you or maybe they did not set any goal yet. What you need to remember is, we are all fighting our own battles and no two of them are the same or comparable.

You set your own smart goals and work towards them at your own pace. Maintain good self-motivation and balance your college life fun while working for the bigger good of your life. Don’t be influenced by external factors and compromise on your own dreams.

 

6. Be an influencer, not a follower:

You see one of your college seniors placed in a good MNC because of the summer internship she attended, instantly you are tempted into joining the same. Your parents tell you how one of your cousins cleared GRE and settled abroad, living a lavish life, you think of going after the same. All your college friends are attending a CAT coaching and discuss the same all the time, you feel left out and are now thinking of taking the same classes with them. Before you do any of this, just remember that from now on, it would be their dream that you would be chasing and not yours. Even if you succeed in chasing it somehow, there is the bleak possibility that you would be happy with your career. At any given time, 100 people around you would be doing 100 different things that might be easier than what you are doing; more lucrative than what you have opted for; but the bottom line being is it what you want to do. You might not have self-motivation to do it, how to motivate yourself then. What you can do in such a situation is be a leader and find like-minded people to join.

 

7. Being a leader by action:

Take initiative and form small support groups with like-minded and same goal-oriented people. It enhances your learning by discussion and doubts clarification. You may form small WhatsApp groups or join existing Telegram channels for the goal that you are looking for. You can also find a mentor, who may be a faculty, a senior, or any other friend who had a similar goal and can guide you through it. This action will benefit you as well as all the other people in your company. There are a lot of portals that offer free interactive platforms for college students to interact among themselves, get updates about their field, and much more. What one needs to have is the ability to learn new things and unlearn the wrong.

 

8. Be creative: learn to unlearn:

Any and all of your college goals are ultimately oriented for you to become a better and more learned person than you were yesterday, be it academic goals, personal goals, or professional goals. The easiest way to do this is to be open-minded about new ideas. Finding new and innovative ways to do the same thing more efficiently, to learn new things, and also, more importantly, to unlearn the wrong. You cannot improve or learn or get better at something unless you unlearn the previous way of doing it. Don’t cling on to any information, any methodology but only the goal that you have set. There is never one unique way to reach a goal, and of course, never one perfect way. You might find a number of strategies by successful people on how they led their lives and attained their goals. What you need to understand is, because it worked for them, does not necessarily mean it is the only and perfect strategy to do the same thing. There might be a number of others, who failed with the same strategy.

Don’t waste a lot of your time in research for the correct strategy, the correct study material, the correct schedule and so. Different people are going to have different opinions. Do what you feel is right but do it with complete commitment. You will surely gain good results. Watch all the motivational videos, listen to all success stories but do not completely follow any of them, make your own strategy, follow your own path and fight your own battle.

A student’s success is not defined by how many marks she scored, how good a placement she could secure, or how well she could clear a competitive exam. These are parameters for the rest of the world to judge you. Real student success can only be judged by how close one could get to the goal one set for themselves.

Be motivated! Keep working hard and your dreams will follow!

 

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