Successful students have goals

Follow these guidelines:

• Goals should be realistic. It’s good to dream and to challenge yourself, but your goals should relate to your personal strengths and abilities.
• Goals should be specific. Don’t write, “I will become a great musician;” instead, write, “I will finish my mu...

• One student gets up with the alarm clock and cheerfully prepares for the day, planning to study for a couple of hours between classes, go jogging later, and see a friend at dinner.
• Another student oversleeps after partying too late last night, decides to skip his first class, somehow...

• Short-term goals focus on today and the next few days and perhaps weeks.
• Midterm goals involve plans for this school year and the time you plan to remain in college.
• Long-term goals may begin with graduating college and everything you want to happen thereafter.

Thinking about your goals gets you started, but it’s also important to think about priorities. Try this experiment: go back to the goals you wrote and see if you can rank each goal as a:

• Top priority
• Middle priority
• Lowest priority

Priorities always involve ...

A goal is a result we intend to reach mostly through our own actions. Things we do may move us closer to or farther away from that result. Studying moves us closer to success in a difficult course, while sleeping through the final examination may completely prevent reaching that ...

Planning ahead is the single best way to stay focused and motivated to reach your goals. 

• Don’t wait until the night before an exam. If you know you have a major exam in five days, start by reviewing the material and deciding how many hours of study you need. 
• ...

• If you’re not feeling motivated, think about the results of your goals, not just the goals themselves. 
• Remember your successes, even small successes. Remember how good it feels to succeed.
• Get the important things done first. 
• Stay focused, motivated and concentrate ...

• Frequent complaining
• Blaming others for anything that goes wrong
• Often experiencing negative emotions: anger, frustration, resentment
• Lack of motivation for work or studies
• Hesitant to change or seek improvement
• Unproductive use of time, procrastinatio...

• Enthusiasm for and enjoyment of daily activities
• Acceptance of responsibility for one’s actions and feeling good about success
• Motivation to get the job done
• Flexibility to make changes when needed
• Ability to make productive, effective use of time

• Having long-term goals (college diploma) leads to setting midterm goals (by semester) which can be broken down into short-term goals (completing an assignment).
• Writing out your goals helps you think more clearly about what you want to achieve.
• Having enthusiasm for daily lif...