Best Tips on Achieving Your Academic Goals

Goal setting is an important part of succeeding in college. By setting goals, you accomplish the following:

• You set a ‘road map’ for where you want to go.
• You are able to select the most appropriate method(s) for reaching your goal.
• You are able to more easily gauge your progress toward your goal.
• You are able to make adjustments to your goal and methods as needed.
• You know when you have reached your goal and can appreciate your accomplishment.

Students can prioritize their academic goals based on both importance levels as well as timeliness of the projected end-dates. Some goals will be immediate tasks that must be accomplished within the next month. Other goals will be short-range of six months to a year, while others are long term and taking more than a year to accomplish.

For effective goal setting and achievement, you must observe the following:

• Set goals based on something that is very important to you!
• State goals positively. “I will study every night for two hours before doing other tasks” is more positive than “I won’t do other tasks in the evening before studying.”
• Be as specific as possible. A goal should tell you what you will achieve, describe the conditions, and provide a time frame.
• Set your goals high enough to be challenging but reasonable enough to achieve.
• State your goals in writing and keep them out where you can see to remind and motivate you. Telling others about your goals can also help.

Focus on personal performance verses strictly outcomes. Outcomes can ultimately be affected by circumstances that are beyond your control, but performance is all up to you. For example, a fitness goal to go to the gym five times per week is more productive than a goal to lose five pounds per week. You can control your performance but not necessarily how quickly your body will react.

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