It’s another 365 days or more like 363 days to change the course of our lives or at least make an attempt. With all the wishes we have for ourselves, it’s usually wise to follow specific rules to achieve your goals.
Here are 5 tips to write your goals or in this context, academic goals for the year;
Keep it Short;
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t dream big, instead, it means don’t overwhelm yourself. You can have as little as 4 goals for the year and that’s enough. What’s important is focusing on those goals and making them your priority for the year. You can also set them up in sections, one goal for each area of your life, finance, career, relationships, education etc. An example will be; “Start a fully funded masters program abroad by September 2022”.
Be realistic;
Dream big but be realistic. You can’t write that you would like to buy a house by the end of the year when you haven’t even started paying rent or can afford to rent a studio apartment (self contain). Be realistic, be true to your current phase in life and build on that. Something along the lines of ” Save up 2 million naira within the next 9 months”, will make more sense and can be achievable. Make sure this sort of goal is possible based on your current financial standing.
Put a Time/deadline to it;
At this point, you may have noticed something in the examples. If not, go back and try to spot it. Ok, I will tell you. For your goals to be achievable, they need to have a timeline or a deadline. This makes you put priority and it helps you plan better on the exact things to do to meet that deadline. If you plan to do a professional course to boost your chances of an offer of admission, then you should set a deadline, say by April 2022, I should have finished xxx professional course. Once, this is achieved, you can apply for your desired program and get an offer of admission just in time to resume in September (depending on the country, University and program).
Make plans to lead to the goals;
Now you have your goals, how do you intend to achieve them. You want a fully-funded scholarship by September 2022, great but how do you intend to get it? What steps will you take? Do you need to get a passport or renew yours? What about recommendation letters from School and your workplace? When do you intend to get them? Have you started drafting the required essay or Statement of purpose? Are you going to send it to professionals to critique and review? Do you plan to contact Purplebook.ng for assistance?
Keep it where you can see it daily;
Well, there you have it. You just need to place it where you can see it daily, by your bed, on your wardrobe door, on your fridge door, on the wall around your apartment. You need to see it every day to be reminded of the work you have to get done to achieve those goals.
I believe that by the end of the year, you will be able to look back at those goals all ticked and be proud of yourself.
Now that you have this, I hope you would make this year count.
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