January offers a natural moment to take stock of where you are and decide what you want from the months ahead. Your vision for success can be considered both as your purpose for study and as a set of desired outcomes or goals. To achieve these, you need a strategy – a way of achieving them. You need a plan.
Your desired outcomes, or goals, should inform the way you approach your study. Different goals call for different strategies, as in the examples below.
Goal/outcome A: understand the subject
For this, your strategy might be to read broadly and pursue topics of interest rather than sticking to the syllabus.
Goal/outcome B: achieve good grades
If your priority is good grades or a good degree, it is important to understand what is expected, especially for assignments, and to develop a strategy focused on that.
Goal/outcome C: just to get through
Your situation might mean that your goal is simply to gain a qualification. Your strategy could be to focus on covering essentials, making sure you identify these correctly and can meet basic requirements.
Make your goals motivating
Goals are most motivating when stated in the present tense and as a positive objective:
I am meeting my deadlines consistently!
I am able to achieve a 2.1!
Negative goals are less effective in providing motivation. Having a negative outcome is like going shopping with a list of what you are not going to buy.
With your goals stated positively, the next step is to examine how well they hold up and what might strengthen or weaken them.
