If you’re anything like me, you decide to reinvent yourself every year over Spring Break. The weather has gotten warmer, my New Years resolution is long-forgotten, and the looming prospect of final exams and summer internships has me yearning for a change.
Of course, a dramatic change in my lifestyle that elevates me to an uber-healthy, super-productive, social, academic, and entrepreneurial whiz kid isn’t going to happen overnight – I need concrete, measurable goals to help me make the changes that I want to. To do this, I divided my life into 6 areas and created a goal for each one:
- Social
- Academic
- Career
- Physical Health
- Confidence
- Spirituality
Here are my goals for each of the areas. If you’re also working on personal growth, feel free to try out my method on your own by identifying the areas of your life you want to improve and creating a goal for each one.
- Social
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Have at least three distinct, planned social events with friends each week. (Bonus points if they’re new friends!) Keeping busy will help me to develop the friendships I already have and incentivize me to go out and meet more new people.
- Academic
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Use a defined study plan to make your studying more efficient. I’m going to track my studying with the Focus Keeper app, which has a timer for uninterrupted study and mixes in short breaks to help keep you focused. Knowing that I have a break coming up soon keeps me from drifting away from the task at hand, and it’s shortened the overall time that I need to work on my assignments.
- Career
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Find an internship for this summer! I’ve been working on applications pretty consistently, so this ongoing goal has been in progress for a while. Once I get a main internship sorted out, I might look for some smaller short-term projects (called micro-internships) to work on through the remainder of the spring semester. I’ll use Parker Dewey to look out for micro-internship opportunities that could be interesting to me.
- Physical Health
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In addition to overall making healthy choices about diet, sleep and exercise, I’m setting a goal to do some sort of physical activity at least six days a week. I’m being intentionally flexible about what this goal actually means because I want to try out a bunch of different things to figure out what I enjoy the most. Right now, I’ve been having a lot of fun with walking, running, bodyweight exercises and yoga. There’s a ton of great fitness content available online – my favorite so far is Yoga With Adriene. Her YouTube channel has a wide range of yoga videos for all skill levels and interests, and is a great way to give yoga a try for the first time.
- Confidence
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Developing my self-esteem and confidence is an ongoing journey, but I decided that I can make a short-term goal for this spring to help me develop it further. Every time I leave the house, I have a goal to compliment at least one stranger. It doesn’t have to be a big deal – even just a “cool shirt!” will do – but talking to new people and uplifting others is a great way to become more relaxed in social situations that are more high-stakes, like networking events or interviews.
- Sprituality
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My faith is important to me, so I have a goal of attending some sort of church event at least once every week and taking time to reflect and pray every day. This goal also helps me remember to rest and focus on my values.
I hope this framework helps you with your own personal growth journey, and I wish you the best of luck if you choose to give it a try!