In the rush of college life, with so many looming deadlines for homework and exams, it’s easy to lose track of long-term life goals. It’s just so simple to put self-improvement on the back burner and focus on things with concrete deadlines. School will eventually end, but there will always be things to strive for in life. If you can start working on the things that are important to you now, even just a little bit, it will be much easier to live up to them post-graduation than if you had to start with a blank slate. Here are 5 beneficial and lifelong things that I want to work on improving:
1. Time Management
I’ve got school time management down, but I’ll have different challenges once I graduate. College deadlines are concrete so it’s easy to write them down in my planner and plan out my time, but work and adult life generally won’t be that simple. As I’ll discuss below, there are a lot of things I want to make time for that sometimes just seem impossible to manage. Another consideration is things I want to do that don’t have hard deadlines, like beginning to invest or learning to speak German. For me, it’s harder to invest a lot of time into something when it doesn’t have to be done, but is just something I want.
2. Maintaining Friendships
It feels like all of my friends are so busy with their own school and work that we never have time to meet up and get coffee, and that’s just going to get harder once we’re all working full-time. It takes effort to reach out to friends regularly and work time in for maintaining those relationships into my schedule, but it’s worth it. I often get overwhelmed and forget to text or make time for a hangout, but I’m trying to work towards a better balance. I never want my friends to feel like I don’t care or that I’m too busy for them, and spending time with them always makes me happy.
3. Balancing Family Relationships
As I’m transitioning into adult life, I’m finding family relationships to be a lot more complex than before. I have two younger siblings and I want to be an active part of their lives, but I rarely get home to see them. Additional complications come from the fact that I’m in a serious relationship, so now there are two sets of families to balance. Whose house do we spend Easter at? How do we keep close when we live an hour apart? When do we celebrate holidays so that the most people will be able to come? It’s tricky, and I haven’t figured out how to manage it all yet.
4. Being Proactive
I definitely fall victim to procrastination from time to time, and it always sucks. I hate the feeling of running out of socks to wear or clean dishes to use, but when things get busy regular chores like that are the first to be pushed aside. Last week I wrote about how not to procrastinate because that’s something I’ve been focusing on lately. I want to settle into good habits now so I’m not struggling with this for the rest of my life.
5. Making Time for Myself
With all that being said, I also make sure that I am focusing on my wellbeing. Taking care of yourself is just as important as taking care of others! I try to remember that if I’m run-down and exhausted, I can’t take care of my loved ones and spend the energy needed to maintain those connections. I’m still working on not putting off visits to the doctor, but I’m honest with myself when I need a break.
My goals seem deceptively simple, but they’re all really important to me. I think every one of them is vital for me to have a happy and fulfilled life, and that’s why I’m thinking about them now instead of when I’m 30. What are your lifelong goals?