At the time of writing this article, I’m a week away from my twenty-first birthday. The thought of it makes me feel so excited (yay, I can finally go to Emo Nite!), but more often, it’s making me feel a little nervous. Every birthday here in college has me feeling like I’m not as high-achieving as everyone else seems to be by twenty-one.
I feel behind looking at all my favorite influencers who make a living off of being so productive. They have their vision boards, their journals, their perfect systems in place to live perfect lives. Even their off days are productive. And, obviously, they set goals. I used to want to do everything in my power to be exactly like these goal setting gurus, trying out time blocking, all sorts of morning routines, and writing out every last thing I hoped to accomplish by the end of the year. And even though most of these people say that it’s perfectly fine to re-organize your goals as you move through the year, I can’t help but feel disappointed in myself when I look at my list of goals I haven’t completed, no matter how small.
Our culture is swarming with the desire to be productive. Every social media is hounded by “productivity influencer” content that promises the almost impossible task of doing all the millions of things you need and want to do in the most efficient way possible. But after spending years beating myself up for not being at the level of the people in these circles, I’ve grown disillusioned with what it means to be “productive”. I would love to have my Google Calendar filled to the teeth with time blocks where I can only focus on my hobbies, schoolwork or social obligations for a given amount of time. But the reality is, I don’t think that having any level of goal-setting, time-efficient system is a reality in college — at least, not for me.
It’s not that people can’t set goals for themselves while juggling classes. It’s that for me, the only goal that feels necessary right now is the general “stay on top of schoolwork”. I would love to have Instagrammable skincare, exercise, morning and nighttime routines. But university means that some nights, skincare is a cotton ball with micellar water and exercise is walking down to the store for a gallon of ice cream to cry into. And honestly, the amount of privilege that people who can have such extensive routines is truly shocking.
While it’s not a million goals that are going to make me the glowed-up baddie that would look great on my Insta, broad concepts keep the pressure of feeling like I’m falling behind (mostly) off of my shoulders. It’s okay to feel comfortable having broad ideas of what you want that aren’t so micro-managing. If all goes well, I’m hoping my 21st year will be the one where structuring my life around being #goals is the last thing on my mind.