At the beginning of every year, there’s an expectation to arrive prepared, not just with notebooks and a working laptop, but with a fully formed vision of who you’re about to be. Somewhere between syllabus week and the first real assignment, it starts to feel like you’re supposed to know exactly how this quarter will go.
For most of my academic career, I’ve tried to meet that expectation. I made goals that sounded responsible and ambitious. I always told myself I would be more disciplined, more productive, more balanced. I believed that if I could just plan carefully enough at the start, I could control the outcome.
This quarter, I haven’t made a single goal.
That choice wasn’t impulsive. It came from realizing that most of the goals I set in the past weren’t actually about growth—they were about reassurance. They were a way to calm the anxiety that comes with uncertainty. If I could name what success looked like early on, I felt safer. But as the semester unfolded and reality inevitably interfered, those goals stopped motivating me and started judging me.
The college curriculum doesn’t stay consistent long enough for rigid plans to work. Classes get harder, priorities shift, and personal lives don’t pause just because it’s Week 8. When goals are built on the assumption that nothing will change, they become fragile. The moment you need to adjust, it feels like failure instead of adaptation.
So instead of deciding who I’m going to be this semester, I’m paying attention to who I actually am while it’s happening.
The first intentional shift I made was leaving success undefined. I didn’t decide in advance what would make this a “good” semester or a “bad” one. I’ve stopped attaching my self-worth to specific outcomes—test scores, routines, productivity streaks—and allowed those things to be information instead of verdicts. Success, for me, is becoming something I can recognize in hindsight rather than enforce in advance.
From there, I moved my focus away from results and toward patterns. Rather than asking whether I was doing enough, I started noticing how my days were unfolding. Which classes require the most emotional energy? When do I feel genuinely engaged, and when am I operating on autopilot? What environments help me focus, and which ones drain me faster than I expect?
I’m not tracking this in a formal system. There’s no excel spreadsheet for that. It’s quieter than that, mental notes, small realizations, moments of honesty. But those observations matter. They shape how I structure my weeks and where I choose to put my finite energy.
When something stops working, I’m going to change it. This will probably be one of the hardest adjustments for me, because I have always treated consistency as proof of discipline. If a routine wasn’t working, I assumed the problem was me. Now, if a schedule feels unsustainable, it’s allowed to evolve. If a commitment starts costing more than it gives, I will reassess instead of forcing myself through it.
Adjustment doesn’t mean I’m giving up. It means I’m responding to reality instead of punishing myself for not matching a plan made under different circumstances.
This mindset has also reshaped how I define productivity. I no longer expect every week to demand the same level of output. Some weeks require intensity, long hours, deep focus, and pushing through discomfort. Other weeks require preservation: doing what’s necessary, protecting rest, and trusting that slowing down now will make it possible to keep going later.
Letting productivity fluctuate without guilt has made me more sustainable. I’m not constantly recovering from burnout because I’m no longer trying to perform at the same level all the time.
At the end of each week, I won’t evaluate myself against a checklist. I plan to reflect. Ask what drained me, what felt meaningful, and what I want to adjust moving forward. These questions don’t come with judgment. They’re not about becoming a better version of myself overnight—they’re about understanding what this version of me needs right now.
Not setting goals doesn’t mean I’m directionless. I still care deeply about my education, my grades, my future, and the person I’m becoming. I still show up, meet deadlines, and take responsibility for my choices. The difference is that I’m no longer trying to control the semester before it unfolds.
In a culture that celebrates optimization, productivity, and constant self-improvement, choosing awareness over ambition can feel uncomfortable. There’s no neat before-and-after, no dramatic transformation to point to. But there is something steadier: a quarter that moves with you instead of against you.
This year, I’m not trying to perfect myself. I’m trying to understand myself. And that feels like a stronger foundation than any goal list I’ve ever written.