Coming back from spring break antics to a half a semester’s worth of work ahead of you can be daunting, but keeping yourself motivated in all aspects of your life will provide you with the determination needed to finish the semester strong. While school should be the focus of your attention, it is important to not neglect the aspects of your life that keep you happy and functional. Having perspective over your accomplishments throughout the semester and maintaining healthy habits outside of the classroom will lead to academic success and alleviate the stress you feel during the last leg of the semester.
1. Read for pleasure, not just for school.
While you should complete school work first, reading for pleasure outside of school is still an important and pleasurable pastime. Keeping yourself intellectually simulated with material unrelated to the courses you’re taking not only satisfies your creative urges, but it also can help draw parallels in the areas of your life you thought were irrelevant. Additionally, it helps make connections between your academic and leisurely activities.
2. Remember to check up on yourself.
Keeping up with the workload of school often leads to students forgoing other aspects of their daily lives in order to complete their homework. This means sleep, eating, socializing and hygiene often fall to the wayside, especially in the final weeks of the semester. Maintaining a sleep schedule that complements your hectic class/study sessions and insures you’re getting enough shuteye is detrimental to being able to finish the semester strong.
3. Make smaller goals.
For many students, this could very well be their last semester, and the dreams they worked hard for during their time here are beginning to become a reality. Focusing on graduation or summer puts all the perspective on finishing, and not enjoying the time you have left before leaving; either for break or for good. Creating smaller, closer goals puts graduating or leaving for the summer in perspective, and also will cause the time to seemingly fly by.
4. Celebrate small accomplishments.
It’s easy to be hard on yourself when you feel like the semester is counting down, but your stress levels are through the roof, so congratulating yourself for accomplishing small feats will boost your morale and help put the mistakes you made over the course of the semester into perspective. Feeling like you’re accomplishing your goals, even if they aren’t necessarily school-oriented, will help motivate you to want to excel in the academic areas of your life as well.
While school should be the number one priority in your life, especially since you will be paying for it for the foreseeable future, academic means nothing if your mental health and daily routine become afterthoughts. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is critical to being able to keep up with the workload of school. And, the happier you are, the more your schoolwork will benefit from your hard work and dedication.
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