It’s been about four weeks since I picked three goals to pursue throughout my first semester here at college. Each week I have been steadily progressing towards accomplishing these goals in order to make my college experience more enjoyable. I feel like I am getting closer to fully accomplishing two of goals, while I feel like the other will take much more time.
When it comes to my first goal of studying for classes, I believe that I am still making progress. This particular goal is one of the goals that I feel like I am coming close to accomplishing, because I have already made so much progress and due to the fact that I am beginning to have trouble thinking of different ways in which to study for classes. I now already make flashcards, take notes as I read, and flag passages. I haven’t particularly added to this list of studying methods, but instead I tweaked the way in which I go about studying. I used to study only when my professors suggested doing so, or when there was a test or quiz the next day. I have now begun to regularly study my material, rather than waiting for someone, or something, else to provoke me. I think this is a big step towards accomplishing my goal, because it has made me want to study, rather than studying only because I have to.
I am proud to report that this week I have made progress towards accomplishing my second goal of being more open to others as well as comfortable with myself. I’m usually not a person to get caught up in small steps of progress, but I think that this is an exception because I didn’t make any progress towards this goal last week; which didn’t sit well with my competitive spirit and perfectionism. This week I made an extra effort to do things as simple as greeting almost every person that I walked by and just talking to people that I normally wouldn’t talk to. As with past weeks, I have also made progress with my roommate. I drove home on the long weekend and I dropped my roommate off in Syracuse at his sister’s house on Friday night. I also picked him up on my way back to school on Monday afternoon, which means that we were in my truck together for about eight hours. The best way to pass the time was to talk, so we did just that. We definitely learned a lot about each other, which personally made me more comfortable with my roommate, and with myself.
The drive home and the drive back to school also provided an opportunity to make progress towards accomplishing my third goal; which is to clear my mind of negativity and to focus on the positive. When I was on the road alone, it really provided a great time to focus my thoughts because I didn’t have my iPod, so I drove several hours without music. While I was driving I found that I could more easily sort out my thoughts, because there was nobody else around (except for people in other cars). I drove out the homesick feelings that I felt after leaving home and, at the same time, embraced the happy thoughts of coming back to the Adirondacks. I think it can sometimes be hard to clear the mind at college because there is always somebody else near, which showed why driving alone was actually quite effective. I don’t think anything is as effective for clearing the mind as yoga is, but I now definitely think that long drives alone are definitely high up in the rankings.
This week of progress has proven to be perhaps the most difficult because I’m starting to have trouble thinking of new ways to progress towards accomplishing my goals. This is just another obstacle in my way, and like other obstacles, I will get past it. A legendary quote from Michael Jordan comes to mind. He says, “Some people want it to happen. Some people wish it would happen. Others make it happen.” In my case, I have to be like Michael Jordan and make things happen, rather than waiting for them to happen. This attitude will help me accomplish not only my goals in college, but any other goals in my life.
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