Nerdify Reviews 5 Steps to Achieve Your Long-Term Academic Goals
Did you know that 84% of people do not set goals for themselves? Goal setting can have a significant impact on achievement and success in life.
As a college student, you are likely just starting on your career path journey, and you need to know that writing down what you want to accomplish will help you as you continue down that road.
Keep reading to find out 5 tips the Nerdify reviews experts found on how to meet your long-term goals and a few examples of goals you can use right now.
Nerdify Reviews 5 Ways to Meet Your Long-Term Academic Goals
1. Make Your Goal SMART
Your first question might be, “What is a SMART goal?” This article from Hubspot breaks down the meaning of the acronym.
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Time Bound
In short, a goal following this framework should allow you to write a goal that will have a greater impact. Creating a SMART goal will also force you to write your goal down. This study by Gail Matthews found that “Those who wrote their goals accomplished significantly more than those who did not write their goals.”
2. Break Your Goal into Smaller, Short-Term Goals
A long-term goal will take months or even years to accomplish. This type of goal starts you in a direction and drives your decision-making.
But what if you are overwhelmed after setting your long-term goal and have no idea where to start? This is where you would take that long-term goal and break it down into manageable short-term goals.
Think of the short-term goals as stepping stones to your overall goal, say students on Reddit. These “bite-sized” chunks will allow you to experience success on the way to the endpoint. Creating short-term goals will also make it easier to track your progress.
3. How Will You Track Your Progress?
Tracking your progress toward the goal is an important factor to consider. Gail Matthews’s study also found that “those who sent weekly progress reports to their friend accomplished significantly more than those who had unwritten goals, wrote their goals, formulated action commitments or sent those action commitments to a friend.”
Nerdify reviews team recommends you create a journal or a form to keep track of your progress on the stepping stones. Or perhaps you use an app to set your goal and check when you hit each smaller part. There are many possibilities. You can find some ideas in Reddit threads or reviews. Choose the one that is the easiest for you to integrate into your everyday life.
4. What Could Get in the Way
This article on LinkedIn shares some of the common reasons that keep people from reaching their goals. When setting yours, be realistic about what could get in your way. This honesty will help you tackle any issues that arise when things get tough.
Some of the challenges are time management and fear of failure. Being honest will allow you to work through these challenges more effectively.
5. Why is this Important to You?
Make sure your goal is important to you. If you set a long-term goal with personal meaning, chances are you will do your best to meet it.
To set a goal that matters, you have to know why you want to do what you want to do. This upfront self-reflection will make you consider whether the goal is worth spending your time on.
Nerdify Reviews 3 Examples of Academic Goals for College Students
1. Graduate with a Certain GPA
This type of goal is a perfect one to set. It keeps you focused in all of your classes and is quite simple to track. It is also flexible in that you choose the GPA that is important to you.
Breaking it down into semester-long steps allows you to focus on short objectives that relate directly to the overall goal.
2. Finish Your Bachelor’s Degree in Four Years
According to this study, only 44% of students completed their bachelor’s degree in four years or less. Creating a goal that pushes you to do something more than half of the people don’t is worth working toward.
You can break this goal down into smaller, short-term objectives. To graduate in four years, you must complete a certain number of courses per year and semester, which you can track at the end of whatever period you choose.
3. Get Accepted into a Graduate Program
If graduate school is something you are interested in, it can be very competitive. This article mentions that depending on which school or program you are applying for, the acceptance rate could be as low as 4%.
Maintaining good grades and getting recommendations from professors are short-term steps for you to complete. Tracking those steps can be done through the app your college uses for grades and emails for communicating with professors.
Closing
Learning to set goals while you are in college will be beneficial for your entire life. Coming up with well-written goals will allow you to put all your energy into achieving them.
Now that you’ve read the Nerdify reviews team’s thoughts on academic goals for college students follow the steps outlined in this article to experience great success as a college student and after graduation.
Check out Nerdify’s other posts for more information on goal setting and tips for achieving your goals.
