Resolutions for You and Your College Student

We’d like to offer some suggestions to keep in mind as you and your student think about creating your own resolutions for the fresh start that the second semester of the year offers.  Give some thought to these characteristics of good resolutions as you consider what matters to you in the New Year.

What makes a good New Year’s resolution?

• Realistic – Try to make resolutions that are realistic.  Can they really be achieved?  Are you setting yourself up for failure or expecting too much from yourself?  Scale back or revise if necessary
• Optimistic – Often the reason for a resolution is to make something better in the New Year.  Believe that you can make a change for the better and that accomplishing this resolution will move you forward. 
• Balanced – Think about all of the aspects of your life.  Will this resolution help you keep all of your interests, activities and needs in balance?
• Meaningful – If it doesn’t matter to you, really, then you won’t work at it
• Ambitious – Choose at least one thing that will challenge you to greater things.
• Specific – Make sure that you are clear to yourself about exactly what you want to accomplish.  Don’t let your resolutions be so general or vague that you can’t really define them. 
• Measureable – How will you know when/if you’ve accomplished what you’ve resolved to do?  Is there an end point? 

The New Year offers all of us an opportunity to make a fresh start in many areas of our lives.  For students – and their parents – the new semester is a double opportunity to begin anew.  Whether the fall semester was the success you had hoped for, or could have been better, think about what changes might take this new semester to an even higher level.

Happy New Year!