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5 Tips to Keeping Your New Year Resolutions in Education

By Tiffany Kyall
Contributor to In Military Education

It’s the beginning of a new year. Time for a fresh start. Time for New Year’s resolutions, such as eating healthier, drinking more water, exercising more, saving money.

Whether you’re a newcomer or familiar to the online education journey, here are some tips I have to make your education resolutions become reality.

Have a plan.

The key to being successful is having a plan. This can be in the form of a smaller academic degree plan to make it more manageable. It also shows you an outline of what to expect next. For example, prior to the new year, I had just started another academic year and had to register for my courses. According to my large degree plan, I had four more courses left until I reach to the end of my degree plan. So how did I want take those courses? All at once? One or two at a time? Which leads me to my next tip…

Set aside some time and goals to carry out your plan.

How long is it going to take to complete your objectives? Well, my end objective is to complete my degree plan. With four courses left, I thought it was best to take two of them in a semester to avoid over-burdening myself. Sure, I could have taken them all in one semester, but with my current life situation as a mother and spouse, I wanted my studies to not take away from my other responsibilities. Again, a decision that was based on my and my family’s best interests/wishes.

Don’t be afraid to make adjustments to your plan to benefit you!

Sometimes life has a way of not going as well as we hoped. So what do we do? Adapt. Say you wanted to earn A’s in your courses, but last semester, your grades did not meet your expectations. So, this semester, keeping the same goal in mind (striving for A’s in courses), you change what you did from last semester, whether it be setting out more time for school work, taking fewer courses, or anything in between. You can be sure that trying out something different may give you better results.

Do not be afraid to stick to what works for you.

Although you can make changes to your plan to benefit you. For me, taking two courses a semester works. Why? I have done it before. I have also earned A’s in my courses because of this. Yes, it may take me a bit longer to finish my degree compared to my peers, but I am happy with the results.

Reflect.

So you have made it through the semester, and you have achieved your goal of earning A’s in your courses. What did you do to earn those A’s? Or maybe you did not achieve your goals at the end of the semester. What can you do differently next semester to help you achieve your goals?

Regardless of your education goals or where you are in your education, take advantage of the beginning of the year to make it a great one. After all, a year may seem like a long time, but you would be surprised at how fast it goes by.

About the Author

Tiffany Kyall is a student at American Military University (AMU), the spouse of an active-duty servicemember, and a mother who is pursuing an A.S. in Web Publishing. She actively maintains a 3.9 GPA and anticipates a May 2015 conferral date. She was also the webmaster of AMU’s wSTEM (Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) group.

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