Holiday Blues: Back to the school grind
A new semester is here; how are you preparing for the opportunities and challenges that it may bring? This semester may offer intense classes, a competitive season, or an internship. Even if it does not offer any of these challenges, there is still an opportunity for you to challenge yourself with goals that scare and excite you. Take the early weeks of this semester to get a good idea of what you want from it; set academic, athletic, and personal goals that get you closer to the person you want to be when your degree is complete.
The term “new year, new me” could instead be new year, new goals. There is nothing wrong with you; there is no reason to disregard the person you were, but every year allows you the opportunity to compound the successes from the year before. It is therefore imperative that you take the time to reflect on what went well in 2024. How did you react to the situations in front of you? What could have been different? How could you have taken more control of your situation? What goals did you set for yourself as an academic, an athlete, and a person last semester? Were your expectations realistic? What are some goals that set a high standard that push you but are not out of reach? Assessing this successfully is only achievable through years of trial and error. All we can do is assess where we are at our current position and allocate steps towards the person we want to be. Once we know those steps, implementing accountability, schedules, tools, and self-assessments is easy.
Goals set, now we create routines to create a regular practice of habits that we want to build and the tasks we must complete. This is something that can be achieved within the first two weeks. The only way to get back into the swing of things is to get back to a consistent schedule, find times for your daily activities, practice, work, study, attend classes, work out, socialize, and do whatever else you need to do. Take some time the night before to set some goals for the day. Discipline yourself to get into routines that you can stick to for the full semester. I find the easiest habits to stick to are wake-up and bedtime; find consistency here, and everything else becomes much more manageable. Our morning and nighttime routines have more impact on our productivity than many of us care to admit. So think again before rolling over to check your phone for an hour of scrolling before you get out of bed; start the day strong and wind down wisely to get the most out of your day and recover effectively.
Balance takes never-ending practice, as the intensity of your endeavors and life’s challenges will vary. Create some flexibility in your schedule to put more time and energy into the most pressing matters. We want to have routines that help us achieve our goals, but we aren’t going to be perfect, so find time in the day to catch up on things missed or assignments we struggle with. We don’t need much “empty time” in the day, maybe an hour or two where there is no designated task or time set aside that allows you to catch up or excel in areas you are struggling. Allocating time is a great way to assess how we can find balance. As mentioned, it is not always going to be the same, but we become better at predicting what we can handle and how we can spend our time more effectively.
We have resources related to accountability, such as How to build accountability systems as a collegiate student athlete, so explore these for more detail. Accountability can come in many forms, through friends, apps, family, and self, to name a few, but creating systems that show you when you are straying from the path. A key part of accountability is boundary setting, preventing yourself from going down paths. All bad habits have a trigger; acknowledging what those triggers are and implementing behavior to prevent these behaviors is more powerful than using willpower to overcome our shortcomings. This can be reducing the amount of time we spend with friends who encourage us to drink too much or avoiding walking past the desserts in the cafeteria, as you may know; if you see something, you are easily tempted, so stopping looking can be the cause. This is a challenging endeavor but may be the difference between the person you are now and the person you want to be.
f there is anything you do to help with the holiday blues and get back into the routine of semester life, make sure you leave a comment and let us know how, if anything, we suggested makes a difference. If there is any support we can offer, please let us know through info@acaathleteadvantage.com or our messaging board.
Start the semester strong with determined action, and you’ll ride that wave until the summer.
