Tag: goals

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Keep it up: How to maintain momentum in the new year

Graphic by Keven Vaillancourt @kindaokev

We tend to hit the ground running with all our goals, only to stagger—how can we actually stick to them?

This year, my roommate and I decided to get a headstart on goal-setting. In November, we pulled out the whiteboard and boldly filled it with countless goals, all with the intention of “getting our life together.” In retrospect, many (if not all) were pretty unachievable. My personal favourite: our promise to climb Mount Royal five times per week. Yeah, right. 

I think we’re all familiar with this cycle. The new year is synonymous with a fresh start, a fact that’s almost too cliché to write about: gym memberships, new diets and promises to break bad habits transform into February failures. The shooting stars turn out to be meteors and burn up quicker than they appeared. This phenomenon isn’t just true with the new year; it also applies to new beginnings at school (hello, winter semester). So where does all our initial enthusiasm go, and can we reclaim this energy to actually accomplish our goals? 

First off, it’s important to understand why we lose momentum. When it comes to resolutions, the most obvious reason is that we simply expect too much of ourselves. This can be explained by a phenomenon called the “empathy gap.” The Decision Lab explains that this is the “tendency to underestimate the influence of varying mental states on our own behavior and make decisions that only satisfy our current emotion, feeling, or state of being.” So when we made our Mount Royal resolution, we were crazed by enthusiastic energy and forgot how it actually feels to be tired. 

To carry through on your promises, you need to be realistic with yourself. It’s always tempting to imagine ourselves as super disciplined, high-achieving people, but that’s often a bit of a stretch. As busy students with countless external stress factors, we have to be honest with ourselves and realize that time and motivation are difficult to come by. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t set goals, rather that we should consider how our goals actually fit into real life. Start small and make an attainable plan. Keep yourself accountable by setting small milestones and keeping track of achievements. Gradually (and with great patience), these will build and snowball. 

When it comes to the new semester, the same principle applies. I start every semester with the idea that I’ll be an absolute academic weapon, doing all my required readings and completing every project in advance. Instead of setting such vague, unrealistic goals, I’ll aim to stretch this enthusiasm out and actually make a plan for myself. Maybe I’ll aim to complete “most” of my readings, schedule my time day by day, and see where I can go from there. 

In case you were wondering: since November, we have climbed Mount Royal a grand total of zero times. Maybe we could choose a hill instead, or reduce our goal down to one time per week. Or maybe choose a new goal entirely. Here’s the funny thing, though—with all this time I’ve spent thinking about how I haven’t climbed the mountain, I could have just gone and climbed it by now.

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Student Life

Skip zero days to accomplish your goals

Graphic by @sundaeghost

A few years ago, I was browsing reddit and stumbled upon an interesting concept called “no more zero days” left as a comment on a thread by user ryans01. Applying this concept to my life has changed it tremendously, and has put me on a stronger path to achieving my goals. 

A zero day is when you do nothing that helps you get one step closer to reaching your goals. Avoiding a zero day could mean doing the smallest action; for example, doing a single push-up before bed even if you’re exhausted. You don’t have to go run a marathon right away––doing one push-up is still better than doing nothing and it can help you in your long term goal. Another example is writing a single sentence for that long essay you’ve been avoiding. You don’t have to go all-out and finish your essay in one day, but at least writing one sentence gets you closer to completing it.

Reaching goals can seem difficult. The trick is to divide them into smaller ones, assigning tasks to achieve them, and setting milestones to track your progress. The reason for this is that goals are much less intimidating when broken down into smaller achievable tasks, as explained in a Twigberry Studio article. This makes it easier to start, and starting sets you on a path to achieving those bigger goals. 

It is also important to write down the goal with a goal date, which increases our chances of sticking to them according to an article on Action for Happiness. The first step is to figure out what your goal is in a trackable way.

Let’s say you want to get fit by summer 2020. How can you write down that goal in a measurable sense? Maybe your goal is to lose 20 pounds in the next four months. Then break it down into smaller goals: lose five pounds per month, then break it down to 1.25 pounds per week. Your goal is no longer to lose 20 pounds, which could seem like an impossible task, but to lose 1.25 pounds every week. Now you have a way to track your progress in terms of milestones and see where you’re at in terms of your bigger goal. 

Finally, set tasks in order to achieve that goal which, if followed correctly, will lead you to your desired outcome. 

What I have found by applying this rule to my life is that sometimes I start off by just doing one small step, and I end up doing a lot more. For example, I start off by doing one push-up, but then I just keep going until I can’t do anymore. Or, I will start off by writing one sentence of my essay, but then the ideas just start flowing and I end up writing a lot more. I have realized that the hardest part is simply starting. Once you get over that initial hurdle, you will find that everything else flows a lot easier. Not only does it get you closer to your goals, but it can also change the way you think. 

After consistently following the ‘no more zero days’ rule for a while, it becomes routine. Doing at least one productive thing per day becomes second nature and a zero day might feel like a day wasted. In essence, this rule can really make you into a more productive person. 

During his TedXTalk, “How to achieve your most ambitious goals,” Stephen Duneier talks about goals being achieved by taking our ambitious dreams and pursuing them by making a marginal adjustment to our routine. The first step is making that decision. He says that when you’re at home clicking through channels or scrolling through social media, make the decision to change your focus. He gives the example of putting down the remote/phone, picking up a book and reading one word: “If you read one word, you’ll read two words, three words, you’ll read a sentence, a paragraph, a page, a chapter, a book. You’ll read 10 books, 30 books, 50 books.” But it all starts with that first decision to change your focus.

 

Graphic by @sundaeghost

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News

Simply Scientific: Work smarter, not harder

Is there something you want to accomplish? Something you desperately want to do but cannot seem to achieve?

We have all been in that funk before. The best way to overcome that is a change in outlook. Develop a goal-oriented mindset—it is that simple! Lucky for us, our brain is programmed to love a good challenge, because we get rewarded by a hormone in the brain called dopamine.

The mesolimbic pathway in the brain carries dopamine to different parts of the brain, including the frontal lobe––the sector responsible for motivation. To the brain, achieving a goal is considered an extrinsic reward. Say you did not like doing something, but you still pushed through to accomplish it. That reward of completion brings a sense of satisfaction to the brain through the rush of dopamine you get when completing a task.

When dopamine is released, the body releases cortisol and oxytocin which reduces stress. The body also releases serotonin which is the brain’s happy chemical. So goal setting and achieving those goals are very good for the body.

We get it, set goals! But how can we do that? The trick to obtaining a goal-oriented mindset is breaking down goals to make them more manageable. We need to set our goals “SMARTER.” Dr. Edwin A. Locke, a specialist in motivation with a Ph.D in psychology, invented the SMART acronym rule, which was examined and extended over time. Now, think about your goal and apply these SMARTER principles.

Specific: you need to focus on only one particular goal.

Measurable: you need to monitor your progress qualitatively or quantitatively.

Achievable: set flexible boundaries that suit you.

Realistic: is it something that you actually can do?

Time: give yourself a time frame to accomplish your goal.

Evaluative: does your goal fall into your personal values?

Rewarding: you obtain your goal and dopamine gives your brain its reward.

Nothing is impossible. Sometimes you just need to take a step back and look at your goals in a different way. So, go out and challenge yourself. You might be surprised at the things you can do.

 

Graphic by @sundaeghost

 

 

Categories
Student Life

The end of a decade

Graphic by @sundaeghost

There are 21 days until 2020. A brand new year, plenty of opportunities, adventures and achievements to experience.

But it feels grander, more important somehow. There are 21 days until a brand new decade and, while time is a construct, the idea of going into a whole new decade is kind of stressing me out—okay, very much stressing me out. I’ve had multiple existential crises, more than usual, when thinking about the future.

At the start of this decade, in 2010, I was in my last year of elementary school. When you’re 12 and someone asks you where you think you’re going to be in five, 10 years, it’s often along the lines of go to school, get a job. Well after those five years, I finished high school. Then I went to CEGEP. And now I’m in my last year of university.

“Where do you see yourself in 10 years?”

I have no idea. And that thought scares me. Up until this moment in my life, everything has somehow fallen into place according to a relatively “normal” timeline. From here on out, I have no idea what to do, where I’m going to end up, what I’m going to be doing with myself and my life. And it’s absolutely freaking me out.

I have to remind myself to look at the past year, at what I’ve accomplished: I got my first job in journalism, got an internship over the summer for a job which I got to keep, I started my column in this paper, I got through another year of university without any major breakdowns, got good grades while balancing multiple jobs, and so much more. Looking back over the last decade? I’ve accomplished so much and most of it was just growing up: I survived multiple levels of schooling, got my license, bought a car, fell in love, had my heart broken, I’ve lost loved ones, made and lost some amazing friends, and began the journey to finding and establishing myself.

Thinking back to everything I’ve done over the years, it makes looking forward a little less scary. Did I know what I was doing with myself at 12, 15, 18, 20? Absolutely not. But I still managed to get things done, and I’m proud of everything I’ve accomplished because it’s all made me who I am today.

Now, I don’t know what I’m going to do after I graduate. I don’t know what job I’m going to get, or when I’m going to fall in love, get married, become a parent, get my own place, buy a new car. I don’t know if I’m going to lose friends, make friends, gain a larger family or lose loved ones. I don’t know if I’m still going to be living in Montreal, in Canada, in North America, or if I’m going to be living at all.

While that might sound morbid, it’s just the reality of life; you truly can never know when your last day living is. While it may not be so simple to say that you should make every day the best day ever in case you don’t see tomorrow, it’s best to just live everyday. Work hard for what you want short term in case you don’t make it to be 27, but also work for what you want in the case you make it to 93. Be kind to people and to yourself. Don’t be afraid of telling and showing people how you feel because you never know when the last time you’ll be able to do that is.

I don’t know anything about the upcoming year and the rest of the decade and there’s no point in stressing about it because you just can’t know. No matter how much you plan, life has a funny way of throwing you curveballs that can completely change your life, for better or for worse.

So, If you’re stressed about the year 2020, or the new decade ahead of us, look back to the last 11 months and 10 days and see what you’ve accomplished; look back at the last 10 years of your life and see how much you’ve grown. You’ve accomplished more than you realize and more than you give yourself credit for. Life is hard, and even if you think you’ve accomplished nothing, just being alive and being able to read this says a lot about you and what you’ve done with your life.

May 2020 and the next decade bring you more achievements, adventure, moments of self-realization, happiness, pain, love and loss. Most importantly, I hope it brings you the satisfaction of getting through one more year, one after another. And if no one’s told you recently, I’m proud of you, you’re doing amazing, and you got this.

Graphic by @sundaeghost

Categories
Student Life

Slice of Life: To-Do: Smell a rose

Feature graphic by @spooky_soda

Rethinking what it means to set goals for ourselves

From late December to early January, the internet is riddled with memes generally belonging to four categories: empty bank accounts, being drunk from Dec. 24 to Jan. 2, cringey family stories, and, my personal favorite, all the ‘new year, new me’ bullshit. As if overriding our digestive systems with champagne and Jameson somehow flushes out all the toxicity from the previous year, leaving us with a blank-slate liver to tackle the new year with.

Honestly, New Year’s resolutions are pretty dumb. You can search the crap out of it: in January 2013, Forbes reported that only 8 per cent of people achieve their New Year’s resolutions, and in January 2017, Business Insider reported that 80 per cent of resolutions fail by the second week of February. But why? Why is it so difficult to set a goal—a singular goal—and follow through with it?

About a year ago, The New York Times listed tips for making and keeping resolutions. Just a few days ago, The Guardian published an article that touched on similar points: make a personal plan, join a support community, focus on one goal at a time, find what motivates you, externalize your goals, etc. All good advice, sure, but these fluff articles still have a hollow ring to them.

There are so many issues with New Year’s resolutions (not the inherent concept of goal-setting), but mainly it’s the localization of goal-setting to one check-point window in the year and the pressure to make that window. Realistically, we change so much throughout the year, and it’s important to recognize how your goals evolve with you. On top of the pressure to make a New Year’s resolution, there’s also pressure to make your resolution fit into a cutback-box. For most, resolutions consist of goals like: spend less money, go out less, watch less Netflix, start going to [insert physical activity], read that book, eat less junk, pay off debt, etc.

But what if your resolution was stuff you should do more of? Laugh more. Go outside more. Call more friends. Have more dinners at home. Think you’d have an easier time sticking to those resolutions? Melbourne-based queer artist @frances_cannon posted “Frances Cannon’s Big 2019 List” on Jan. 2, and it may surprise you in all the best ways. Cannon lists goals such as: take a breath, let go of someone who hurt you, apply for something that scares you, tell a really good joke, call someone you haven’t called in a while, smell a rose and many more goals, both small and large. It’s time we start rethinking the wide range of what goals can be for each individual, and accepting that self love is both loving ourselves for accomplishing those goals, and loving ourselves for accepting when we simply cannot.

Feature graphic by @spooky_soda

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