Goal Setting and Resolutions for the New School Year

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As much as we don’t want to think about summer ending, the beginning of the school year still represents a fresh start. I feel like there are two distinct launches each year, January 1^st and the day after Labor Day. This is a holdover from 13 years of using a school calendar, and it’s a hard habit to break.

Most of us would agree that New Year’s resolutions are hard to keep. For that reason, it’s important to check-in with yourself about the resolutions you set and reframe or reset them. What better time than now to review, refresh, add, or change the goals you set?

Here are four suggestions to help you with setting goals in the new school year:

1) Reduce Social Media Consumption:

Usage of social media negatively impacts the way we view ourselves and our lives. We tend to romanticize the lives of others when we look at social media snapshots. We also develop inaccurate body perception, according to a study published in the Psychology of Popular Media. We are bombarded by photoshopped images of people with “perfected” bodies and faces. Social media contributes to an overall culture of “wanting” and feeling inadequate compared to our peers. There are a wide range of apps available which you can set to assist you with managing the time spent on your phone that still allow calls and important information to come through. You might make a goal of reducing your time 10% per month over the next four months. That’s a solid increase in time available for other things.

2) Improve Sleep Hygiene:

What better time than the beginning of a year to assess and change your sleep habits? Our brains work most efficiently and effectively on approximately eight hours of sleep. According to the Sleep Foundation, to improve sleep hygiene, try some strategies like ending screen use an hour before bed, putting your phone across the room at night (to reduce middle of the night peeking), avoiding alcoholic beverages close to bedtime, creating a sleep routine, and making sure your room is dark and quiet.

3) Finish up some “Summer” Cleaning:

After COVID I got away from “Spring” cleaning because I was living and working in the same place. Recently, I have tried to replace “Spring” cleaning with “Summer” cleaning to give me the sense of accomplishment I used to feel when I gave away gently used items and removed foods past their due date. If you’re like me, decide on a task and think about “closing” it before school starts so you are going into the year with a fresh, new outlook. Personally, I had been meaning to organize the bookshelves in my office for a long time, completing that task before the year started has been very satisfying (Beyond Happiness, 2023).

4) Plan One Last “Hurrah”:

In order to manage low mood associated with the end of summer and the beginning of a new year, ask yourself what one last fun activity you could do, and execute the plan. Even if the activity can’t take place until after the school year begins, it will give you something to look forward to. For me, I’m going to slip in one more outdoor concert before Labor Day.

Setting goals is an important part of feeling genuinely satisfied with your life. It doesn’t matter at what time of year you set the goal, what matters is that you set and execute it. This gives you a feeling of mastery and self-confidence. Those feelings can help lift you up during times when it’s easy to get mired down in negative thoughts of the summer ending.