As I compose this article, I am sitting in the office at my parents' house while the spring semester still feels a safe distance away. It's that time over winter break when I and my fellow college students lie in the awkward valley between Christmas and New Years, and the initial habits formed when I was reeling from the end of finals, studying, projects, and sleeplessness have started to catch up with me.

After I recovered from my post-Christmas fever (literally) I noticed my routines that were forged from an afterglow of victory had grown stale and almost harmful. Three days after Christmas, I tried to dig up my to-do list I had made right before I left Purdue's frigid campus. I had tried to comprise it as forgiving as I could be, nevertheless, I could only see how I had either let my goals slip or blatantly ignored them.

I had a set of objectives for myself before departing from campus that included keeping up with my inbox, writing every day, and even the simple act of putting on real pants in the morning I had put off in order to "enjoy my break", and eventually it bled too far into my time off and I felt that I failed.

Now, this may be a unique experience to me, but I found myself following a strange sense of logic after realizing my folly: I considered integrating these goals into my New Year's resolutions. Then I knew how wrong and unsound this was even though my intentions were well meant. Quite simply how could I expect myself to fall through on resolutions for the entirety of 2018 that I had already been turning a blind eye towards?

I would argue that this is a choice that droves of college students commit, who believe that failed goals, desires, and aspirations can be reset by simply repacking them like unused Christmas gifts and slapping on the label "New Year's Resolutions".

To be full of transparency here, I think this is a waste of everyone's time and simply opens the door to more negligence. If I wanted to work out more during break but kept putting it off and then made it one of my resolutions, then nothing is actually solved and I end up disappointing myself again and dig a deeper cognitive dissonance in the process.

However, not all is lost and on that note I have created three solutions to create stronger and more helpful resolutions for 2018 that involves varying timespans, changing mindsets, and picking different starting dates. Firstly, would advise for college students to think smaller and set a resolution that will expire in late February of late March, which will still expire long after everyone's Facebook friends have stopped posting about their own resolutions.

Secondly, college students should select resolutions based on mindsets rather than tangible rewards. I say this because it may be a lot less common and a lot more doable when tackling academics, a job, clubs, etc. as the spring semester heats up.

Vow to look at the big picture more (my own resolution for 2017), breathe for 10 seconds right before a breakdown or be more cognizant of your decision-making for 2018. The great thing about these types of resolutions is that they are private and come at no cost, and if I remember mine in the middle of August I can pick it back up without feeling guilty.

Thirdly and finally, I would suggest for fellow college students to be mindful that New Year's is a holiday formed around setting a handful of objectives for the entire year.

Personally, I have no idea where I will find myself throughout the year, who I will know, and how my interests will change, and I find trying to both set and maintain a goal to last more than 40 days out and that I have failed to uphold in the past more than a little silly.

This is why I would also suggest setting a new resolution every month because above all people do not know how the next year will treat them. I still know I want to be fit and eat better, but I am aware now that I can start whenever I choose.