At the beginning of the semester, I wrote an article titled "New (School) Year, New Me." I’ll wait for you all to go re-read it if you need a refresher on what I said.

~Welcome Back~

Well, the semester is practically over so I thought why not do a check-in to see if I actually completed the things on my list. To be completely honest, I think I only actually did one or two things on the list. But that’s something at least.

Making a schedule and actually sticking to it.

I actually started laughing when I read this paragraph. Oh, my naive summer self. It is safe to say that I did not make it to the gym at least 3 times a week and there are many classes that I signed up for on the fitness app but ended up removing myself an hour before the class started. Sleep and other work became more important and honestly, I just did not want to go. Don’t get me wrong, going to the gym can be fun and I feel great afterward, but actually getting there is a little difficult. I would love to say that next semester I am going to try again, but I first need to see how my school work goes and then I will sprinkle in some workout time.

Weekly color times!

This was actually a great idea. It morphed into nightly Netflix episodes to end my day, but the original goal was still there, relax. The goal changed into getting my homework done by 9 pm, so there was enough time to watch one episode of something, so I could then go to bed by 10:30. Normally, I am a night owl. So switching to an earlier bedtime was rough but its slowly getting better. I love having the nightly relaxing time. It helps most of the time and is a great motivator during the day to get my work done.

Dedicate time to my studies.

This one I can honestly say I worked hard to accomplish. This semester I had many motivators to get higher grades than in past years. I have found that studying a little bit every day is the most beneficial thing one can do. It sounds scary, but after about a month, studying just becomes a habit, not something I have to force myself to do. My grades reflect the hard work I have put into my academics and I couldn’t be happier about it. Yes, there are still times when school frustrates me and often I would rather watch Netflix or sleep, but it is at those times is when I need to study most. In my original article, I said I didn’t want to wait to 8 pm to start my homework...I still did that sometimes. But my excuse was and is that the assignments were simple and that I finished within 30 minutes. Old habits die hard.

Sleep more.

It is true my brain turns to mush after a certain point and this semester I did set a “stopping” time for my homework (9 pm). However, I was very lenient with myself. There were times I was in the middle of something so I had to keep going or I completely forgot about something and had to do it right away. I would encourage everyone to adopt something like this goal. Having a specific endpoint is crucial to actually follow through with the goal. I found myself hyperaware of the time and what I could finish by the time I needed to, and it helped. This is the one goal I unintentionally followed the most.

Be kinder to myself.

Out of all the goals I set for myself, this is the most crucial and hardest one I made. This is a goal 20+ years in the making.The best way to tackle this goal is with baby steps. It started with little things, like trying to have a meal with friends at least once a day. Then it morphed into starting to hang out with a small group and opening up to them about my worries and thoughts. Then I started going to bible study (not every week, but as much as I could) and I grew in my relationship with Jesus. Now about 5 months later I realized, I really grew in a relationship with myself as I built relationships with others. It wasn’t until I created these bonds that I started to figure out who I really am.

Will I do this again? I have no idea so stay tuned. But it was nice being able to look back on a singular semester to see how much I’ve grown within a small time frame. 10 out of 10 would recommend for anyone else.