Summer: a six-letter word that holds incredible meaning to and power over college students. Many students take the summer as an opportunity to travel, work or take a summer class. Summer is also a time of catching up with friends, learning new skills or continuing hobbies. Regardless of which is you, here are some motivational tips for four areas I know I struggle with during the summer months.
1. Sleep
Because most college students are prone to procrastination and staying up late, summer becomes the time for catching up on some zzz’s. Set a night schedule for yourself to get in bed by a certain hour. For example: 10 p.m. — Get ready for bed, 10:15 p.m. — Read/check social media/etc, 11 p.m. — Unplug, 11:15 p.m. — Asleep
2. Waking up
Number one makes number two hard. The less you sleep, the harder it is to wake up. Set your alarm to your favorite upbeat song to wake you up. Also, keep your alarm on the other side of the room so that you’re required to physically get out of bed in order to turn it off. Finally, no more snoozing. Hitting the snooze button is simply another form of procrastination.
3. Getting Ready
Setting a morning is the key to success and sets the tone for the rest of the day. If you’ve already accomplished both number one and number two, then number three will be even easier! Like going to bed, create a morning routine for yourself: wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast (even if it’s only something small), brush teeth, etc. Try creating a playlist of high-energy songs to motivate you to finish on time.
4. Goals
Everyone has a goal. It can be as trivial as hitting snooze twice instead of five times or as ambitious as receiving a promotion or award. No matter the size of your dream, it could be as simple as one, two, three. Breaking goals down into smaller, more obtainable objectives not only moves you closer to your end result but is also motivation since you can see progress happening.
Changing one habit at a time will get the ball rolling toward success.
