New Year Goal Setting for High School Students
6 minute read
After an extended winter break, getting back into the rhythm of daily life at high school (classes, homework, sports, extracurriculars, etc.) can require some extra effort. That’s why the new year can be a meaningful opportunity for students to set focused and structured goals. For purpose-driven students, setting and working towards goals teaches them how to learn with intention, helping build crucial soft skills that set you apart when applying for internships and college admissions.
Below, we present a handful of concrete strategies to help students set achievable goals in the new year. We also discuss the most common mistakes to avoid throughout the process, and talk about simple but effective ways to build structure and accountability into your routine.
How to Help Your Kids Set Goals: The Importance of Goal Setting
Goal setting in high school has been statistically linked to higher levels of student motivation as well as improved student achievement. Setting clear goals has a positive effect on students’ self-confidence. It also builds essential soft skills including time management, critical thinking, and resilience, setting students up for success when faced with future academic and professional challenges.
Most importantly, setting new goals allows high school students to reflect on their personal and academic objectives and to take control of their own learning and growth. This practice is known as intentional learning, which cognitive scientists and instructional psychologists have described as a critical skill for developing new skills. In other words, it helps students learn how to learn.
To sum up, high school students who set clear goals and work towards them show stronger motivation, resilience, adaptability, and better academic results than their non-goal-setting peers.
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Types of Goals Students Should Consider
Around New Year’s, high school students can benefit immensely from setting goals in a number of areas, including:
Academic goals. Academic goals (including academic new year’s resolutions) can relate to success in school work or research, or to building academic soft skills (e.g. strengthening study habits). An example of a specific academic goal for the school year would be to complete a biology project with statistically significant results and then enter it into a local science competition or science fair.
Personal development goals. These are goals that focus on personal objectives, life skills, and/or social skills that can help kids in and out of the classroom. For example, a goal in this category could target building personal financial literacy, working on a leadership passion project, etc.
Extracurricular goals. Extracurricular activities are highly valuable for high school students, and can play a major role in college admissions results. Setting new goals and tracking progress can be the key for students to excel in extracurricular activities. For example, an extracurricular goal might be to complete 20 hours of community service over the course of the upcoming semester.
Wellness and balance goals. Many high school students struggle to balance their various commitments while taking care of their physical and mental health. Goals in this category could be related to daily or exercise or meditation. A useful goal for busy high school students might be to get at least six to eight hours of quality sleep per night this year.
Whichever type of goal(s) you choose to set and work towards, it’s important to craft objectives that are clear, attainable, and also challenging and rewarding.
Creating Realistic and Motivating Goals For Students
Tailoring your goals to fit your own time availability and current skill level is essential for maintaining motivation and achieving success over the long term. Here are four tips to help you choose the right goal and to stay on track during the school year:
Set measurable milestones at regular intervals. These checkpoints are extremely useful for tracking your progress. Additionally, they offer opportunities to reflect on your strategy, which can help you keep momentum and prevent burnout. When you set your initial goal, plan these milestones out accordingly. For instance, If your goal is to complete 20 hours of community service over 4 months, you could break that down into smaller sub-goals of 5 hours of service per month.
Know your strengths and use them. Aligning a part of your goal with an existing strength can be a powerful strategy for achieving lasting motivation and long-term results. For example, if your objective is to run a 10K race, and you know you have excellent organizational skills, then you could start your journey by making a thorough and detailed training plan that you know you can stick to on a daily or weekly basis. Wherever possible, use your existing skills to maximize progress in other areas.
Balance challenge and achievability. It’s vital that your goal is neither too easy nor too difficult. If the goal is too easy, then meeting it won’t represent significant personal growth or improvement. On the other hand, if your goal is too challenging, then motivation may drop over time. If you’re unsure whether your current goal strikes the correct balance between challenge and achievability, speaking with a trusted mentor can help you decide and make appropriate adjustments as needed.
Visualize final outcomes. It’s common for motivation to wane as progress towards your goals becomes less visible, and as other commitments require more of your time and energy. To help you stay focused during these times, it can be helpful to visualize your long-term progress and remember that real advances may be invisible for significant stretches of the process.
Avoiding Typical Goal-Setting Pitfalls
Setting and accomplishing goals comes with challenges. This is especially true during high school, when students experience seemingly countless demands on their time and energy. As a result, many students make the error of setting too many conflicting goals for themselves. This often results in a frustrating tangle of pressures and little to no progress made in any single direction.
Another mistake that high school students can fall into is setting goals based on pressure from parents, peers, or even teachers. Setting goals without reflecting on how those goals align with your own objectives could lead to confusion and increased pressure and anxiety later on. The most successful outcomes occur when goals are based on, or at least align with, an individual's motivations.
Skipping progress tracking is another big mistake that we see many high school students making after setting a challenging goal for the new year. It sounds simple, but it is absolutely essential that you measure your progress at regular intervals. This practice alerts you and your mentors if progress has stalled and your strategy needs to be revised. Alternatively, if your strategy is working, then measuring progress can be a signal to keep going and even a reason to celebrate, which can keep motivation up.
Finally, ignoring mental load is a pitfall that goal-oriented high schoolers should take care to avoid. If you’re feeling stressed or anxious about your progress on your personal goals, it may be an important signal that your strategy isn’t fitting your routine or learning style for one reason or another. If this is the case, speaking to a mentor or counselor is the best next step.
Structures That Help Students Reach Their Goals in the New Year
Structure is key for any high schooler who is planning out a strategy for accomplishing their objectives in the new year. There are many apps and tools available online to track productivity and form strong habits. Whether you use digital tools or an old-fashioned notepad, decide on a structure and stick with it. If your structure is no longer effective or you find you’ve gotten off track for a few days, then bring that up to a mentor or advisor. They should be able to help with fine-tuning to keep you on track.
As mentioned above, trusted mentors can provide valuable support and structure to assist high school students in accomplishing the goals they set for themselves. One highly effective strategy is to schedule weekly check-ins to assess progress and address challenges. These sessions can be short and sweet while still adding accountability to the student’s routine.
Speaking of accountability, students can also team up with peers and friends to help maximize one another’s progress. For example, if you track your progress in a spreadsheet or document, make it a shared file that highlights both your progress and your partner's. Alternatively, a weekly check-in with friends over lunch can keep spirits up and make goals feel like team efforts.
How Goal Setting Prepares Students for the Future
As we’ve discussed, learning how to set and achieve goals is an essential skill that teaches students how to build other skills through intentional learning. This is essential for success in college, where teachers and advisors expect students to know how to set their own goals and motivate themselves to achieve them.
Outside of academics, being a strong goal-setter is a highly valuable soft skill in professional contexts. It demonstrates high levels of self-awareness, long-term vision, strong self-discipline and motivation, adaptability to changing situations, and excellent decision-making abilities — all of which are high employability skills for students.
Are you motivated to set and achieve your next goal? Polygence provides high school students with support, structure, and mentorship to help them design meaningful goals and successfully complete guided projects that align with their academic, extracurricular, or personal objectives.
Our renowned research mentorship program prepares students for future advanced studies by pairing them with an experienced, PhD-level mentor in a field of their choosing. Students work 1-on-1 with their mentors over the course of 10 remote sessions, taking their projects from start to finish with trusted guidance. Polygence Pods is another program that is ideal for students who are interested in exploring an exciting subject in a fast-paced group setting before diving into an independent project.
Alternatively, our Work Lab connects motivated, goal-oriented students with industry mentors for cutting-edge professional projects. These challenging but rewarding experiences take place at real-world startup companies, where students build hands-on skills for immediate impact.
Apply online to discover all the ways that Polygence can help you accomplish your goals this year!