Student Blog: Making Goals My Habits (Hopefully)

With us already in the new year, what our lives look like are bound to change with the challenges ahead and the lessons we might learn. Personally, what makes the new year so anxiety inducing for me is what my next couple of steps are as a young adult. Being in my second semester of college for only a week has truly opened my eyes to what habits I should incorporate in 2026.

Goal #1: Write down every single correction a teacher gives after class and in between classes. This particularly pertains to my dance technique classes as a dance major. This was something I was super consistent with during high school and I think it’s the reason why I improved in my modern classes as quickly as I did, but for some reason I lost the habit. While I was home over break, I bought a new notebook that I keep in my bag so I remember to write in it. Surprisingly, I haven’t forgotten to use it! I think I’m beating my own scatterbrainedness. One of my main corrections that I’ve been thinking about is to sit lower into my plié and find groundedness. 

Goal #2: Curate the most interesting library I could ever make for myself. I am an avid reader and since coming to college I’ve been able to go to so many new bookstores. I am determined to expand my literary taste. I’m trying to get into more philosophy authors and essays on certain identities and experiences. In the philosophy/psychoscience genre, I recently picked up The Feeling of What Happens by Antonio Damasio, which explores the mind's recognition of our physical reactions to the world. For my “identities” genre, I got What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker by Damon Young, which explores something I know very well — being Black — and how it intersects with everything in a Black persons’ life. I’m lucky to have found such a book that makes great commentary on the Black experience, because I’ve always been spoon-fed perspectives of people of other races and elaborate identities. Not to say that those specific identities do not have beauty within their existence, because it is the exact opposite, but I felt that finding a better understanding and different perspectives of circumstances I go through daily in predominantly white spaces might even give me a little comfort, while also affirming my 18 years on this Earth. 

My goals this year are a bit more personal than others I have set for myself in the past. I used to focus on team building and being there for others more, so when I set these goals I felt a sense that it was due to do something good for myself. I hope to keep these habits up for years to come, so they eventually become routine without having to constantly think about it and accidentally going back to what is comfortable, unhelpful and uninformed.