4 Tips for your most successful year yet
You’ve gone on the vacations, finished the camps, spent lazy days at the beach and long nights hanging out with friends. There have been pools needing swimming, chairs needing lounging and ice cream needing eating, and you’ve done it all. Unfortunately, the days are getting shorter as we speed through July toward August, and while you may have had an amazing summer, it’s all about to come to an end. Soon, you’ll be back to notebooks instead of naps, and tests instead of tans. Don’t worry though! We’re here to help you get through the tricky transition from summer to school. All good things may come to an end, but there are ways to guarantee that your academic year has an amazing beginning! Here are four tips to help ease the pain of starting a new school year. It might not be easy, but you can definitely make this your best year yet!
1. Start off serious and don’t procrastinate!
The first day of school is always a breeze! Right? You go over rules, see all your friends, and there’s just a general excitement in the air about the newness of it all. Then comes day two and things start to get serious. You find out that you’ll have a math quiz on Thursday and it’s already Tuesday! What? So last year, you figured, meh it’s only the first quiz, I’m not worried about it, so you didn’t study, and maybe you weren’t crazy about your grade, but you knew you’d do better on the first test! But then, perhaps, things got away from you because it was the first football game, you didn’t realize your English class was going to have so much homework, AND you have practice. Then suddenly, you’re at the end of 1st quarter thinking: how the heck did I get here??? I better get to tutoring STAT? Some of us can relate all to well. It’s a whole lot easier to keep an A than it is to work your way up to one after a few not-so-great early assignments. Plus! Difficulty wise, this stuff is probably the easiest you’ll see all semester! Use that to your advantage and start off strong. Put just a little more effort than you want to in now and it could pay off big-time when finals roll around in a short four months.
2. Schedule your fun
While studying and grades are important, remember, BALANCE is key. Go ahead and block of some time to enjoy yourself with friends during these early weeks back to school (while keeping point number 1 in mind!). You’ll find the back-to-school transition a whole lot smoother if you have a fun Saturday afternoon to look forward to! Spend your time with friends and family very consciously, minimize distractions and don’t let yourself obsess over the work you have to do. Work when you’re working and play when you’re playing and you will be a happier you from the first day those school doors swing open..
3. Look at the big-picture
A lot of times, getting caught up in the minutia of the day-to-day can leave us feeling exhausted and burnt out FAST. When that starts to happen as the school year gears up, challenge yourself to look outside of an individual moment of struggle. Try to find the reason behind why you need to get through a particularly tough situation, then try your best and let go of the stress. Sometimes, remembering the bigger reason why can take the stress off of an immediate stressor; so when you’re finding yourself caught up in how terrible things feel right now, take a breather and zoom out on the situation. You’ll quickly see that this one quiz, essay, reading assignment, may be draining your life force right now, but there’s probably a reason that it could benefit you in the future. You can also see that relative to the long-term, this next challenging few hours or days, will be a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of your life. Relieved?
4. REST!
This one is short, sweet and simple, but really, it’s also the most important. You need to get enough rest! You are not going to do well in school or be able to enjoy your time with friends or perform your best on the field if you don’t get proper rest. It may be tempting to go to extremes in the early weeks of school, either spending late-nights socializing with friends or cramming for tests. But too much of either is TOO MUCH. As a teenager, 8 hours of sleep should be your minimum! We know it’s hard…but if you make sleep an important part of your to-do list, the other stuff will fall in line MUCH easier. Here’s another pro-tip: Don’t sleep with your cell phone nearby!
Well, you knew it had to come, the end of summer. But these tips will help get your school year off to an easier start. We get it, you don’t want to go back, but since you have to, just remember we’ve got your back. If you find yourself floundering in these first few weeks, reach out! You can always reach us at 949-276-4077 or info@futurefocused.com. Cheers to a great academic year!