Reflection On My 2015 Goals

I had three goals for 2015, they were:

                                                   1.      Read more.

                                                   2.      Enjoy life.

                                                   3.      Study hard.

While these sound simplistic and not much of a challenge, they didn’t come easy to me. In fact I would say I only achieved one of these goals (Having read 30 books this year, I would count that as reading more). But the point of these goals was not to achieve anything. I wanted to spend 2015 improving myself, and self-improvement is something that continuously happens over a lifetime. I think what helps most with self-improvement though is reflection, so here is my reflection on my 2015 goals.

      1.      Read More: I am really proud of how much I read this year. Being a full time student takes a lot of time and I’m really glad I set aside time to read as much as I did. With this goal I really wanted to expand myself and explore through literature. I’m a notorious for re-reading (especially Harry Potter) and while that’s not a bad thing I wanted to branch out this year. As much as I love reading before this year I hadn’t read many books by my own choosing since before high school. It was fun rediscovering that love of reading and I want to keep it going.

      2.      Enjoy Life: I wouldn’t say I achieved this goal this year, but that’s not to say I failed completely. I can look back on 2015 and remember wonderful times and happy memories. But I also was depressed a lot and there were times I let that overcome me. The purpose of this goal was to try and help me push myself and not get stuck in my mind, but it was hard and I rarely succeeded. Therefore, I don’t count this goal as a success but something I will continue to work on.

      3.      Study Hard: Yes I passed all my classes, some just barely, but that’s not really good enough for me to consider this goal a success. I could have studied harder. I lost my focus, I procrastinated, and often I gave up. The purpose of this goal was to avoid all those things. Doing well in school is extremely important to me and I am disappointed in myself for how I did, particularly this last semester. I can only move forward though; therefore, I have to learn from this and use it as my wake up call. If I don’t study harder in the future I won’t be able to accomplish my long term goals.

Through reflection we can be proud of what we accomplished, learn from our mistakes, and figure out ways to improve. I look forward to 2016 to learn more lessons and to try to do better, and look back at 2015 with pride that I made it through.