By Roshwitha Buduri, Staff Writer
River Hill students have come from their winter break inspired to start a new year with fresh resolutions. Each year, the trend of making New Year’s resolutions spreads waves over countless people, young and old. It is a way to create realistic goals or aspirations that can grow over the years. For some, the new year can bring an advancement to a previous year’s goal. For others, it is a start to planning their own personal growth.
Senior Brennan Wheeler describes her new goals this year as more focused and aligned to smaller tasks. She’s seen a trend on social media that she believes will help her accomplish those goals. This social media trend, along with some former knowledge of smart goal setting, allowed Wheeler to make specific goals that catered towards what she wanted to improve on. “You make yourself a little personalized punchcard that’s got a goal that you want to do. For me, I have a lot of difficulty reaching out to my friends over text. So I made myself a little punch card where if I text my friends nine times I get a little croissant as a treat. I made three little punchcards so that I’m more specific with my New Year’s resolutions.”
Wheeler hopes to do more to improve her quality of life by doing tasks that she prefers. She says, “It’s things that I should be doing: text people more often, read books, and stop being on instagram reels all day.” She feels a lot more focused this year to complete these goals.
Instead of punch cards and treats, Junior May Keith realizes she needs to sit down for paperwork—more than just self-improvement—like the last few years. Her goal? To get Eagle Scout, the highest honor given by Scouting America. In order to do this, lots of effort has to be put into leadership values, community service, and other notable factors that will get a review from a committee.
Both Keith and Wheeler have realized past goals were vague at best. Their goals consisted of day-to-day questions rather than long-term achievements. For Wheeler, her goals were to simply make it through the year. “My goals were to be a junior, do well as a junior.” But now, she’s choosing specific goals. She asks herself, “How do you measure that? How do you know you’ve done that?”
Keith’s past goals were to-do lists. “It was kinda more a year of how I can make my life slightly easier and better in terms of building habits. How do I set up an actual homework routine to deal with running as well as actually doing homework? How do I get to sleep on time?”
Keith says that those years were fueled by the want to self-improve and see a better version of herself as the years went on. While they’ve allowed her to grow forward, she notes, “there hasn’t been a singular moment where I’m now happy. The daily struggle is still there, just less down and slightly better.” Her journey for self-improvement will continue until she is fully satisfied with who she is.
Senior Soumya Sharma doesn’t take to the New Year’s resolutions immediately. Her process doesn’t begin until halfway into the year, where she has enough time to understand what she’d like to do for the next part of it. “When school ends, then I feel like I have a lot more time so if I were to make a proper goal I’d have enough time towards achieving that goal,” she puts it. Having a New Year’s resolution in the beginning of the year would be unrealistic for her and she says she would likely give it up.
Last year she was able to complete the goal she created right after school ended. “My goal was to just read ten books throughout the year, which counts like a New Year’s resolution. I set out to read ten books, and did fourteen.”
She says her goals are more informal, but are able to keep her on the right track. “It’s given me…kind of…I’d say the word for it is purpose so I’m not drifting mindlessly.” Overall, she hopes to make a new goal for this year as it comes to mind. That way, she can be sure to complete it as a priority to improve her life.
All in all, these River Hill students have started a new journey or continued their New Year’s resolutions. The new year brings a spark of self-improvement, daily changes, and overall benefits to each student’s lives.