New Year's Resolutions for Business School Students

As one year transitions to a new one, it’s a natural time to think back on the past 12 months and contemplate how you want to spend the upcoming year. This is the phase when many of us set our New Year’s resolutions—aspirations for how we’d like to live and grow in the following months.

The change to a new year can also be a great occasion to set resolutions, or goals, for yourself as a business student. What do you hope to accomplish this year while in business school? The following seven resolutions can serve as your goals for the upcoming year, or they can help guide goals that you’ve already set for yourself. If you make an effort to stick to these resolutions, by the time 2019 comes to an end, you’ll be able to look back at the year and see the growth you’ve made as a burgeoning business professional.

Make an effort to read more articles or listen to more podcasts. In the precious spare time you have as a business student, finding 10 or 15 minutes a day to catch up on industry trends or best practices can provide real-life applications and examples of what you’re learning in your classes. There are lots of websites and blogs that share industry insights, from large-scale media outlets to niche individual bloggers. If you have a Twitter account, creating a Twitter list of the websites or blog handles you want to follow can be a great resource to streamline content. On the go and don’t have the time to stop and read? Podcasts take the work off your eyes and are a good option for when you’re commuting or simply walking around campus.

Incorporate project management into your routine. Project management is an essential tool for business students. Though organizing the responsibilities you have for your business program may seem like a no-brainer, knowing how to get work done in an effective way isn’t always easy. Project management ensures that you create a plan for your work, follow through on your plan, and then deliver results that you’re hopefully proud of, on time. Take 2019 to start getting organized and making plans, and you’ll thank yourself for it in the year 2020 and beyond.

Make one new professional connection each month. The math is simple. If you make an effort to meet and connect professionally with one new person per month, you will have 12 new networking connections at the end of 2019. Whether your graduation date is nearing or you have three years left in business school, making new acquaintances is always a good idea. Each individual you make contact with has the opportunity to be a mentor, someone who can provide a recommendation, or a future career connection.

Identify a strength you would like to boost. Already succeeding at something doesn’t mean you should stop attempting to strengthen that skill. This year, choose a skill that you have, and are good at, and make an intentional effort to continue improving your abilities. By the time the year ends, you could be an expert.

Identify a weakness you would like to improve. In addition to strengthening your current skills, think about something you’re not yet comfortable with to work on. Maybe public speaking hasn’t been your forte. When it comes time to set resolutions for 2020, your current weakness could turn into the strength you choose to boost that year.

Seek out extra certifications. Obtaining your diploma after business school is a big accomplishment. But while you’re still pursuing your degree, you could take the chance to add extra certifications to your resume. There are a number of free or low-cost programs out there that can give you the extra knowledge that may make you a more attractive candidate to potential employers. Getting certified for Google Analytics, web coding, or Twitter’s Flight School can increase both your confidence in yourself as well as an employer’s confidence in you.

Invest in self-care. This resolution will impact you beyond your educational journey and future career. Taking self-care seriously ensures an all-around better quality of life. When you are functioning physically and mentally at your best, the results you produce will match. While adding something else to your already busy schedule might seem daunting, making time for self-care isn’t as difficult as it seems.

Continuously improving yourself will be a constant effort throughout your career. Whether you choose to follow one of these resolutions or all of them, seeking self-improvement is always a good choice and will prove beneficial for both your business education and your job in the future.