Like most people, I make New Year’s resolutions that I think will help me achieve my goals. For example, I want a better body, so I am going to go to the gym more. I want to be smarter, so I am going to read more. I want to be a better student, so I am going to spend more hours studying and complete assignments earlier.

Every New Year’s Eve, I like to imagine myself a year later: hotter, smarter and with stellar study habits. Sadly, many years have gone by without any feeling of success. I often become so overwhelmed with the hope of the New Year that I always think the next year will be different.

I let this cycle go on for far too long. I felt so much pressure and anxiety over my resolutions that they became incredibly tiresome. It was easier to accept defeat than to deal with the constant pressure I put on myself to achieve. This was never more true than with school. Here, the constant need to do better had an adverse affect. I would wilt under the pressure.

This year I decided to break the cycle. My resolution is not to achieve a better grade, but to feel happier while working for my grades. I tried to recall the times when I had been successful in school. On all of those occasions, I was participating in something that I loved. My best grades were in the subjects that I loved the most. Therefore, I concluded that if I tried my best to enjoy what I was doing, rather than obsessing over perfection, I would be more successful. If my new experiment works, I will not only achieve my goal of being a better student, but will have done it in a way that is beneficial to me.