Your mission statement is much more concrete than your vision and shows you what the path to your goal can look like. With your mission statement, you decide on a specific route that will lead you through your studies. You set trail boundaries and waypoints that keep you on track.
In contrast to your later goals, however, your mission statement is more of a collection of your own recommendations that are intended to guarantee you a happy and satisfying study.
This includes certain milestones that you definitely want to achieve, but also individual needs that you absolutely want to meet. As you can see, your personality and your own expectations of yourself have a strong influence on your mission statement. If you allow these influences, you can succeed in converting the rigid specifications from your examination regulations into an individual course of study.
Your path is then no longer specified by default and straight, but the way you want it to be:
There is no one right way; Goals can be achieved in different ways. There is only your way – and that will make you happy and content. You decide how many detours this path makes and what limitations there are. With your mission statement.
These questions will help you find it:
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- How do I want to study?
- What should my student life look like?
- What do I want to achieve during my studies?
- Which stations must be present in my course of study?
- What do I expect from myself and my studies?
With these questions, you set the framework for your studies and pave the way to your big goals.
Your Aim
With the determination of your specific goals, we have now arrived at the last and most important level of your new goal system. While your vision represents an overarching idea and your mission statement marks the way, your goals are tangible projects that you want to implement one-to-one.
If you want to keep your perspective in your studies and in hectic everyday life, you need goals – otherwise, you lose track and can’t decide what to do with your time. Goals are not constricting means of pressure from our meritocracy that are supposed to bring you into line. They just make you forget the unimportant things and focus on what matters most.
And the essential is exactly what is important to you personally. When you have goals, you know exactly what to do. But the best thing is: You can choose them yourself. To do this, your goals only need to have a few important cornerstones: They must be clear, unambiguous, binding, and time-bound. Your goals are therefore fixed points to which you can precisely steer:
Only clear goals help you to achieve outstanding results – and not only in your studies. Because once you know where you want to go, you can determine the exact path to get there and take the right steps. Otherwise not.
With these questions you will find your goals:
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- Which state do I want to achieve exactly?
- What does the desired result look like in detail?
- How can my goal be distinguished from others?
- How can my goal be clearly measured?
- When do I want to reach my goal?
Your goals should therefore be as specific as possible. And preferably in writing, so that they radiate an even greater commitment to you.
Never Be Disoriented Again
When setting goals, you can plan at different time levels (semester and week) and thus bring even more structure into your everyday life. Because based on your semester goals, it’s much easier to set your goals for the coming month or week. This will guide you on such matters as which assignments you should delegate and ask others to “write my paper.”
You can also extend your complete target system to other areas of life that have nothing to do with your studies. How about a few specific goals for your favorite hobby, for example? Or a mission statement for your relationship? Orientation and determination are good in almost all sections and help you to stay optimistic and motivated.
When you find out for yourself what is important to you and where you want to go, your student life will reach a new level of quality that you never thought possible. Because then you can finally do what is urgently needed: you can clean up. Anything that doesn’t fit into your target system gets thrown away.
Every superfluous task that doesn’t ensure that you get closer to your goals has no place on your to-do list from now on. And that has nothing to do with heartless rationalization. It’s just your new way of prioritizing and finally getting the degree you deserve. How you set your priorities is still up to you – the main thing is that you set them.
Conclusion
The key to finding more meaning and happiness in your studies is a little planning and an honest analysis of your desires. The targeting system above helps you cast your thoughts into clear form without having to limit yourself too much or give up too much freedom.
The important thing is that you realize what is important to you in your student life and then work hard to achieve these goals. Other areas will fall by the wayside, but that’s perfectly fine; it doesn’t work without these sacrifices.
But the arduous journey is well worth the effort – as long as you’re headed in the right direction.
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