Why Do Priorities Matter in College?

What is most important to you as you head back to school in the Fall? Could you name your top 3 priorities in your life right now if you had to? Take a moment to actually think about it.

If I asked you what you wanted your college experience to be like, what would you say? My guess is that you would not answer with words like “busy, overwhelming, exhausting, a blur”. No one is going to answer “I want to burn out!” Yet, so many college students have these experiences each semester. It’s so easy to try to do it all, to burn out, take a break and do it all again the next semester. I call this the “College Cycle“.

But it doesn’t have to be this way!

Why Simply College?

The purpose of Simply College is to help college students realize and live into their priorities. If you recognize what is most important to you and create a life around those things, I fully believe you will have an amazing college experience. Not only that, you will be able to take this very important skill into the rest of your life. 

Priorities matter during every phase of life — your first job and moving to a new city, balancing a significant other with your work, life and friends, buying a house, having kids, 18 years of your kids being in different phases… Being able to figure out your priorities and build your life around those will literally serve you for the rest of your life. 

I was forced to learn about priorities, like so many of us are. I had a break down as an overwhelmed mom after my second child was born. I was trying to keep all the things going just like I was before I had kids. Even though I had gone down in hours at work — my job description was still the same and my commitments outside of work were still the same. I had all of the same items on my plate and yet my whole identity had changed (not to mention 2 kids always in my care). No wonder I felt like I was drowning everyday!

It took quite a while, but I slowly started sifting through all the clutter that was my life. Piece by piece I began to remove what was no longer serving me. When I put it all back together I was able to build it around what was most important to me in that season. 

Your priorities will change. But the importance of having priorities will not. Your priorities matter. No one else is going to keep them important like you can.

My seasons have changed a hundred times since that moment, but the skill remains the same. We can always take the time to assess and evaluate our lives and our commitments. Once we do this we can take out what no longer fits (these might be those items that no longer serve us or just completely drain us). This doesn’t mean these things will never fit again. It just means they don’t fit for right now. We can then add in space in our schedules for simplicity and our priorities. It’s that simple. 

The most important part of all this is to actually take the time to step back and recognize your priorities. So many of us end up just going through the motions. We go through our college lives doing all the things we think other people want us to be doing or whatever our friends around us are doing. I did that so that you don’t have to.

Simply College is here to help you figure out what matters most to you. Once you figure that out, we can determine how you can best set yourself up to live out those priorities each semester. Your priorities will change. But the importance of having priorities will not. Your priorities matter. No one else is going to keep them important like you can.

What now?

I will have a few more posts about priorities as you gear up to start thinking about heading (back) to campus this Fall, as well as some practical ideas about how to set up routines and boundaries around these priorities. Please, as always, feel free to reach out (hello@simplycollege.org) if you have any questions or would like to meet to set yourself up for your best semester yet. 

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