By Kimmi Sterner, 2014-2015 NIRSA Student Leader
One thing I’ve truly discovered this semester: it’s never too late. We spend our lives in such a hurry trying to make it to our meetings on time, meet our deadlines, and wake up before the sun rises. Being punctual is an essential quality to being a great employee, but sometimes our best realizations happen when we slow down and look at where we are rather than worrying about what will happen when we get there.
It’s never too late to reach your goals. I can imagine the stress some of you are feeling. Graduate assistant positions are popping up every day—quicker than they ever have before. Even if you’re not looking for a position this year, maybe you’re feeling a little frantic wondering if you have enough experience to receive a position when it is your time to be on the GA hunt. Those of us waiting for our perfect job to pop up on Bluefish are beginning to feel pretty nervous—at least, I know I am!
Well, guess what? There is absolutely no need to worry. Why? Because the fact that you care so much that you’re worrying just goes to show that you’re proactive enough to accomplish all you have set out to accomplish. I promise you that if you stay the course, you will end up in a wonderful place, doing what you love. If for some reason that does not happen, feel free to give me a call. But I would bet any amount of money that come May, my phone will not be ringing—great things will happen to all of you simply because you deserve it.
It’s never too late to create new goals. Life throws you curve balls all of the time. You can identify the path you want to travel down, go the extra mile on that path, and then all of the sudden there’s a fork in the road and you decide to take the route that you never even knew would be there. Why? Because you realize that route will take you toward your biggest dreams.
Maybe it’s a little unorthodox or it’s not what people would expect of you, but sometimes that’s the best part. Just because you’ve stayed on a course for so long doesn’t mean you can’t take a new direction with your life. It also doesn’t mean that you’re completely abandoning the road you were on or the people you were travelling with. Creating new goals is all about using your previous experience to create new opportunities and “aha! moments” for yourself and others in your life. If you’re not willing to explore, then you’ll never find what is meant to be found.
It’s never too late to make a difference. If you’re finishing up the last year of your graduate assistantship, beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel that is your senior year, or just reflecting on your remaining time at your institution, you might be worrying about leaving your mark or creating your legacy. Maybe you feel like you haven’t made the impact you want to make. I can relate. If I look back on my time here at Ole Miss, I can remember coming in thinking my success would be measured by the increase of participation in group fitness classes or the number of student employees involved in NIRSA. But life is about more than just numbers. Sometimes it’s the intangible qualities and events that leave the biggest marks. Don’t think about the outcome of your experience without first examining your process. Even if group fitness numbers did go up, that doesn’t mean I reached my goal in an effective way. I learned that my main focus had to be on the process of my experience, not the outcome.
It’s never too late to learn from an experience. In my academic program, Health Promotion, we learned that when creating and evaluating health promotion programs we have to implement process, impact, and outcome evaluations. Maybe we should try to translate those evaluations into our lives and our personal experiences.
As you go through these last few months of the school year, evaluate your process. Are you talking to everyone you want to talk to or accomplishing all of your little goals? Then, as the year comes to an end, we should challenge ourselves to evaluate our impact. Did your experience have the impact on your life and the lives of others that you wanted it to? Finally, when all is said and done, evaluate the outcome. Did you learn everything you set out to learn? Did you teach every thing you set out to teach? Get back to me on that one—I’ll make sure to get back to you.
I have learned that you really do not have to worry about what is next for you. Be proactive, know what you want, and let your positive attitude radiate. I promise the rest will handle itself. It’s never too late to leave your mark, meet a new person, or take the chance you’ve always wanted to take. Just because you might be leaving one place, does not mean you can’t begin a new adventure there. You’re not ending your story—you’re turning a page and writing another chapter.
Don’t make the story of your life a choppy one. Continue to take chances, tell people what you want to tell them, and seamlessly bring your chapters together so that when people read the story of your life, they won’t be able to put it down.
