March is mad for many reasons. In addition to college basketball and extreme weather variations, this is the time when many of us suddenly realize there are only a few weeks left in the semester. If you’re anything like the general population, chances are slim that you’ve kept your New Years resolutions. What happened to studying every day, to exercising a few times a week, and to balancing school and fun? Don’t despair. With guidance the past 20 years of research in social psychology, you can set more effective goals for yourself and have a better chance of being that person you wanted to be in January.

Choosing your goals

Choose wisely. Think about why you chose the goals you did in January. A long tradition of research in self-determination theory by Ed Deci and Richard Ryan, Ken Sheldon, and Richard Koestner shows that we are more likely to succeed if we are motivated to engage in these activities because we personally want to. If you only want to reach your goal to impress your parents or to make a lot of money, you should  reconsider and find reasons to pursue it for yourself.

You should also ask yourself if your goals would help you fulfill your three basic psychological needs: feeling competent, feeling connected to others, and feeling autonomous.

Approaching your goals

Think about how you frame your goal. Are you trying to do something, or not to do something? Research suggest you are more likely to succeed at the former.

Next, think about how you will go about achieving your goals. One of the main mistakes people make is to set vague goals with unclear plans for achieving them. Say you want to do well in school. What does “doing well” mean to you—getting a 4.0, or just the feeling that you gave your best effort? Setting a specific distant goal for yourself and deciding on a few short-term, proximal goals as stepping stones can help you get to that distant goal.

What happens when things inevitably go wrong? Peter Gollwitzer’s research at NYU suggests that if we formulate an “implementation intention,” our chances of reaching our goals increase almost exponentially. Using an implementation intention, you can predict certain obstacles that may occlude your path to goal achievement and plan accordingly­—for example, “If I get too tired to continue studying, then I will drink copious amounts of coffee.” Simple statements are actually shown to make corrective behaviou0r or thoughts almost automatic.

Don’t think about your goals as an all-or-nothing pursuit. Research on dieters at the University of Toronto shows that if you cheat slightly on your diet or miss a night of studying, you have not necessarily failed at your goal. Instead, this can be a learning opportunity.

You can do it!

Know that you can achieve your goals. An extensive line of research demonstrates that this confidence  leads us to exert more effort, focus our attention more, and be optimistic in the face of obstacles. You can do this by recalling previous experiences when you mastered a similar goal, thinking about role models, and making sure you have achievable short-term goals to boost your feelings of efficacy.

Goal-setting is a great way to examine your priorities and focus on what matters to you. Remember that you’re not in this alone, so seek support from friends and family to get you through. However, you must be internally motivated. In the immortal words of Yoda, “Do or do not, there is no try.”

The Tribune has published a number of articles in the how-to series this year. They have all been very helpful and for that you are welcome. One problem, however, with a lot of these articles is that they require wearing clothes. But, how do you get dressed? Here’s how:

First, wake up. While waking up, make sure you stay true to yourself and commit to your goals. There’s nothing worse than letting yourself down and with such a difficult task, you need make sure you remain faithful to your own heart. For the purposes of this article, you need to make sure you’re not wearing your day clothes while sleeping; That would just be cheating.

Next, get out of bed. It will be difficult to get dressed if you stay in bed all day. At this point, if you were wearing pajamas, you need to take those off. Be careful not to put your clothes on over your pajamas, you’ll overheat during the day and could faint in the middle of that big budget presentation.

If you feel like it, take a shower. For help on this, see the Tribune’s previous how-to on showering.

Before you try putting on clothes, you should make sure you’re fueled for the day, so have some breakfast. But before you go to the kitchen, consider putting on some pre-clothes—clothes you wear before you get dressed. Otherwise, feel free to eat your breakfast naked, but this might not be welcoming if it’s cold outside and you don’t have proper insulation.

Once you find your kitchen, which can be a daunting task in itself, decide what you want to eat. Once again, make sure you commit yourself to your decision. Breakfast is among the three most important meals of the day, so don’t screw it up. Also, for sustainability, use candlelight instead of electric lighting while making your meal.

Once your belly is full, head back to your room or your walk-in closet—wherever you store your clothes. Now you need to decide what to wear. Look out the window and see what other people are wearing. This will help you get a sense of what the temperature is like. You will also see what other people are wearing so you can make sure you don’t wear the same outfit, which would be embarrassing.

Next, throw open your closest doors and put some clothes on. Then take them off because you were wrong in your outfit choice. Put other clothes on and start your day.

Start by forgetting about writing a story. If you think you’re going to write a story, you’ll just end up disappointed. Don’t imagine characters as you spoon your Muesli in the morning. Don’t draw up a setting while sitting in the back of ECON 232, and especially don’t try to come up with a plot as you walk home alone, intoxicated on you don’t know quite what, at three in the morning. You’re not going to write a story.

You are not a writer. Writers write every day. Writers work at writing. Writers think about writing. What are you thinking about? Your girlfriend broke up with you last month; you spent far too much money this weekend; the French chick in the next row is pretty cute; your stomach is telling you it’s lunchtime. You’re not a writer. You’re a student, living on your parents’ dime, with nice-sounding hopes and dreams.

You must think you are special, that you have something blindingly true to share with the world, that you can reveal the beauty under the surface of everyday life, that you can transform and heal people. You are self-important. Nobody else was going to tell you. Give up your delusions of grandeur, even if you can’t admit you have them—because you do.

You have so many more important things to do besides writing a story. Everything in your life is more important. It’s more important that you do your laundry, that you wish your mother a happy birthday, that you apologize to the friend you’ve been avoiding since you got a little too drunk and spilled red wine on her expensive blouse. You need to get over your ex-girlfriend and stop masturbating to the pictures of her that are still saved on your laptop. It makes you feel dirty anyways. Writing stories will solve none of these problems. Writing stories will get you nowhere in life.

You wish you were a fully-functioning human being—able to form healthy relationships, to hold a job, to be someone who doesn’t turn violent or depressed at every obstacle he encounters. These are things that take a long time, and a lot of effort; you might as well get started now. You need to go to therapy—despite your claims of an ideal childhood, you’re actually pretty messed up. Any self-help book will tell you, the first step to change is overcoming denial.

Remember the day your dog died? Your mom came to wake you up at six in the morning to tell you that she had found Zilla curled up among the hydrangeas. You hadn’t even rubbed the sleep from your eyes before you realized you had lost your best friend. Your mom just sat on the edge of your bed, in her gray sweatsuit, sobbing. You didn’t want to go to school that day, but you did anyways. You held in your tears in front of your friends, and when you came home your father asked, “How was your day?” like it was any other.

Your feelings get stuck somewhere between your chest and your throat. You need to figure out what is going on inside you. Weird is not an emotion. You don’t feel weird. Use your words. Describe how the emotion feels. Where do you feel it? What images do you associate with it? How intense is it? You will need a lot of practice. Emotions are hard to pin down, and let’s be honest, your communication skills are lacking.

Yelling is not an effective form of communication. Yelling is not relationship building. Neither is being completely silent. You need to fall somewhere in between the two. Try speaking softly; it may help to bring out your vulnerability. You need to learn to be vulnerable. Your anger is just covering up your pain, and if you don’t address it, you’re only hurting yourself, and alienating those around you.

You’re not much fun to be around, except when you’re drunk. You’re a likeable drunk. I suppose you take after your father in a way. You always preferred him after he’d had a few. Sure, he may have smacked you a couple times, but he was generally more charming, more down-to-earth, and funnier too! You knew if he was slurring his words, that it was safe to crack a few jokes at his expense. He would take it lightly. And if ever he didn’t, you knew you could get away from him. He wasn’t very quick when he was drunk.

You were a sprightly kid, full of energy. You’ve lost a bit of that now, maybe it’s the pot, but maybe it’s something else. You would never call it depression, but the symptoms are there. You’re not going to think about it unless you’re forced to. That’s not the healthy thing to do. Distracting yourself doesn’t solve your problems. Come to terms with being alone in the world; things get easier afterwards.

You don’t have real friends. You call them your friends, but you don’t really know them, and they don’t know you. It’s a friendship of convenience, because you can’t party alone. Try to have a serious conversation. Try asking them about their lives. What are your passions? What are your dreams? What does love mean to you? It scares you to even think about asking these questions. You don’t want to deal with actually getting to know someone.

You care too much about what other people think. You worry about others’ judgments. Maybe it’s because you’re so judgmental yourself. You’re constantly putting others down. Maybe it’s because you don’t like yourself. Cultivate compassion. Accept others’ faults, and maybe you’ll be able to deal with your own. Look for the source of your dissatisfaction. What do you want out of life? This is a good question to consider.

Try meeting someone new, like that French girl from your class. You should ask her on a date. It doesn’t matter that nobody goes on dates anymore—ask her anyway. Take her to a museum, or propose a walk by the river; don’t take her to dinner. It doesn’t matter how the date goes. Be present. Listen to her, even if she talks endlessly about how she hates Americans. Pretend you’re Canadian, and sympathize. Don’t try and kiss her yet, even though you want to. Tell her you don’t want to go home. Walk with her towards her house, but don’t push the matter. When she tells you that her roommates are gone, don’t say anything; keep walking.

Kiss her when she sits next to you on the living room couch. Put your hand on her neck—she’ll like that. Let her take off your shirt. You weren’t expecting this, but go with it anyways. You want each other. Your mind is racing, everything is moving so fast. You’re not sure if you’re ready for this. Your ex keeps haunting your thoughts; you can’t concentrate; you can’t get an erection. Why is this happening? Just breathe.

Don’t accept the offer to spend the night. Revel in your post-coital glow. You may not feel this good for another year. Don’t worry about how you performed, or if she had an orgasm. These things are not important. Buy yourself a sandwich and take it home with you. Eat it slowly; savour it. This is the best sandwich you have ever tasted.

Call your father for the first time in two years. You still know his cell phone number by heart. Pretend it’s just a casual conversation. Talk about politics. Talk about the weather. Let him ask you the difficult questions: “What was it like growing up with me?” Answer honestly, even though you want to lie. Tell him he how he hurt you. Don’t try and fill up the silence, just listen to his breathing.

Look through the journal you kept as a teenager. Make the effort to read every word, even though the handwriting is messy. Cry over your high-school girlfriend. It’s okay, nobody will ever know. Remark how good it feels to have let it out. Decide that you will keep a journal from now on. You won’t write in it every day, or even every week, but every so often you’ll scribble something worth remembering in those yellow pages.

Call the girl from your class. You’ve been thinking about her non-stop. You know you’ll fall for her, but you can’t admit it to yourself just yet. Just call her and ask her what she’s doing that night. She’ll say she’s busy. That’s okay. You weren’t expecting her to be free anyways. Try to remember what she smelled like—sunscreen and honeysuckle.

Realize how full your life is.
Realize how full it has always been, but that the difference is your attitude. Notice small things throughout the day—your reflection on a sheet of ice, or the way the couple in front of you is holding hands—feel the urge to write them down. Begin to carry a notebook with you, but forget to write in it. Smoke a joint and have a revelation; come up with the answer to life. Figure everything out, and forget about it all by morning.

Note that you’ve stopped caring altogether about your grades. Remark how much more enjoyable school has been, and that you’re still doing just fine. Realize that you actually like learning, it’s just the external control and pressure that you hate. Skip class because it’s a beautiful day. Walk somewhere you’ve never been before, and watch people as they go about their lives. Pick out someone you find particularly repulsive. Acknowledge that he’s just as fragile as you. Feel the tension release from your body. Smile at him as you walk by.

Stop for a minute on your way home. It doesn’t matter where, just stop and stand still. It makes you anxious because you have so much to get done: finals aren’t far away, you promised your friend you’d go to his show, there’s that writing assignment you’ve been putting off, and you still have to eat. You don’t want to do any of that. You want to share the beauty you see in overweight men; you want to inspire people to confront their fears; you want to be somebody’s saviour. Forget about what you have to do. You are writing a story.

“You’re lying.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Okay, yes. So?”

“You’re trouble.”

“I suppose.”

He walked away. She followed. He put his hand on the doorknob. She put hers on his shoulder and turned him towards her. He frowned. She stepped closer. He tried to ignore her, but she baited him with a smile, reeled him in with a gaze and gutted him, for good measure, with a kiss. He sighed and returned to the table. He looked down at the money-filled suitcase. She caressed his neck. The door was now out of reach. He was staying, law and life be damned.

In the space between the bottom of my bare feet and the ground—that is where you loved me. No matter where you are standing, you’d say. An area of mosquitoes and dirt, but to you as captivating as any. Unfazed by your own strangeness, basking and romantic. At dusk we walked, a ritual among our many. Tirades of reassurance, stopping to debate the strangeness of a stranger’s license plate, the loudest crickets on earth. We lived in a city of warmth, a foreign city at times. How can I explain the way I wanted to be there more than anywhere yet could not stand to be there for a moment longer?

She’s looking across the table at me, but only because she’s trying not to look at him.

We met a couple weeks ago at some friend’s friend’s party and got to talking about our mutual hatred of our Russian Lit. conference. (I recognized her right away but I let her guess how she knew me for a while.) But I was a bit drunk and had to read her name off the attendance sheet today because I was too embarrassed to ask what it was again.

And then there’s him, Marco. My cheerfully oblivious best friend wouldn’t have noticed her anyways; he’s busy tapping away on some cartoony game on his phone under the table.  

I’ve been pretending to read along with our T.A. for the past five minutes, but I’m really busy coming up with the life story of the girl who’s been accidentally staring at me for a little too long now. So far she’s a vegetarian camp counsellor who hated her parents for making her learn the violin (even though she made it to first chair in high school), but I still can’t decide if she’s into lame art films or if she’s more of a shameless Katherine Heigl fan.

When I look up at her she quickly rolls her eyes at Whatever-His-Name-Is droning on about Tolstoy and smiles.

She’s wearing a tiny cross necklace. I bet she doesn’t believe in God.

After aspiring professor So-and-So stops talking mid-sentence when people start packing up, I walk around the table and ask her (Katie, unless I counted the number of seats she was sitting away from me wrong) if she wants to come with Marco and I to this open mic thing tonight at a record store. She glances at Marco, who’s still fiddling with his phone, and says yes.

As we leave the room Marco asks me what I was talking to her about.

“Nothing,” I tell him.

I meet her later on outside the campus gates, she’s wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a scarlet beret. Definitely not a Heigl fan.

“Where’s Marco?” she asks.

“He’s sick. Food poisoning I think,” I say, doing my best to sound sympathetic.

She’s disappointed but when we start walking and she tells me she’s never been to an open mic before I at least know she’s not dying to go home. She calls me by the wrong name (close, but still wrong) and then apologizes and says it was a “blonde moment.”

“You’re not blonde,” I say.

“I’m strawberry blonde,” she protests. “What colour would you call it?”

“Reddish,” I admit.

She groans and tells me I suck. We walk about a half block in silence and then she musters up the courage to say what’s really on her mind.

“So is this a date?” she asks.

“Do those still exist?” I say.

“What? Of course they do,” she snaps back.

“Do you think it’s a date?” I ask.

“No,” she says, a little too quickly.

I try to change the subject by pointing out the record store across the street. We walk inside and it’s a little less busy than I thought. There’s a small stage set up in the back corner with a few tables and about 15 other twenty-somethings hanging around; a couple are tuning guitars, others are talking or reading over poems on their crimpled pieces of paper.

There’s a bulletin board of photocopied gig posters, most for shows long passed. We walk towards the stage, (after putting out my arm with a theatrical “Shall we?”) passing rack after rack of overpriced vinyl records. I always thought the Wax Museum was just a stupid pun, but then it hit me how perfect it is: the best songs ever written sit around in racks or taped to hip kids’ walls, but no one listens to them—they’re just plastic decoration.

We sit down at a table and she pulls out a bottle of absurdly bright red lipstick, probably from Revlon’s Jessica Rabbit collection. The contrast between her lips and pale skin gives her an open casket kind of look that I’m trying really hard to ignore.

“Want some?” she jokes.

“Not from the bottle,” I say.

She laughs but turns her head away. Telling the truth wasn’t working, either.

A guy in a flannel shirt and knit cap takes the stage first, and plays a Jeff Buckley song so obscure that Jeff Buckley would’ve had a hard time remembering the words. His half-assed singing didn’t matter much; the song choice was the real performance. After as much applause as you can get out of a handful of kids trying hard to look like they don’t give a shit, he steps down and goes back to his table.

A guy in a plain but clearly expensive black hoodie and shiny jeans with carefully mussed hair hops on stage carrying a megaphone. He pushes the microphone aside, and starts speaking, softly at first, through his staticky electric conch:

I’m a friend request from a stranger.

I’m the Top 40 song you hate but you can’t stop singing.

I’m what you’re doing right now, with a witty hashtag.

I’m not listening; I’m BBMing and nodding my head.

But yes, I was the one who put those drunk photos of you on the Internet.

I am a fucking YouTube sensation!

Who am I? I am the modern man!

And I will never—I said, I WILL NEVER—apologize for it!

Just as fast as he was there he was gone, out the door and off to God knows where. Nobody clapped. Nobody laughed. Nobody said anything. We all just kind of sat there, looking for someone to roll our eyes at.

As exam time coincides with tax season, filing a tax return is the last thing on students’ minds. It’s unlikely that many students will file before the deadline on April 30. Furthermore, many students think they don’t need to file a tax return because they don’t make enough money to owe any taxes. While this is true, there are a few perks to filing your taxes that may give you an incentive, including putting a little extra cash in your pocket in time for summer.

First, filing a tax return entitles students to receive taxes withheld at source. For example, some employers may have deducted some tax from a student’s pay check. The basic personal amount for the 2010 tax year is $10,382. This means that the first $10,382 of students’ employment income is tax-free. Since most students fall in a non-taxable bracket, coupled with many credits available to them, they are certain to get back taxes that were deducted.

If students are 19 years of age or older, they are eligible to receive the GST/HST credit. This credit is meant to assist individuals with low and modest incomes to help offset all or part of the GST/HST they pay on the purchase of goods and services. In Quebec, students are also eligible to receive the provincial solidarity tax credit. This credit consolidates the QST credit, the credit for individuals living in northern villages and credit for the housing component.

Another reason to file a return is to get a refund of property taxes as a tenant. Students may be entitled to receive the refund if they were Quebec residents on December 31 and they were living as the tenant or subtenant of an eligible dwelling on that date.

In addition, students can claim tuition, education, and textbook amounts to allow them to reduce their income taxes in the current year or carry them forward in the future. Students can also claim interest they pay on student loans and their public transit passes.

Lastly, filing a tax return not only has benefits now, but also for the future. Filing a return creates Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) contribution room. This will allow students to make contributions immediately when they begin working full time. Deductible RRSP contributions can be used to reduce taxes.

Filing a tax return may be a confusing and arduous task to some; however, retaining the services of a good tax preparer will certainly make students’ lives easier as they concentrate on their final exams.

Kevin Nzomo is a McGill University student and works at Student Tax Prep Canada in Montreal, QC. He can be contacted at [email protected]