Fall season is amongst us and many people are either going back to school or starting college. While it’s an exciting time full of changes and opportunities, including meeting new people and learning new things, it is also a time fraught with mistakes.

Starting college is a time for many to start new a new chapter of their life and turn over old personalities for new ones and develop new habits. Of course, for many starting college is also a time of partying and experimentation. At Man of Honor, we would never discourage partying and discovering your edges and boundaries, however, starting college is also the time to prepare for a better future, develop into the man you want to be in the future, and establish good habits. So we created these top advices to help you to use your college years to prepare for a good future through and beyond your schooling years.

1. Go to the gym: your college schedule will be very different from your high school schedule. Straight from the get-go, you’ll notice how much more free time and flexibility you’ll get. Use one hour of your day during these free-time in between classes to go to the gym and workout. Maybe you go twice a week or three times a week, or even everyday, just give yourself one these hours to develop this healthy habit of going to the gym and you can do whatever you want all those other free extra hours you’ll have lying around, and let this habit carry forward for the rest of your life.
2. Eat healthy: Develop a healthy eating habit for even just one meal a day. We recommend lunch as dinner tends to be more difficult with all the extra curriculum that occurs in the evening. We know healthy eating is not easy on a student budget nor a school cafeteria, but you get meal money and a cafeteria with options. So maybe use lunch to load up on a plate of whole, plant-based foods. With the amount of unhealthy behaviors you’ll most likely participate in while in school, this will be a huge difference maker in your ability to keep going. In a similar light, don’t do drugs and don’t drink yourself into an oblivion; we don’t promote underage drinking but can’t stop anyone either. Trust us, partying isn’t fun when you pass out. Have fun with alcohol but develop a healthy relationship with it.
3. Join clubs and activities: Get involved! This is a chance for a new you, a better you so get involved! College and universities are full of clubs and activities for all kinds of interest. Find things you enjoy doing and find things that are new and challenge your comfort zones. Find organizations about causes you care about. You’ll find that this will expand your knowledge and experience, help you make friends, and help you develop future leadership skills.
4. Do your homework: It’s easy to fall into a life of partying and having fun in college. But never forget why you are there in the first place: to learn, develop into a good person with a successful career. With that said, we get it, it’s college and we all want to party…and lots of it. So do your homework first before you party! Again, the college schedule gives you plenty of time to do a lot of your homework before the evening activities start. Give priorities to your homework and grades, then party all you want. We don’t care how much you party, but do your homework first. In the same vein, don’t look at home as punishment anymore. College is full of interesting classes and learn to love to learn for the sake of learning. You’ll find that the life awaits you after college will have you revisit a lot of the classes you took and/or should have taken. You’re paying lots of money to be there, enjoy the knowledge.
5. Personal development: Start some sort of personal development journey now. Read books, develop good self-care habits, learn social dynamics, or even have a small job or start building some sort of company. Find good people to hangout with. You’ll find that many of your adult habits and skills are being built now. You may not use all of it or you’ll may forget it, but college is a good time to start building yourself a skill set.

College is really supposed to be some of the best years of your life, but it is also a time where there will be a lot of responsibilities. Prioritize your health and studies first, as long as they are prioritized first, trust us, you’ll most definitely learn that you can work hard and party even harder.