As the end of the semester approaches, many students must face end-of-term projects, final exams and possibly graduation. College can be stressful during these last few weeks, so it’s important to remember that it’s okay to treat yourself, especially when you’re celebrating success.

Throughout the semester, there’s a lot that needs to be accomplished. To make sure that you achieve these goals to the best of your ability, it can be helpful to incentivize yourself. For example, you can say that if you get all As this semester, you can treat yourself to an expensive luxury like a spa day, a new pair of shoes or a trip to Chicago. 

However, it’s important to remember that you need to set up goals that are going to be challenging. It’s not really much of a goal if you know you can achieve it with little effort. But if you want to push yourself and succeed in doing so, you should be allowed to spoil yourself.

Setting up an incentive can not only be nice towards yourself, but it can also make an experience worthwhile. If you’re in a class that you’re not overly fond of or just don’t care about the material, make yourself a goal to pass the class with a certain grade. In return, you can reward yourself.

However, when you treat yourself, make it once in a while. Not only is it a financial liability to continuously indulge yourself with more expensive gifts, but it also makes the experience less special. Also, make your rewards on an equal level to your goals. I know that when I graduate this spring, I plan on buying myself a pair of Air Jordans. But if my goal is to make it through a really hard week, I’ll probably just get some Panda Express.

So if you’re stressed about finals week or your thesis, just do your best and, if you do well, take some time to relax and reward yourself for your hard work.