Future Business Leaders: Are You Ready to Embrace Your Fresh-Start Moment?

Summer 2025 is more than a chance to leave that backpack – textbooks sprawled – languishing for a few months on the floor. It’s an opportunity to change and grow.

When Angel R., a senior at Southwest Miami Senior High School in Florida, U.S., began exploring Wharton Global Youth summer programs, he thought, “I’ve always been the type of person to jump into the fire and throw myself into new experiences. What better way to gain more business experience and financial knowledge than going to another country, adapting and learning everything I could?” Ultimately, Angel attended our Strategy and International Management program in Cambridge, U.K.

“Research shows that once people are taught the truth of the malleability of almost every trait and that they are growable, they can improve their performance.” –Katy Milkman, Professor, the Wharton School

Angel embraced the possibilities on his path to business leadership by doing something entirely new. Katy Milkman, a professor of operations, information and decisions at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, says summer is a perfect time to make a fresh start.

“These are the moments in life when we perceive chapter breaks in our stories,” notes Milkman, who co-directs the Behavior Change for Good Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania and is the author of the book How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. “Chapter breaks motivate us to pursue our goals, because they give us a sense of a discontinuity. We feel like we’re separated from who we were before the chapter ended — that was the old me and this is the new me. That separation gives us a sense of optimism that whatever wasn’t quite clicking for us before or that we hadn’t quite achieved, is no longer holding us back. We can do it in this new chapter. We have all sorts of data showing that in every domain, from exercise to healthy eating to educational, environmental and financial goals, upticks happen at fresh-start moments.”

Here are a few data-driven strategies that Dr. Milkman and her colleagues have studied to make the most of those moments:

1. Set specific, measurable goals that stretch you slightly beyond your current abilities. Dr. Milkman points to SMART goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.
2. Create detailed action plans with clear triggers and cues for when you’ll pursue your goals, because vague intentions are easy to procrastinate on. “A bad goal would be: Get healthy. A good goal would be: Exercise three times a week for 30 minutes after class, at 5 p.m. at the gym on the elliptical while watching my favorite TV show,” says Milkman.
3. Build social support by finding partners or mentors who can help you stay accountable (this might even be new friends you meet in a summer business program). “The social support piece, a partner in goal pursuits, can help with your confidence,” notes Dr. Milkman. “Ideally, it’s a partner who’s a little ahead of you on the course, so you’re being pushed by them, but who also can learn from you to some degree, so that you’re not just the mentee.”
4. Adopt a growth mindset and begin acknowledging setbacks as learning opportunities rather than failures. “We can intentionally recognize and adopt a mindset that believes missteps are not a mark of our incompetence or our abilities, but rather opportunities for growth,” notes Milkman.
5. Break larger goals into smaller, manageable weekly or daily tasks.
6. Choose goals that are challenging but not exhausting, maybe 10% harder than your current performance. Think of this as leveling up. “It should stretch you a little bit beyond what you’re already achieving, but not to the point of collapse,” suggests Milkman.

As you chase new opportunities, it’s essential to believe in your capacity to grow. “Ideally, people want to intentionally adopt a growth mindset when pursuing their goals,” stresses Professor Milkman. “Research shows that once people are taught the truth of the malleability of almost every trait and that they are growable, they can improve their performance in things like math at school. It’s helpful to understand that you’re not born with innate intelligence or innate anything. Almost everything is growable with work and effort, and recognizing that gives you a leg up in goal pursuit.”

How will you make the most of your fresh start this summer?

Conversation Starters

Dr. Milkman’s Behavior Change for Good Initiative uses the science of behavior change to help individuals and organizations achieve goals that are good for the world, and it speaks to her deep interest in behavioral economics. Read this past Wharton Global Youth interview. How do Dr. Milkman and her colleagues use the mega-study methodology to study business? What do you find interesting about their research?

Which of Dr. Milkman’s fresh-start strategies resonates most deeply with you and why?

We often label ourselves or believe the labels that others give us. Does this concept that all traits are growable surprise you? How does it change the way you will approach new opportunities?

How did you make the most of your chapter break this summer and how did it help shape your path toward business leadership? Share your story in the comment section of this article.