Mindset for Academic Success (Part 1)
This masterpost is the crux of my 14 years of academic experience and what I believe has led me to succeed academically whenever I have. Mindset matters a lot because you manifest what you believe in. Believe it or not, much of your behavior is rooted in your mindset and beliefs, whether or not you’re consciously aware of it so it’s important to pay attention to what drives you to your actions.
♣️ Do not expect yourself to achieve what you think you cannot
This is something all who want to achieve high struggle with. Self-limiting beliefs. If you want to achieve 100/100 in physics, you have to believe in yourself that you can. You can’t achieve your goal no matter how big or small while simultaneously thinking that it’s too big for you to achieve. Nothing is too big if you are determined to get it. In times when no one believes in you, you have to have faith in yourself. If you expect yourself to achieve ‘that’ goal, then believe that you can.
♣️ Be mindful of the content that you consume and the lot you hang out with
This is the most important thing to look out for. We mirror what we see and whom we are with. Watch that what you want to do. Be with those that you want to become like or with whom who share your aspirations. Manifest what you want your future self to be. Let’s say you’re an aspiring medic. Consume the content of med students on YT, tumblr and other social media apps rather than mindlessly watching others’ stories on IG in which you have no interest . Whether you’re mindful of it or not but what you see and who you’re with, you become them. Please, don’t give into peer pressure and get in with the wrong lot. I’ve seen countless girls going downhill because they didn’t have friends so they befriended the wrong people. I reiterate, do NOT give into peer pressure. You’ll get a friend when someone is worth being a friend with.
♣️ Be very very specific about your goals and aspirations
I once heard a lecture of Jordan Peterson in which he said that many people don’t specify their goals because they’re afraid of failure, it’s stinging pain. So they keep themselves in a haze and so end up not achieving anything great in life at all. Which is utterly true since I’ve experienced it myself. So be specific about what you want to achieve and map out all the details of your journey to get there. I’ve always achieved all my goals which I specified and you’ll too.
♣️Define your own success and failure
What you deem as success might be a failure to me and perhaps my idea of success doesn’t co-align with your concept of success and failure. Let me give an example. Say a person gets 17/20 marks , for a person used to getting 12/20, this is a success while for the one who normally gets 20/20 this is a failure. The former one will congratulate our person under observation, while the latter will not. So our person won’t be able to decide whether to feel happy or not. This is the danger for those who don’t define their successes and failures that, as a consequence of not having their own definitions, they’ll rely on others’ and each other has a different benchmark.
♣️Don’t let your successes or failures define you
Define your success and failure but don’t let them define you. You’re not your failure but you’re not your success either. In other words,don’t tie your worth to your achievements or your failures for that matter (as mandated by this post on self worth) You are your hard work, your efforts, your thoughts, your perceptions, your beliefs. You are much more than your grades and achievements.
♣️A little altruism won’t hurt you and others’ success isn’t your failure
Helping others with studies or anything else won’t be much for you most of the time. But perhaps it might turn around someone’s world. Don’t hold back information and knowledge from your peers because knowledge isn’t like water that finishes when shared, it is like fire that ignites others’ candles too. If the whole class succeeds and gets better grades, wouldn’t it be more fun to rejoice together than succeeding alone?
♣️No matter how far you’ve come, there’s always room for improvement
Sometimes we become very well-versed in a certain discipline or any sport for that matter. so this thought crosses our head, “this is it!!” Let me tell you, dear friend, there never is it and if you think that, you’ll come tumbling down the cliff you climbed so hard. There’s always a room for improvement and if you fail to find it, you are in danger. Don’t let overconfidence take over you. Ever.
♣️Embrace your mistakes, reflect upon them and never repeat them again, ever
We all make mistakes because it’s inherent part of our human nature, but what sets apart high achievers from the rest of the students is that they let their mistakes be the guiding lamp posts to their weaknesses and once they spot their error, they never repeat it again. Making errors is excusable but not learning from them is not.
♣️Enjoy the grind while you’re at it
My very favorite literary character, Anne from Anne of Green Gables says, “It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.” And I didn’t understand it until I made up my mind to have fun studying and enjoying it. Now my favorite part of the year is when I have more than ten tests a week and I’m drowned in work. It’s fun for me. Grind hard but enjoy it too. You’ll have to work hard in life and if you can make yourself have fun in it, it’ll only add to the quality of your living.
