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Alright, so you’ve hit a road block. Everyone does. Without meaning to trivialize your problems or sound preachy,  the question is what do you intend to do about it?

Success doesn’t come from having a supremely irritating cheerful optimism day in and day out. It can get rather annoying to sit next to an incessantly cheerful person without the thought going through your head, whether you can equally cheerfully throttle him/her.

Success however, comes from acknowledging the reality of the situation you are in, understanding you are stuck and there’s something that you are doing wrong and you don’t know what. So how do you proceed ?

  1. Accept that somethings are out of your control. But by no means allow that to become an excuse! Rework your plan. Be flexible to allow for time-eaters, time-wasters and time-swallowers.
    How do we differentiate between the three?
    Time- wasters: Completely non-value added work. Could this have been attended to at another time? Would the world have stood still if it was taken care of a little later?
    Time-eaters: Necessary, but non-value added. Solving other’s difficulties, answering other’s doubts over and over again, when you could have utilized that time for your own self.
    Time- swallowers: Whoops! where did I just spend 4 hours? The internet and its siren-like call ! You start off googling the answer to one question and before you know it, you have gone from click to click from buzz feed to FB updates to Wikipedia and around the world and back. Phileas Fogg and Jean Passepartout had it easy; they took 80 days.. You, my friend, managed the trip in 4 hours!
    So instead of beating yourself up and feeling guilty, here’s what you do.

  2. Understand that with entitlement comes hard work.
    You know you deserve the best. My friend, you have to work for it. The world is your oyster and the opportunities are tremendous. But they will not be offered on a platter. All the tools in the world will only work up to a certain extent. The actual results come with the work you put in. You can never meet a successful or confident person who hasn’t been a workaholic.
    Hard work pays off in many ways. Along with the discipline, it brings with it, the joy of having done a job well.
  3. Take the plunge.
    Be brave! Tackle the tough subjects first. Once they are out of the way and you are riding on the wave of accomplishment, the easier ones will be a cinch!

The process of getting an education and its related activities is stressful to students. However, some students tend to cope better with the demands made on their time as compared to others. Various factors such as time management behaviors and attitudes, stress and the students’ self-perception of performance and grade point average were studied.

The findings were significant in one of the factors – Perceived control of time. This variable had a significant correlation with the factors that were considered ranging from role ambiguity, job tension, job satisfaction, performance rating  and life satisfaction among others. As the students perceived they had more control over their time, they began to perceive lesser role ambiguity and overload as well as lesser tensions.

What it means in simple terms: While on first reading, it may seem very obvious, the study has far greater implications.

1. The perception of control over time has to do with taking responsibility.

Once you realize that you can make time work for you by removing unnecessary distractions, you are opening yourself up to the limitless possibilities of harnessing the power of that time. Breaking down the task into smaller pieces, setting long and short-term goals, setting a deadline and reviewing your progress against that deadline, prioritizing your tasks, organizing your workspace and not getting off-track with unforeseen delays – all these contribute to a systematic approach to studying.

2. Clarity of thought and job.

Understand why? Develop a sense of purpose. Everytime you sit down to study/ revise, ask yourself – Why am I doing this? Have a big picture in mind. A.L.W.A.Y.S. There is a reason that the subject you are currently tackling at hand fits in with that big picture. Knowledge never ever goes waste. Get your doubts answered. No point in running around like a headless chicken confused. Once you know what you are doing and why – there is a bigger buy-in with the entire process, and the tension reduces considerably.

3. Plan.

Do you know what you want from life? Where you see yourself 10, 15, 25 years from now? How are you going to achieve it? A clear focused plan of action will get you there quicker. Suppose you come across some hurdles? rework that plan. Not only does it teach you valuable lessons that life does throw some curveballs at you, but it also gives you the experience in strategizing and reorganizing.
Finally, A.C.T. on that plan.

The following series of articles will explore the reasons for success in a student’s life.

What makes  a student successful? Is it just intelligence, a capacity to mug up answers and spew them forth, greater retention? Or is it something more?

We believe that it is all this and more.. something that lays the foundation for the final goal.

Remember, your view of life affects your way of life. What does that mean? Success first begins with an attitude. It begins with a frame of mind – your frame of mind that enables you to think that something / anything is achievable.

Responsibility is the difference between leading and being led:
Taking responsibility for the outcome is an overlooked but crucial component of this step. It is one thing to say “I want to stand first in the Board exam”, but an entirely different one to say “I am willing to be responsible for my performance at the Board exam”. The world of difference lies in the fact that the second statement empowers you. It hands you the ownership of the situation. You begin to approach the study scenario with more ways to tackle it, rather than a defeatist approach that would end in blame of all sorts. You sit in the driver seat.

Educational Goals:
Ask yourself this: what am I doing here? why am I doing this? Where do I see myself a few years from now? The answers need not be earth-shatteringly grand. But they need to be honestly yours, nobody else’s. That is the heart of having a purpose. Review those answers periodically to see where you stand. They represent your goal like nothing else.

Question, question, question:
There is a fundamental reason some students are successful and others are not. The interested students question till they are get the answer they are looking for. the sources of answers may be varied – a professor, mentor, the internet, their parents, self-study. But they cannot stand the feeling of not knowing. However, understand there is a fine line in asking questions to understand something for one’s self and asking questions to prove that someone else doesn’t know. Respect your teachers for what they do know. And in case, the answer falls short of your expectations, look for alternatives to fill the gaps in your knowledge, not to show how much more you know. Question to learn.