5 Skills Successful Students Have that Most Students Don’t
Successful students are people who balance their priorities in life.
They are arduous and productive workers but also loyal friends and persevering individuals. By every measure, they are different from most of their peers. In many cases, they have certain skills that others ignore or neglect.
In my experience, the following five are particularly valuable.
1: Time management
Most students waste time in one of two ways:
· Procrastinating and not getting any work done
· Spending most of the day studying and not taking any breaks
Neither lead to long-term success. Procrastination destroys accomplishment, whereas overworking encourages burnout — and both increase stress. Time management, on the other hand, fixes this: You avoid procrastination by making work non-negotiable and avoid overworking by setting boundaries and breaks.
Time is a precious resource for students, and time management is essential to avoid wasting it.
2: Practicing discipline, instead of relying on motivation
Most students complain about not having enough motivation to work.
In actuality, motivation neither dictates nor limits any of our actions. By pinning their shortcomings and failures on a lack of motivation, students shove blame onto something that is completely outside of their control. Few people know that they themselves are responsible for their own actions, and that only such discipline and self-awareness can lead them to actively embody the habits of a successful student.
Progress only comes from the consistent choice to keep going.
3: Persevering, instead of giving up
Oftentimes, students approach challenges in one of two ways:
· Fixed mindset: “I will never become better. My failure proves this.”
· Growth mindset: “I will become better. I can learn from my shortcoming.”
Having a fixed mindset does not bring you anywhere. The fact of the matter is: We are all here to learn. We must embrace the inevitability of challenge and failure, lest we cannot move forwards.
Challenges are coming anyway, and successful students meet these head-on.
4: Participating in class
There are many ways to participate in class:
· Asking questions
· Contributing to discussions
· Helping out classmates
· Taking notes
· Listening attentively
The key here is focus — and in particular, where it is directed. Successful students choose to do more than what is mandatory, and to use every opportunity they have to learn. This means putting their phones away and paying attention to the people that are speaking.
Without focus, we might miss the whole “studying” aspect of studying.
5: Focusing on the journey instead of the destination
Most students dream about the day they finish school.
They view their time at college or university as a temporary pain to a desirable end. This is unconstructive, because more often than not, they end up dedicating three or more years of their lives to this thing that they hate. Moreover, many people find their final destinations to be less satisfying than they hoped.
To combat this, thriving students make their journey just as enjoyable as their destination is perceived to be.
After all, the way we travel greatly impacts how successful we are in our journey.
Might as well do it well, if that’s the case.
