Community Awareness - Learn how to Achieve your Goals

Learn how to Achieve your Goals

School, like most other things, is made for goals. Not every student thinks of it this way--in terms of planning, tracking progress, making adjustments. If they want to do well, however, they need to start. And so do you. Once you decide on the goal, your brain changes. It scans the environment differently, picking up cues and clues that you didn't see before. It approaches problems differently, looking for a way around and not reacting with frustration. Instead of letting the world zip by without notice, your brain snaps into action and works, almost subconsciously, to help you succeed.

Imagine you've just stepped outside your front door, ready for a stroll around the neighbourhood. There is no plan, no goal. You just walk forward. When you hit an intersection, you go whichever way feels better. Without a plan,  you are heading for trouble. You could get lost. You could wander into dangerous areas. You could go so far out that you're too tired to come back in. When you wander, you're at the mercy of chance and the world. This is true from finding your love in life to passing your college exams.

Don't approach school as a neighborhood stroll. Don't wait to be hit with good news or bad. Instead, approach it as you would approach a timed puzzle game. Set a concrete goal, form a plan, and start the ball rolling. If things don't go well, if you don't solve the puzzle, change your plan and dive back in. How you think about school is crucial. To get motivated, to get value out of any tips you find here, you need to have the right mindset. You need to look at succeeding in school as a matter of goals with all their fixings.

Some Concrete Examples:

Do you know how babies learn to grasp objects?

They first hold the object incorrectly so it drops from their hands.
And then they hold it incorrectly the second time and it drops again.
And then they hold it incorrectly for the third time and then it falls again.
And then they hold incorrectly for the fourth time and the fifth, and the sixth,
until they manage to find out the right way to hold the object.

Have you ever seen a baby that decided to quit learning and stopped grasping objects because it failed many times to hold them correctly? Sounds funny but the sad thing is that you do the thing that babies never do!

You try once or twice then give up because you failed without being aware that the only way to reach your goals and to get something that you want is to keep trying until you manage to find out the right way that works. Thomas Edison understood this fact and that’s why he kept trying 999 times until he managed to invent the lamp on the 1000th try. Thomas wasn’t trying to become rich or to do something that others did but he was trying to invent something that no one invented before yet he never gave up hope. Do you know why Thomas Edison succeeded? It’s because he understood that success is all about the number of tries.  When he was asked how he managed to continue trying even though everyone was making fun of him he replied saying “whenever someone told me you failed I replied saying no I didn’t, I just found another way if how to not to invent the lamp”.  In short Thomas knew that sooner or later he was going to discover the right way and that it’s only a matter of the number of tries.

The same happened with the English novelist John Creasy.  John understood that success was all about the number of tries and nothing more and so he kept submitting his work to different publishers who kept sending him rejection letters. When his name became known for being rejected he decided to submit his work with different names.  John got 753 rejection slips using his 14 different names.  However on the 754th attempt john’s writings were accepted and he published 564 books.  John Scatman used to stutter to the extent that he used to repeat each phrase about 6 times before saying it. At that point john didn’t just decide to sing but he decided to sing very fast so that even people who speak normally won’t be able to sing as fast as him. John kept trying and trying until he managed to release his famous album ‘Scatman’ which was considered one of most successful music albums at his time as more than six million copies were sold, quite an impressive number at this time. Warren Buffet the richest man in the world made his money from investments yet he was rejected in his early years and his tutor recommended that he chooses another career that is not related to the stock market.  Again Buffet understood that it’s all about the number of tires and that’s why he kept trying until he managed to reach his goals. Had John Creasy stopped trying, he would have never managed to become successful and he might have considered himself unlucky. Had John Scatman gave up so early you would have never heard of his name and he would have also considered himself unlucky.

Lucky people aren’t the ones who succeed from the first attempt, but they are the ones who keep trying and trying until they bump into the right opportunity and so become successful.  We create our own bad luck by giving up so early then we call it misfortune. If you think that you are not rich because you are not lucky then it’s time to get rid of this false belief and know that the day you stop trying is the same day you become unlucky.

...xxx...