the air

Periodically, I am bombarded with students complaining about their grades, their lack of interest, or the mundane details of how they were unable to do well on a test because blah blah blah. In short, I’m not interested. Why? I think too many students are focused on making up good bad excuses. As a student myself, I’ve come to terms with my poor performances and my grades. I’ve realized that most of the time, it is my fault due to a multitude of reasons. In fact, the most common reason is that I did not spend enough time on an assignment. However, occasionally, the error is on the part of the instructor in the form of not correctly adding up points or penalizing me when there was no error in my work. Needless to say, that is a rare event.

So what do you do? Over the years, I have developed a three-step process of moving forward. From my experience, I have realized vast improvement in my academic performance and a better self-esteem. Will this work for you? I don’t know, why not try it out? The three steps to effectively stop whining and moving forward:

1. Reflect
2. Analyze
3. Move Forward

Reflect

This is the part where you should simply whine and let your emotions over-run you. In my opinion, denying your emotions is a major mistake that should be avoided at all costs. Instead, it is a smart decision to simply let your emotions run wild and overcome you. However, the catch is that you should not dwell on your problem for too long. For example, when I got my first F in college, I was extremely upset and ended up being upset with my grade for the whole semester. The end result was that my grade was not changed and I struggled emotionally throughout the course. Unfortunately, I was forced to retake the class the following semester. What you need to do, and what I should have done, is simply be upset for a little while. Generally, this can be for a few minutes to a few hours. However, you should not dwell on your failure for more than a few hours. The trick is that you must come to terms with the fact that your grade on that assignment will not change. The quicker you accept that, the faster you’ll be able to move forward.

Analyze

Before simply “moving forward,” ask yourself where exactly do you want to go. This stage of the process simply has you understand what you did wrong and why it happened. Did you understand the material? Did you forget the concepts? Ask yourself all types of questions and try to answer why you failed. If you did not receive a grade that you were expecting, why not? These are the answers you must seek because they will tell you what you need to do to improve. Remember, before you can move forward, you need to understand why the problem occurred in the first place. Sometimes the answers are hard to come by, but I usually ask myself if I honestly put in 100% effort. Try to be honest with yourself. There is no need for you to lie and pretend that you did your best. Very rarely will you come across instances in which you did everything you could, but there was no luck. If that happens, don’t worry about it. Use the same techniques and move forward. Simply remember that you will try it again and hope for the best.

Move Forward

This is the last stage and is, in my opinion, the fun stage. This is where you develop a plan of action to remedy the mistakes you found in step two and act on them. Every day I meet people who simply talk big but don’t put their money where their mouth is. Now is your chance to go out and prove to yourself and others that you are going to succeed. Developing a plan of action is extremely important because it will tell you what you need to accomplish and how you will accomplish it. If you did not study enough for a test, a possible course of action for next time could be to start preparing earlier for that test. If you discovered that you “choked” on an exam, you may wish to consider “testing” yourself regularly before the test in “like-test” conditions. If you are having a hard time finding a solution or the cause of the problem, feel free to consult your instructors, advisers, or even your friends. You may find that you’ll be able to get help from people you least expected. A plan of action can be developed by simply understanding what it takes to fix your problems. Remember that and use that plan of action to move forward.

No Comments » | Random Post