lifeskills

10 easy ways to use the summer break to prepare for next year

The summer months are a good time to rest, catch up with family and friends at home, get some work (i.e. money) in, and so on.

photo by j-ster
photo by j-ster

The summer months also represent the perfect time to prepare for the next academic year. And you don’t need to spend much time to reap the benefits when you return.

Below are ten things you should do to get socially and academically fit for when you next hit campus:

  1. Read up in advance – You know roughly what you’ll be studying, you have reading lists, and you have a year or more of degree study behind you now. This is the best time to casually research your new topics and scan through (or even read) a few books.
    Work out both what you’re already familiar with and what leaves you confused. The whole point is to be confused in places and to get stuck once in a while as you check through. That way, you won’t approach the work blind.
  2. Write opinions and thoughts – After the initial research, get some notes down. Again, just be casual. You’ve got nothing to worry about, so say what you like. Even if you later discover you’re barking up a completely different tree, your eureka moment will be stronger and the detail will more easily lodge in your head. Result!
    As a bonus, anything with no right or wrong answer gives you an opportunity to start finding your way through the subjective minefield long before others are even aware of what’s going down.
  3. Write initial questions and concerns – Like I say, it’s good to find confusion and uncertainty in your initial dealings with new topics. The only way you can get a serious grip on finding out more is to tackle it head on with questions. There are no stupid questions. And you won’t be asking them anyway. These notes are for you to be aware. You might get answers in the first few minutes of the first lecture back. Even better, you’ll notice straight away once you’ve prepared, which is a more natural approach.
  4. Get administrative affairs up to date – Now is a great time to get stuff filled in, filed, organised, and set up in advance for when they’re needed. Don’t leave the paperwork and boring stuff until the last minute as you’ll end up losing it, forgetting it, and having to do it at the same time as EVERYTHING ELSE!
  5. Financial check – Do you have a spending plan? Will you need more money? How much will you rely on credit cards? What bills will you have? What is your shopping budget? How much do you have for evening entertainment?
    Nip those money questions in the bud with a proper budget plan. For any definite shortfalls, work out if you can cover them another way. If you can’t, seek advice on your options as soon as possible through your university and students’ union. Don’t go straight to more credit cards and commercial loans, because there are other, far better, avenues to try first.
  6. Use the Internet to find websites, crib sheets and summaries in advance – A quick look online can provide you with a wealth of information on what you’re studying. Just a couple of rough Google searches and a quick check in Wikipedia is enough to uncover major sites and subject summaries. And if you delve further, the sky’s the limit. You’re not limited to websites either. Use Google Books and Amazon ‘Look Inside’ for previews of books while you’re not near the uni library.
  7. Read your past essays and assignments – Never discard your old work. You might look back at something from only a few months previous and cringe. “Did I *really* write that!?”
    Yes you did. So learn from it. Examine tutor feedback and consider what you’d do instead next time.
  8. Spend a couple of hours on your future plans – What goals do you have for the year? Do you want to better organise your social calendar? Is there anything you can do to start on career plans long before you graduate?
    All you need is an hour or two to ask yourself questions about the life ahead of you and give the answers careful consideration. You may get stuck for answers, but at least you know what you’re up against when you get back to uni. You will be in a much better position to confront the issues and go in, guns blazing.
  9. Confront issues from previous year(s) – Just like reading past essays, looking back on past difficulties can be helpful. It’s not always best to dig up the past, but neither is it healthy to bury your head in the sand. When you want to do things differently next year, get your mind on the same side. Face those fears and limitations. You are more amazing than you realise.
  10. Prepare for a year of surprise and new experiences, not same old, same old! – There is always something different to enjoy at university. Even a tiny institution in the middle of nowhere has a veritable banquet of delights awaiting you. But you have to grab what’s out there. If you don’t, the initial excitement of ‘uni life’ turns into an ‘everyday life’. Excite yourself; dare to do something different!

None of this takes too long to do, so you’re free to enjoy most of the summer as you normally would. Yet you’ll still save you loads of time when you do get back to uni.

All for a little bit of forward planning. Good times!

Fearing the Unknown

The unknown tends to get in the way, doesn’t it?

You want to know what questions will come up in an exam, but that is unknown until you sit down and turn the paper over.

You want the party to go well because you’ve prepared so much for it. But you won’t be sure until the party’s over.

You have a job interview coming up. You understand the type of person the company is looking for (you, of course!), but you still don’t know what type of questions the panel might throw at you.

These situations can easily eat away at you. You imagine a million and one possible scenarios and outcomes. You panic over the negative thoughts going through your head.

photo by zetson

photo by zetson

None of those million and one scenarios turn out to be the correct one in the end. Often, you’re not even close. And the negative stories always drown out the positive ones in the end.

Not exactly a recipe for clear thinking.

I noticed this before a recent family gathering. Twenty of us were meeting up from all over the country for a special meal in a posh country restaurant. One of the organisers felt a tinge of responsibility and felt that everything had to pass off perfectly. Should anything go wrong with the orders or the timing, they thought the blame would be theirs.

The stress built and built. There was no need for it. The meal was great. Was it really worth hours of stress beforehand?

It made me wonder why the unknown is so good at making us weaker at the very time we’re trying to be strong.

Then it struck me. A very simple thought that makes a lot of sense:

It is much easier to attach importance to non-events than it is to attach importance to *the* event.

Why? Because there are so many non-events swimming around your head, ready for you to re-enact whenever it suits. But there is only one actual event. And since it hasn’t happened yet, it’s easy to latch on to non-events.

It’s right to be aware of unknowns, but it doesn’t help to worry about them beyond initial awareness and preparation.

A while back, I was going for a meal with a group of old school friends with the aim to catch up and look back at our past. The food was a general focus, but the company was more important.

It could have been so easy to worry:

  • What should we talk about?
  • Will people have changed?
  • Have we picked a good enough restaurant?

But I didn’t bother. It was impossible to know what the future would hold. So I went without rehearsed expectations and concerns.

And then it all went wrong. In all the right ways…

It began when I didn’t get a starter along with everyone else. I guessed it would come along soon. After a minute or so, my friends stopped waiting and got stuck in to their food. They didn’t miss the opportunity to make a big deal of how delicious the food was!

Plates were cleared and main courses were put out. I hadn’t got my starter.

Guess what? I didn’t get a main course either.

The joke was now a big part of our conversation. Not getting my food had become the entertainment. None of us were going to forget what had happened.

None of us could have predicted this either.

The waiter asked how we were enjoying the food. This in itself got a big laugh. I replied, “I couldn’t comment on the food, because I haven’t eaten any yet”.

After explaining the issue to the waiter, he made a rather embarrassed apology and ran off to sort things out.

The thing is, he didn’t. Other staff came out of the kitchen and handed my friends their desserts. To make the hat-trick, my pudding didn’t turn up. My entire order had disappeared and, it seems, so had the waiter.

At this point, the manager was walking about and casually asked us if we were enjoying the evening. When we, still full of laughter, explained why the evening had been so great, the manager went nuts and promised to sort things out.

Finally, my starter arrived just as everyone was finishing the pudding. It felt like I’d been parachuted into a sitcom.

But the entire disaster helped to create an amazing evening. And to top things off, the manager was so apologetic about the oversight that she offered the full meal on the house and let us have more drink as a further sweetener.

Who’d have expected this to happen? When life delivers so many curveballs, what is the point in worrying about the unknown?

  • Stay calm –  Take a walk, talk to a friend, smile, close your eyes and take a deep breath, accept the uncertainty and embrace the possibility.
  • Let go of false control – Personally reject responsibility for anything that you don’t have control over. Give yourself that peace. No matter how much you wish you could control it, you must accept it when the issue is out of your hands.
  • Do more research – Worry about the unknown can develop when you don’t know enough about what you’re stepping into. If you have a question that has an answer, seek out that answer!
  • Ask for help – If you’ve done the basic preparation and you still can’t let go, reach out to others. It’s not weak to ask for help. A few words of reassurance may be all it takes to remove those fears.

Preparation is fine. Acknowledging the situation is fine. Trying your best is fine.

But is it worth going beyond the basics and attaching so much importance to non-events? After all, it hasn’t happened until it has happened.

How to Fail Brilliantly

None of us want to fail. If you could pass everything with flying colours, you would.

However, that requires work.

When you put the effort in, not everything is perfect. You have to get used to it. You’re going to fail once in a while.

original by action datsun
original by action datsun

So why not fail brilliantly? Here’s some help on how to use failure to your advantage:

  • Separate aspects of failure out of your control from those you can deal with – Control freaks don’t appreciate matters that are out of their control. Nevertheless, they exist. Anything you can deal with, concentrate on that. As for the stuff you don’t have a handle of, be aware of it as a random force.
  • Spend more time on rectifying, not blaming – Now you’ve worked out what’s outside your control, work out how best to move on. Don’t attribute blame to others in the process. Spend time more fruitfully: work with others to reach a more favourable conclusion; choose other variables/individuals with better potential; bypass the problem areas completely, if possible. Time spent solving problems is more effective than wasting time accusing others.
  • Analyse why the failure occurred – If you don’t know why events unfolded the way they did, how can you learn from the failure? Take stock of what happened before you try again. For any elements that don’t make sense, try finding out more in that area before moving on.
  • Accept – Sometimes we make the same mistakes again and again due to denial. It *has* to work this way.
    But does it really? Okay, certain situations may succeed eventually with a bit of patience and better circumstances. But most situations will fail until you do something different. Don’t be stubborn if other opportunities arise. Be open to change. You can’t be right all the time!
  • Understand which aspects of the situation *were* successful – The end result may not be perfect, but failure doesn’t mean you must start from scratch. What you do isn’t usually characterised by a succeed/fail mentality. There’s a lot of movement in between. Use the mini successes within a bigger picture fail until you have a bunch of mini-successes from start to finish.
  • Use failure as part of a process, or as a tool – You don’t pick up a tool and use it without learning a bit about it first. Even if it’s only the basics. Before mastering a process or tool, you spend time learning, developing and experiencing. Failure is one step closer to success because, without failure, success can’t happen either.
  • Be responsible – A lot of failure can be turned around by taking a bit more responsibility. Imagine working your butt off for an essay and only getting a bare pass. Then imagine all that hard work was condensed into 48 hours before the essay was due in. You knew it wouldn’t be best to leave the assignment until the last minute, but for many, that’s exactly what happens. It’s what I call a ‘covert failure’. By taking responsibility from the outset, you can manage the situation more clearly and work your butt off without breaking into a sweat. From covert failure to double win.

Now you can fail better, you may still not like failing. Don’t worry, I’ve got tips on how to pick yourself up after a fall too.

Now get out there and start failing, you awesome person, you!

9 (Random) Secrets to Success

You want success and you want it quick. What do you do?

original by lululemon athletica

original by lululemon athletica

Here are nine secrets to help in your quest:

1. There are no secrets

Busted my own post straight away. But that’s fine. Because there are no secrets. There are no quick fixes. There is no narrative. Stuff happens. As scary as that seems, it can be a whole bunch of fun too.

2. Numbers are great

I arrived at nine secrets because I quickly wrote down a list with nine points. It could have been eight or ten secrets. In fact, it could have been 100 secrets that I boiled down to nine. Whatever the case, numbers are sexy. Unless, of course, you disagree. I’m willing to be wrong about it…

3. Be Right & Be Wrong

Kathryn Shulz asks people how it feels to get something wrong. It sucks, doesn’t it? Actually, what sucks is finding out that you were wrong. Getting something wrong feels just the same as getting something right. It’s only when you find out that you feel a particular way. So there’s no harm in being wrong. Be wrong, learn from it and move on. If you’re never wrong, how can you learn anything?

4. Do Nothing & Do Everything

Comfort zones are misleading. Why does it feel so cosy when you fail to stretch yourself? How can plodding along the same old path feel nicer than a voyage of discovery? Sometimes it’s good to have fun with what we recognise. That’s where doing ‘nothing’ new is necessary. Other times it’s good to go places we’ve never even imagined. That’s where ‘everything’ else comes in to play. The old saying ‘the world is your oyster’ doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do something more than once. It means you can make good use of everything available to you. So don’t miss the opportunity!

5. Debate and engage, but don’t accuse

We have different opinions on everything. Your closest friends and family may be soulmates, yet there will always be the odd occasion when you don’t see eye to eye. It may be of no consequence, but a difference of opinion – no matter how obvious it is to you – doesn’t mean one of you is right and the other is wrong. Debate and argument is fine, but the moment you accuse someone of personally being wrong, the moment you close doors on yourself…just to be ‘right’. As soon as you start pointing out an individual or a group as ‘wrong’ or ‘stupid’ or anything negative, you’ve gone beyond a debate. Accusations are rarely helpful.

6. Move on

Once you’ve finished something, stop dwelling. You may still use it, refer to it, and have related dealings with it, but when it’s done, it’s done. Worrying about what has already been takes up valuable ‘doing’ time.

7. Make up your own secrets to success

See Point 1. It took me a few moments to jot down these ‘secrets’. I hope they help. In many ways, they help me. That’s why I noted them down. Note down some of yours.

8. Know when to stop

This ties in with Point 6. Before you move on from something, you have to finish. It can be hard to find a natural point to finish. The desire to find that non-existent ‘perfect’ is strong. As you obsess over the work, the more time you spend on less stuff. An hour spent trying to get a single sentence ‘right’ is time you could be spending more productively. When it comes to worrying over minor issues, it’s probably time to stop.

9. See Point 8.

Now you’ve got the nine secrets. That’s everything you need. Or is it?

Of course not. Secrets to success are vague. They aren’t a step-by-step guide to guaranteed brilliance and perfection. They don’t tell you what to do, but they start to outline a bigger picture. Think of it as a scaffold to greatness.

For example, Tweet Smarter’s ‘three-step program to Twitter success‘ is:

  1. Care and listen
  2. Engage and question
  3. Respond and adapt

That advice leaves you pretty open to everything. It’s up to you how to care, how to listen, how to engage, and so on. Realising the importance of these things is a good place to start though. The success will still be entirely yours, and you’ll have earned it.

Similarly, Mr.SelfDevelopment highlights ‘5 Keys to Success‘:

  1. Preparation
  2. Work
  3. Remember the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”
  4. Confidence
  5. Lead

Again, you’ve hardly been given a detailed plan to conquering the world, but those vague nuggets suggest you have to put in your own effort before success reaches your grasp.

That’s why there are no secrets (my Point 1), making it doubly important to create your own secrets (my Point 7).

What is important to you? What drives you? What spurs you on? What helps you help others? Take responsibility of what comes your way and the secrets of success won’t seem quite as secret as they did before…