by Norman Halls, contributor
First and foremost, congratulations to the parents/guardians who pulled, pushed and pleaded with you to get out of bed and/or do your homework. Most of all telling you to pay attention in school.
Your parents may have said – to understand you have to have the capability to learn and be inspired. Your strong foundation provides the means for success in life and a professional outcome. The stakes are high, and the demands substantial. Anything that seems to block you professionally only stimulates your imagination and solidifies your drive. It’s possible they quoted, Dr. Roopleen who said, “If you have a dream, don’t just sit there. Gather courage to believe that you can succeed and leave no stone unturned to make it a reality.”
Channel all that energy into something positive. There’s no limit on what you can accomplish if you set priorities and focus on each task at a time. Innovation earns praise. Be careful what you wish for. Simply getting the job done may be less important than the resourceful way in which you accomplish your task. No matter how much you know, there is always more to learn. You are all about opening doors, not locking them up tight. Leave pipe dreams in the pipe. You may have grand designs for the future but right now your attention should be on more practical and tangible goals. Making changes in life is complicated by distractions of your creation. You may find yourself overreacting for reasons you don’t understand, so counting to ten before saying anything can be enough to prevent an unproductive path.
There is a Chinese proverb:
“He who asks a question is a fool for 5 minutes. He who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.”
Ever have someone tell you that you are not good at something? Ever lost confidence in your abilities? Stuff happens. It’s how you respond that matters. If you choose to be victimized by what happens, your negative energy will gain momentum. Sure, sometimes we all feel negative – as in, “go away and leave me alone, world!” for a while. But negativity can also wear a disguise called “reality.” Misguided frustration comes out in demands, pressuring, and coercion. But, it’s not about them. It’s about you. Stop waiting for others. Take Action! Your expectations mark energy at one, maximum few, variants. As a rule, they’ve been built in your mind already, not letting energy move and bring the best options to your life. Those around you push back when you push them. Push yourself. Energy feels negative when frustration stimulates complaining, blaming, and more frustration. But, in reality, energy is ambivalent. It just wants to do something. Wise leaders channel energy toward useful behaviors, rather than destructive.
- Choose courage over fear: to be successful, you have to have courage. Much of being successful is about going beyond what you think you’re capable of — venturing into the unknown. Whether you fail or succeed, you will learn and grow.
- Believe in yourself: Attitude is everything. A negative attitude decreases success and a positive attitude creates success. Without that belief in yourself, you’ll lack a path to success.
- Adopt self-chosen goals: Knowing and being clear about where you’re headed in college or business is something that must come from within. When your goals are selected by you, you’re more motivated to achieve them.
- The quality of our lives depends on questions that we ask: the quality of our lives is directly related to the quality of our thinking. The quality of our thinking, in turn, is determined by the quality of our questions, for questions are the engine, the driving force behind thinking. Questioning forms new patterns in the brain. The more patterns it forms, the more flexible it becomes. With flexibility, it can access more information already stored in your brain instead of reverting to the old patterns.
- Accept the challenge: There are few easy paths up a mountain and often they’re hard to find. Challenge will be an essential piece in any type of success in business.
- Be willing to take risks: There are no guarantees on any path to success in life or business. The unknown is always looming. Therefore, risk are often the mechanisms necessary for knowing more clearly if you’re on the right path.
You are off to college, you leave home and then all of a sudden, you’re expected to create your own structure. Right! Students have a few things in common. They want to ace assignments, thrive in classroom discussions, and want to overcome the challenges and have a college life. “The problem human beings face is not that we aim too high and fail, but that we aim too low and succeed.” – Michelangelo. Many students dismiss these challenges. With growth mindset you understand the abilities that needs to be developed. Believe in your ability. Determines success to be more resilient, skillful, hard-working, and persevere in spite of failure, and people who emphasize the importance of has the ability to move forward.
Positive thinking is an attitude that pushes you to expect good and desired results. Power of positivity helps you in creating and transforming energy into reality. Growth mindset helps you to seek happiness, health and a happy ending regardless of the situation. Training your mind to think positive can be achieved by leveraging a simple concept. Your mind only has enough capacity to focus on one thought at a time. What you have to do is keep it focused on uplifting thoughts until you form the same types of visual pathways that are created when you establish a new habit.
Robert Greene said, “The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways.”
The seriousness with which a problem is identified is the most important in finding good solutions. Many individuals, however, are not proficient at articulating their problems and identifying which ones are crucial to their strategies. They may even ask the wrong questions, which is the key mindset to solving any problem. A growth mindset is the understanding that personal qualities and abilities can change. It leads people to take on challenges, endure in the face of setbacks, and become more effective learners.
I’ll leave with this quote:
“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”?—?Mae West “
Remember to thank your parents and all the educators that helped you.
Good luck to you in any route you take, “may the Force be with you.”
Be careful it’s a jungle out there!
Thank you!
