SMART Student

Study to learn, not to succeed in school!

SMART Summary

Success in school is the definition of short-term. Don’t develop the habit of having a short-term focus. In fact, the further ahead you are thinking the better your decision is going to be, as a general rule in life.

Here’s some great tips to be a SMART Student:

Study

Study to learn, not just to succeed in school!

Studying to learn requires the ability to focus, concentrate, problem solve, think creatively. These are all life skills that are in decline as we accept a short-term focus for short-term results. Learning is not looking up factoids, skimming reading or memorizing information for the next test.

The last time I tried a Google search, there was no results for a professional Google searcher. Short-term exposure to ever shorter amounts of information is not learning.

Study for life, not for school.

TIP: It’s not possible to be interested in everything. Pick your perspective to make more subjects interesting and increase learning.

Measure

Measure your progress. Acknowledge your pace. The most important word in that phrase is YOUR.

School is a great time of life to find out who you are. Don’t follow the traditional, “typical” or “normal” path through school if it’s not right for you. Acknowledge your pace. If you don’t, it leads to comparison, unhealthy performance-based psychology or performance enhancing drugs, abusing yourself mentally, physically, emotionally and ultimately destroying the real you. It’s a time to discover and develop. Not self-destruct.

Arrive

Allow yourself to “arrive” at a destination.

Don’t live continually feeling like you’ve never arrived or aren’t making progress. Accept what you can do and move on.

Accept what you can do in real life, on any given day, with any given set of variables. Don’t live comparing what you could do on your best day with full strength, energy and focus – without anything else happening in life. Maybe you could do more on a different day, or like you did before, or like so and so. Today is today, with its unique set of factors and limitations. Do the best that you can today, accept the limitations, allow yourself to “arrive” at a destination and stick a pin in the map. Don’t miss the moment in real life by living in “could have” in your mind.

Review

Lots of academic and behavioral studies support that LEARNING – not information gathering – is iterative, progressive, and occurs in layers. You can intentionally layer your learning by setting aside time to review as part of your learning plan.

Review, repeat, rehearse. It’s not redundant, it’s review. You can’t accomplish in one night by stress and strain what is far easier to achieve in layers by developing the habit of reviewing and rehearsing information in smaller amounts. The goal is to LEARN, not just gather information.

Thankful

Be thankful for opportunities. Trust God for the future. Do what you can, take the opportunities in front of you.

It’s easier to steer a moving car. And if you are a learner vs. a professional student, you will find some value in the experience.

There is nothing good on the other side of ingratitude, despair and disappointment. Trust me, I’ve been there. Or visit there yourself and you’ll see.

Here’s a few DUMB things learned the hard way for you to avoid:

Graduating from school in debt, uneducated for real life, immature and broke is without a doubt the dumbest way to enter adult life. Don’t settle for any of these outcomes! None of these are inevitable! The difference between smart and dumb is your choice. The distance between smart and dumb is exactly the length between your ears.

Debt

This may be unexpected, but debt is not the same as borrowing money. Borrowing money, using credit, with no forethought or plan is always dumb, period. Using debt to finance a plan is second best, but not dumb, if you have a reasonable plan for how to escape it. Just remember it’s always more expensive to include debt in your plan than to pay as you go. Mindlessly accumulating debt and assuming it will all work out someday is dumb. You can do better, you can live better.

Uneducated

Uneducated for life. It’s a shock for some to go to school for 12 years, 14 years, 20 years then step off campus and discover you have no idea how to live in the real world.

iMmature
Maturity has nothing to do with age. It has everything to do with responsibility. In particular, accepting responsibility. It’s natural to reject responsibility for negative things. The more negative environment you have experienced, the more likely it is that you have developed the skill of deflecting responsibility. How common is it for you to think or say, “I’m not responsible for that”? And in most cases it’s probably true. I’m not talking about taking responsibility in a way that makes you a doormat or scapegoat for everyone else. But you also can’t live in a permanent state of deflecting every life experience or you won’t grow in maturity. 

There’s a big difference between being responsible for what someone else has DONE, that’s their choice, vs. accepting responsibility for your response.

You can’t control what other people do, and I don’t recommend trying. You may have learned that lesson in a painful way. Spending your time trying to control others is exhausting, you have no idea what may or may not happen so you are ever vigilant for any possibility. You are living in defense. Don’t live reacting, chose your response.

It’s more important how you respond to what happens than what actually happens. Taking responsibility for your response is the path toward maturity. Accept the responsibility to take charge at whatever starting point, and make progress from there. Your life is your responsibility. Don’t let anyone take that away or tell you differently. Personal responsibility may be out of vogue, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

Broke
Going through school and graduating “broke” financially and psychologically without having accumulated knowledge, developed skills, gained meaningful relationships or become more mature leaves you broke for life after school.
Don’t accept this outcome, invest in yourself.

You’ve made it this far, and joined in for a SMART Life. Great job!

Let us know how we can help and other topics you would like to learn about.