Realizing Your Potential as a Student

Written By Colēgia

Within us lies a limitless well of potential that we can tap into. It may be hard to see it in the moment but we are capable of doing many great things as a student. Today we want to take some time to talk about how and why you need to realize your potential.

Celebrate Your Success

Oftentimes we may take a lot of our successes and accomplishments for granted which can be detrimental to us. While our self-worth is more than a culmination of our accolades, these can help motivate us to do better. Small victories such as finishing our homework can help build up confidence within ourselves. This is needed as working our way up to harder tasks can only be done in a gradual manner. Doing something such as a project or group assignment requires us to have an understanding of the fundamentals from other areas in school. Being happy with your accomplishments is a simple, yet effective manner to let yourself know that you are exactly where you need to be. Being patient with your progress is good as it can let you learn all the necessary steps beforehand. There is a reason why events such as graduation are as important as they are, they are the combined efforts of everything you have done as a student in a grandiose manner. Cherishing the little victories and making every success feel like a mini graduation can make learning fun.

“While our self-worth is more than a culmination of our accolades, these can help motivate us to do better.”

Take Time to Learn About Yourself

School is a time of self-discovery and this holds true at every grade level. One way that many people do this is by finding out what sort of major or subject interests them. For some, it can be something that they know they want to do early, but for others, they may discover that passion later. Both approaches to this are valid and benefit people in different manners. Maybe there's a course that is only available in later grades such as chemistry, or philosophy that you are interested in. You don't need to have an answer to this immediately. There is a reason why many colleges have the last two years of a curriculum to be highly focused on your major. One reason is that it can provide a holistic and well-rounded education to help for general knowledge but another benefit is that it can help you decide what you enjoy. Your education is a marathon, not a sprint and you have a lot of time to discover and learn about your interests. Ideally, this is something that is fun as you can only realize your potential when there is a genuine passion behind what you do.

“School is a time of self-discovery and this holds true at every grade level.”

Create a Goal System

Goals and the process behind them is one of the best ways of realizing your potential. One great method to do this is to use the “smart” goal system which stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Based. Each of these components can be used in many areas of your life even outside of school. A good example of this would be a goal to improve your test score from a 70% to an 80%. It's specific because you have an end point in mind, it's measurable by the percent increase, it's achievable because it only requires you to perform 10% better than before, it's relevant because you want to improve, and it's time-based because you'll need to be ready by a certain time frame. Another example would be getting a better time while doing track and field. Being able to quantify what you have to do by either a number or by making actionable steps is needed for this kind of improvement. Finding joy in the actual process itself also matters as we want to see the good aspects of what we do.

Realizing your potential is something that is done at a gradual pace but it's ultimately to your benefit. Loving what you do and having something to work towards can give you purpose in a positive way. Give yourself the space to grow and you will be capable of accomplishing anything you set your mind to.

Colēgia

Colēgia

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