How to do well academically. How to study effectively, how to ace your tests and how to crush those homework assignments even when you have barely any time to do them. But of course, successful students don’t just do well academically,

They do well all around. So, that begs the question, what separates truly successful students, who have it all together in all areas of their lives, from everyone else?

Today we’re going to cover eight habits of Successful Students and People, which I have read But these eight habits are unique. These come from my observations of people that I know who are successful and things I’ve tried to cultivate in my own life and I think every single one of them is going help you in the upcoming semester.

THINKING AHEAD:

To start things off, successful students are forward thinkers. J.R. Tolken wrote in, The Hobbit that,

“It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.” And as a student, you have a lot of live dragons to contend with. Not just on the academic side of things but on all fronts. You’ve got your career plans. You’ve got relationships. You have your living situation,

there is a lot to keep track of. And when I was in college, I had a lot of friends who always seemed to be scrambling to get these things done at the last second. They were basically letting life sneak up on them but if you can build a forward-thinking mind set, this isn’t going to happen to you. And you’ll also position yourself for opportunities that would pass others by.

you don’t already have this mental machinery put into place, the first step is to build some structures

into your everyday routines, that remind you to think in a forward-thinking manner. One good way to start doing this, is to create a reminder on your task management system or your calendar to sit down once a week and think, what do I have coming up shortly?

Do I need to sign up for classes? Well then I should make a reminder for the exact time that the class scheduler opens so I can get in there and get my classes before everyone else takes the good ones. Or do I need to get an apartment soon?

If you live in a college town like I did, then it’s likely that every apartment complex is going to have their leases start around the same time. And because of that, everyone’s going to be signing leases all in one big drive.

So, do yours early, otherwise, come next semester, you’re going be living in a van down by the river. And while you’re going through this mental exercise, also think about your relationships, maybe you have somebody who has a birthday coming up soon or you have a friend that you haven’t talked to in a while. I find that when you think about these things and when you apply a forward-thinking mindset to your relationships.

MOVING TOWARDS ADULTHOOD:

The second habit is that successful students deliberately move toward adulthood. They don’t let adulthood sneak up on them. And by that, I’m not talking about becoming a person who hates fun and tells kids to get out of their lawn but every human is going to have skills they need to build and challenges they need to face at some point in their lives.

And a lot of people try to push those things off as much as they possibly can. But if you can become the kind of person who is willing to take on those things early, I’m talking about things like having your bank account, doing your own taxes, filling out your financial aid forms, or like, learning how to iron shirt or do your own laundry. Then once you have to do those things, you’ve already got that base of skills to apply to them.

SOLUTION FINDING:

Habit number three, successful students strive to become, what I like to call, solution finders. They’re the kind of people who, when faced with a tough problem, that doesn’t have an immediately apparent solution, are willing to push through and figure out how to solve it.

And sadly, a lot of students aren’t like this. A friend of mine named Matt is a web developer at a pretty big company and this company values this solution-finding mindset so much that they have a rule for people who get stuck on problems.

They call it the 15-Minute Rule. Essentially, if an employee gets stuck on a problem, they have to spend 15 more minutes, working on that problem before they’re allowed to ask for help. During that time, they have to document everything they do and write down what didn’t work so that way when they do ask for help,

They’re able to give context to the person who’s helping them. Additionally, once they hit that 15-minute mark, they must ask for help. And this rule creates a nice balance. It makes them independent and solves problems on their own but also ensures that they’re not so stubborn.

Social Network:

Habit number four is to start actively building relationships with your teachers, with your professors, and with other faculty members at your school or university.

When you do this, you start to build a network of people who aren’t just in your immediate age group or at your same level of progression. And it also has a couple of other very good benefits.

These people are going be able to tell you about opportunities that you would’ve otherwise missed and if you ever happen to need a letter of recommendation for a job application or a scholarship, those are going be the people who you can go to because now they know you and they trust you and they’re going be willing to do it. And you probably shouldn’t ask for a recommendation.

LEARNING OUTSIDE OF CLASS:

The fifth habit is that successful students are always trying to learn outside of class. They’re trying to learn from a variety of different sources and they are branching out into different areas that aren’t on their narrow major path.

And I think this is important to do. Because once you start getting interested in a variety of different subjects and you start dabbling in different areas, you start to build this diverse web of connections in your brain, that allows you to be more creative in your main work.

Plus, when you take just a little bit of time to branch out from your major path. You might stumble onto something that proves to be a huge boon to your future career prospects. One great example is my best friend Martin. He’s always been interested in language learning but he majored in MIS in college that didn’t stop him from creating a blog all about how to learn new languages and that got him some recognition in the language learning community.

He was actually on a list of language-learning experts pretty recently. Not to mention, the experience he got building that website led directly to him getting hired at a web development agency in our city right after graduating, which usually didn’t like to hire recent graduates. Because he had a lot of experience that most people didn’t have.

EARS TO THE GROUND:

Habit number six is to constantly keep your ear to the ground for opportunities. Here’s the thing, when you’re in school, or especially when you are in college and university, there are a ton of opportunities around you.

But you have to be willing to look for them and to know where to look. One great thing to do is to keep your eye out for bulletin boards around your campus or in your school because a lot of opportunities are going to be posted as fliers on those bulletin boards.

Additionally, follow your school’s social media accounts. And I’m not just talking about the main social media account. Follow your professors and your teachers. Follow the departments that you’re a part of. Because a lot of these departments and professors, they’re going to post opportunities that they think their students would be good fits for. And this habit is directly related.

STAYING PHYSICALLY & MENTALLY FIT:

The seventh habit is that successful students put a lot of effort into keeping themselves both physically and mentally fit.

When you’re an ambitious student, there’s often this general mindset that you should be spending all of your time studying or pursuing opportunities, and when a lot of students do this, they often let their nutrition habits, exercise habits, and sleep go by the wayside.

And what’s worse, they’ll often work themselves to the point where they mentally burn out or they become depressed or have a lot of anxiety. And the sad thing is, when they’re letting their physical and mental health go by the wayside, they aren’t able to perform in the things that they want to do in the first place and truly successful students know this.

which is why they make time for exercise. They make time for making good healthy meals or getting them at the dining center and they also get enough sleep every single night. And one little side note that I’ll make here; successful students are willing to ask for help if they need it.

If they’re dealing with mental burnout anxiety or depression. They will go ask a professional if they can’t deal with those issues themselves. And that brings us to the final habit on the list.

Successful students try things before they think they’re ready. They feel like they have to be able to do it first and then they’ll want to do it and finally, they’ll do it. But when you think this way, you never actually get to do the thing because you never gained the skills to do it in the first place.

Do, which leads to can do because you’re gaining skills through doing. That leads to want to do and the circle repeats and enforces itself. Plus, you’re often much more qualified than you think you are.