Comal ISD Campus Wide
The last 15 steps (or lack of steps) don’t matter because that’s in the past. You can’t change anything that happened during those steps. If you haven’t even started yet, you can’t go back and start earlier. Those moments are gone, and you can’t get them back.
The next 15 steps aren’t that important yet, either. So many things could change between now and then. The future is built from the actions you are taking right now, so predicting what steps come after this isn’t very helpful. You can plan what you think is going to happen, but you won’t actually know until you’ve put in the work to get there, so why borrow trouble early?
Instead of ruminating on the past or trying to predict the future, you should be focusing on the one thing you can control: the next step.
Motivation or Mindset
How do you bring it when you don’t feel like it? Motivation doesn’t last. Willpower is finite. So, what will actually last long enough to help you keep going? The answer: your mindset. When your mindset is short-term, solitary, and passionate, future-you is going to pay the price for present-you’s actions (or lack thereof). On the other hand, when your mindset is long-term, accountable, and planned, you don’t need motivation or willpower to get things done; instead you utilize your choice-muscle.
The motivation won’t always be there to get things done. But it’s not motivation’s fault if you don’t reach your goals. It’s yours. Reaching your goals isn’t about how you feel, it’s about the mindset you choose.
Expectation vs Reality
It’s not fair. Why is this happening to me?
These are common thoughts when reality doesn’t meet up with your expectations. Common, but unhelpful. Life isn’t fair. Bad things happen to good people. Everyone makes mistakes.
Even if you do everything right, you may still fail, but you have an opportunity to learn from this event and prepare for similar situations in the future. One method for seizing opportunities like this is the OODA Loop, originally developed by US Air Force Col. John Boyd: Observe, Orient, Decide, Act.
Balanced Life
A balanced life will go further, faster. Think about a fancy Ferrari. If it’s got four flat tires, it’s not going to go anywhere very fast, and the faster and further it tries to go, the more damage it will cause. If the Ferrari were balanced (i.e. had four good tires) it would go much farther, much faster, and without the damage.
If you want to go farther, faster, you have to find balance in your life.
Positive Pressure
Pressure is meant to catapult you forward, not to crush you. The difference lies in how you choose to view and use pressure in your life.
When a peer wants you to help cheat on a test, skip class, or consume illegal products, that is pressuring you to do something you know is wrong. You want to be liked and you don’t want to seem lame. But what’s really lame is them putting you in that position to begin with. Choose to accept the pressure as a positive by refusing the offer. By doing that, you buff your character. You get stronger in your convictions and the peer pressure becomes a positive gift.
Pressure is neutral. It is your choices which change that neutral state to a positive or a negative.
Tick Tock
A minute may not seem like much. In the grand scheme of things, does it really matter if we waste a single minute? Yes! When we get reps at wasting a small amount of time, we get great at wasting a large amount of time. Think about social media. You start scrolling for just a minute, but then one minute becomes two, and each scroll takes you deeper into the social media coma until you realize it’s midnight.
Minutes wasted during the day turn into minutes lost sleeping at night. Don’t be a walking zombie during the day, make the most of every minute you get.
Fail Greatly
People say “Failure is not an option” so often it has become cliché. The phrase is right in one sense—though not the way most people mean it. Failure is not an option (or is not optional) because failure is a fact of life. Everyone will fail at some point.
It takes a lot of courage to admit failure. But, if you can summon the courage to admit your mistakes, you take ownership of them. By taking ownership, you give yourself the power to avoid making the same mistake twice. That’s how you learn, and that’s what propels you forward to reach your goals.
Lose Well
No one will go through life undefeated. Even the most talented, hard working, everything-always-goes-their-way individuals will lose at some point. The important thing is how you lose. If you lose your temper at a failure, if you fail to learn from the mistake, or you lose yourself because you lost in the game of life, then you aren’t losing well. The way that you lose determines the way that you win. When you lose well, you are better able to win well.
How you lose determines how you win. Strive to always lose well, so that when you win, you can win well, too.
Big Question
What type of student are you? How you answer that question will have an impact on how you reach your goals, now and in the future. There are four answers to this question: content, complicit, committed, compelled. Let’s dive in.
Content. Complicit. Committed. Compelled.