#theclassicalmind

This masterpost is the crux of my 14 years of academic experience and what I believe has led me to succeed academically whenever I have. Mindset matters a lot because you manifest what you believe in. Believe it or not, much of your behavior is rooted in your mindset and beliefs, whether or not you’re consciously aware of it so it’s important to pay attention to what drives you to your actions.

♣️ Do not expect yourself to achieve what you think you cannot

This is something all who want to achieve high struggle with. Self-limiting beliefs. If you want to achieve 100/100 in physics, you have to believe in yourself that you can. You can’t achieve your goal no matter how big or small while simultaneously thinking that it’s too big for you to achieve. Nothing is too big if you are determined to get it. In times when no one believes in you, you have to have faith in yourself. If you expect yourself to achieve ‘that’ goal, then believe that you can.

♣️ Be mindful of the content that you consume and the lot you hang out with

This is the most important thing to look out for. We mirror what we see and whom we are with. Watch that what you want to do. Be with those that you want to become like or with whom who share your aspirations. Manifest what you want your future self to be. Let’s say you’re an aspiring medic. Consume the content of med students on YT, tumblr and other social media apps rather than mindlessly watching others’ stories on IG in which you have no interest . Whether you’re mindful of it or not but what you see and who you’re with, you become them. Please, don’t give into peer pressure and get in with the wrong lot. I’ve seen countless girls going downhill because they didn’t have friends so they befriended the wrong people. I reiterate, do NOT give into peer pressure. You’ll get a friend when someone is worth being a friend with.

♣️ Be very very specific about your goals and aspirations

I once heard a lecture of Jordan Peterson in which he said that many people don’t specify their goals because they’re afraid of failure, it’s stinging pain. So they keep themselves in a haze and so end up not achieving anything great in life at all. Which is utterly true since I’ve experienced it myself. So be specific about what you want to achieve and map out all the details of your journey to get there. I’ve always achieved all my goals which I specified and you’ll too.

♣️Define your own success and failure

What you deem as success might be a failure to me and perhaps my idea of success doesn’t co-align with your concept of success and failure. Let me give an example. Say a person gets 17/20 marks , for a person used to getting 12/20, this is a success while for the one who normally gets 20/20 this is a failure. The former one will congratulate our person under observation, while the latter will not. So our person won’t be able to decide whether to feel happy or not. This is the danger for those who don’t define their successes and failures that, as a consequence of not having their own definitions, they’ll rely on others’ and each other has a different benchmark.

♣️Don’t let your successes or failures define you

Define your success and failure but don’t let them define you. You’re not your failure but you’re not your success either. In other words,don’t tie your worth to your achievements or your failures for that matter (as mandated by this post on self worth) You are your hard work, your efforts, your thoughts, your perceptions, your beliefs. You are much more than your grades and achievements.

♣️A little altruism won’t hurt you and others’ success isn’t your failure

Helping others with studies or anything else won’t be much for you most of the time. But perhaps it might turn around someone’s world. Don’t hold back information and knowledge from your peers because knowledge isn’t like water that finishes when shared, it is like fire that ignites others’ candles too. If the whole class succeeds and gets better grades, wouldn’t it be more fun to rejoice together than succeeding alone?

♣️No matter how far you’ve come, there’s always room for improvement

Sometimes we become very well-versed in a certain discipline or any sport for that matter. so this thought crosses our head, “this is it!!” Let me tell you, dear friend, there never is it and if you think that, you’ll come tumbling down the cliff you climbed so hard. There’s always a room for improvement and if you fail to find it, you are in danger. Don’t let overconfidence take over you. Ever.

♣️Embrace your mistakes, reflect upon them and never repeat them again, ever

We all make mistakes because it’s inherent part of our human nature, but what sets apart high achievers from the rest of the students is that they let their mistakes be the guiding lamp posts to their weaknesses and once they spot their error, they never repeat it again. Making errors is excusable but not learning from them is not.

♣️Enjoy the grind while you’re at it

Day 14 - What are some of your study essentials?

I was thinking of doing that thing where I annotate the picture with labels and cutesy, curvy arrows but decided against it 'cause it's already a mess as it is and I don't need to add my decidely huge handwriting onto it 😂

So yeah, studying essentials for piano include...

The piano (obviously XD)

A sheet music binder

Glasses 'cause I can't see the sheet music without them 👀

Headphones so no one has to hear me practice and so I don't get as easily distracted 😂

Practice journal for song-specific notes

Notebook for general piano tips in case I forget how to play piano because that's what happens after months-long hiatuses sometimes XD

A few pens (I really only need one, but I like the colors so... #thisiswhyicantbeminimalist)

A pencil for writing little notes onto the sheet music (I dare not use a pen because I might need to erase something XD)

@theclassicalmind I really get a dark, dusty blue vibe! I also included this bookstore (Albertine in NYC) which I think is the source of my association.

For poems, I'm thinking of One Boy Told Me by Naomi Shihab Nye:

When I grow up my old names

will live in the house

where we live now.

I’ll come and visit them.

Studying with a Stopwatch

You don’t need a fancy ⏱, your phone or tablet stopwatch can work equally well.

Pros:

Better focus

Sense of Accountability (that I should only study in this time)

Motivation(when you see X hours or minutes you’ve studied, you’ll be inspired to do more)

Sense of Achievement at the end of the session

Cons:

Probability of becoming time-centric(if subject is easy or session is small one )

Quality of study dropping (as a consequence of becoming time-centric)

Optimum Management:

Use it for those subjects in which you are more prone to being distracted and subject is tough or if you are planning to do a long study session.

Practicing in Tiny Handwriting

It is just writing in smaller than your normal writing font. I use this technique when I have an overwhelming amount of stuff to write.

Pros:

A way to sabotage yourself into writing things that are long and daunting

It looks very neat (I love things that appeal to my sense of aesthetics lol)

Cons:

Danger of changing(most probably for bad) your normal writing(as I did once*facepalm*)

Optimum Management:

Use it only occasionally when you have to get around your procrastination and subside the waves of overwhelm.

Compartmentalization

(What a mammoth of a word🦣) It is breaking down the information under a heading into numerous subheadings either in your brain (when time is short) or preferably on a separate sheet of paper or on the book itself.

Pros:

Better memorization as the topic is now well-structured in your brain as well as even paragraphs are broken down into fragments each corresponding to some specific info about the topic.

Helps you attempt the question in the exam well as you can navigate through the topic with ease

Improves command over the topic

Makes learning a lot of information easier

Helps to pinpoint the exact thing about the topic that’s confusing you

Cons:

None at all

Studying very early in the morning

(By early I mean 4 or 5 in the morning and sometimes as early as 3)

Pros:

Best time for learning and memorizing information (I have not forgotten anything that I have studied during this time and people who memorize Quran do it mostly during this time)

Better and longer retention of information

The pressure to complete the work before going to school or college really pushes you to be hyper-efficient

Cons:

None at all

Optimum Management:

The fact the I’m a night owl is not valid because I used to be the same night-owl but my mom advised me this and I changed my sleeping schedule, so you can change any of your habits too. tldr; Early to bed,Early to rise makes a man healthy,wealthy and wise 😂

First letter memorization hack

( I don’t know how to name it lol) Just write down the first letter of a sentence you want to memorize like if you want to memorize ‘Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell’ (though you must already be proficient in this) , write down M I T P O T C and then read the actual sentence one time . Then practice it while looking at the letters and try to recall .

Pros:

Very useful in learning definitions and things in a short amount of time word for word (Actors use it sometimes to memorize dialogues, I learnt it from an actor on tiktok )

Cons:

None really (it’s a harmless little hack)

Planning is far more fun than execution because it can be perfect and I’m such a hopeless idealist!!