mindset

“Resume” Virtues and “Eulogy” Virtues

Being a university student, or aspiring to be, can consume all your physical and mental energy. Applications, marks and references seem like the centre of the universe. And they are, in a way, but you can’t lose sight of the fact that university life is just one part of a bigger picture.

In The New York Times recently, columnist David Brooks wrote about his moral “bucket list.” He laments the fact that so many of us lose track of core values as we pursue academic and career goals:

“It occurred to me that there were two sets of virtues, the résumé virtues and the eulogy virtues. The résumé virtues are the skills you bring to the marketplace. The eulogy virtues are the ones that are talked about at your funeral — whether you were kind, brave, honest or faithful. Were you capable of deep love?

We all know that the eulogy virtues are more important than the résumé ones. But our culture and our educational systems spend more time teaching the skills and strategies you need for career success than the qualities you need to radiate that sort of inner light. Many of us are clearer on how to build an external career than on how to build inner character.”

I like Brooks’ article as a reminder of the multifaceted nature of accomplishment and fulfillment. An excellent career is only strengthened by paying attention to the things that make you a deeply good person, too. Remembering that academic life is not everything also helps you stay strong during the inevitable setbacks in your studies. There’s always more to life than that which seems most pressing at the moment.

Brooks also reminds us that fulfilment comes from looking beyond ourselves:

“Commencement speakers are always telling young people to follow their passions. Be true to yourself. This is a vision of life that begins with self and ends with self. But people on the road to inner light do not find their vocations by asking, what do I want from life? They ask, what is life asking of me? How can I match my intrinsic talent with one of the world’s deep needs?”

It’s alright to focus entirely on your studies. You need to sometimes! But in those quiet moments between exams and papers, contemplate whether you’re doing all that you can to improve not only your academic self, but also the core virtues that make everything else worthwhile.

POSTSCRIPT: I have to mention that applicants who can show the sort of well-roundedness Brooks advocates are much more likely to wow admissions committees.

Mental Toughness for Students

Knowing how to study effectively is one of the most important factors of being a successful university student, but studying is only part of a much larger challenge. Your learning and studying are supported by physical and mental processes that keep your thinking sharp and your focus steady.

A valuable characteristic that most students need to spend more time developing is “mental toughness,” also called “resilience.” Mental toughness is the ability to face challenges calmly and effectively, and to not let setbacks derail your path to success. In many ways it’s similar to grit, which I’ve discussed in a previous post.

This morning I came across Patrick Allan’s post on mental toughness on lifehacker.com. It’s a quick read and a great introduction to strategies that can help you beat back the many challenges of university life.

It’s impossible to study well if your mind is distracted with worry about your problems. A dose of mental toughness will help you now and every step on the path to success.

Getting Gritty about Grit

“Grit,” or “perseverance,” is one of the key factors in success. It’s the quality that keeps students motivated and working hard when life is at its most challenging. Put most simply, it means never giving up on your goals and your vision of the future. Grit means focusing on your long-term success. As psychologist Angela Duckworth explains, “Grit is living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

Duckworth is an expert on “grit” and her 2013 TED Talks Education presentation gives a quick and clear introduction to the concept of grit and how you can make it work for you. She focuses on children in her talk, but the ideas apply equally to university students.

You can click here to visit Duckworth’s TED Talks speaker page. You’ll find a survey to help you discover how gritty you are already, and a link to Duckworth’s research lab and insight on how to get even grittier.

Rethinking Passion

You’ve almost certainly heard this before: Studying something you’re passionate about is the best way to ensure your success!

As an academic mentor for university students, I’ve proclaimed the merits of passion often.

It’s true that a passionate interest in your field of study makes university life, and then your career, a lot easier. The happiest people I know are the ones who find their work most meaningful. Advocating passion is also a way academic mentors encourage students to listen to themselves first when deciding on a program. You can welcome input from family, professors, and academic counselors, but the choice of what and where to study should ultimately be your own.

Passion is important, but living out your true passion is not always easy. First, you need to possess some natural ability to excel in your studies (and your work), no matter how much you love your university endeavours. And it’s not always popular to say this, but not everyone can do everything. Take me, for instance. What if I became passionate about a life as a ballet dancer? No matter how hard I might work on my leaps, my body is still more Belushi than Baryshnikov, so I’d be out of luck.

It can also be difficult to figure out what you’re passionate about. We’re pushed and pulled by countless forces as students, and that makes decisions tricky. For a while I thought I was passionate about becoming a psychiatrist. I had top grades in high school, and it just seemed like the thing to do to attend med school and then specialize. Next I set my mind on a professorship in Southeast Asian politics. I had two great MA supervisors who believed in me and the lure of opportunity blinded me to my general lack of interest in comparative politics. Part of me always knew I wanted to be a writer, but it took ages before the fog cleared and I could see my goal sharply. Until then, visions of status, wealth and opportunity drowned out my true dream. But opportunities are only truly opportunities if you actually want what they offer.

You should also keep in mind that passions change. Just because something captivated you for a year or two, doesn’t mean it won’t bore you later. After all, you’re not still wearing your Hootie and the Blowfish concert t-shirt, are you?

And remember that passions can develop over time. Even though right now studying psychology may be a distant second place compared to becoming an astronaut, don’t despair if you can’t shake that nasty case of motion sickness; psych could grow on you. (And who doesn’t like a multiple choice final?)

None of this necessarily means you shouldn’t pursue your passion when choosing what to study. It just means life is complex and a lot of factors contribute to your success and happiness.

If you find yourself trapped in a seemingly endless decision about what to study, sometimes you just need to take a leap of faith and pick a program and go for it. And one of the things you should take into account is your passion for a field of study. Just remember that passion isn’t everything. It’s a great start, but even passion must be examined carefully when you’re making important decisions about your future.

The Power of Ideas

Many of my blog posts will focus on tips and strategies for achieving success at university, things you can do. Another group of posts will explore ideas or perspectives, things you should think in order to succeed.

Some students find it hard to see the value in learning specific things to think. They only want to know actions they can take, like how to read a text effectively or how to maximize study impact (see future posts). Actions are important. But ideas are extremely powerful, too.

Everything you think is an idea. You become comfortable with your ideas over time. They seem to become part of you, and new ideas can feel strange or even trivial. But on the quest for success you must be open to new ways of thinking. Our ideas, our perspectives on life, shape our entire existence.

Imagine that your TV falls off the shelf and smashes and you can’t afford a new one.

If you focus on all the sit-coms and awards shows you’ll miss and all those cozy nights on the sofa binge-watching mysteries, you’re bound to be upset and frustrated. But imagine, on the other hand, convincing yourself to see your destroyed TV as an opportunity. Maybe the extra free time will give you a chance to develop new skills or hobbies, or finally get outside and do that forest hike you’ve been planning. Or, perhaps the TV accident motivates you to find a better job so you can afford the things you want.

With the first mindset, when you’re focused on the demise of your beloved TV, you’re sad and angry. With the second, more positive frame of mind, you’re excited about making a change. The reality is the same; the TV is still broken. The difference is how you think about your situation.

Ideas matter!

Changing the way you think is one of the surest paths to increased success in your studies. Stay tuned for much more on this.

Embracing Challenge (East and West)

Developing the proper mindset toward challenge is one of the most important paths to success as a student.

If you expect your study life to be easy, you’ll never live up to your potential. But you need to remember that excessive struggle and stress can also derail success. As with so many things in life, the key is finding the balance that works for you.

The most effective level of challenge is different for every individual, but understanding how challenge is viewed in your culture can help you explore this critical element of university life.

Alix Spiegel has written about cultural perspectives on challenge in the Mind/Shift blog at kqed.org. She says, “The way you conceptualize the act of struggling with something profoundly affects your actual behavior.” And, as Spiegel explains:

Obviously if struggle indicates weakness — a lack of intelligence — it makes you feel bad, and so you’re less likely to put up with it. But if struggle indicates strength — an ability to face down the challenges that inevitably occur when you are trying to learn something — you’re more willing to accept it.

Spiegel points out a general difference between Eastern and Western cultures. In the West, we tend to envision educational struggle as revealing a lack of ability. Students often want to avoid challenge because it may reveal their limits. Eastern cultures, on the other hand, widely perceive struggle as a good thing, a sign of emotional strength and dedication. .

There are counterexamples to these general perspectives, but they often hold true, and so they impact students who are entering a new educational culture.

My advice is to learn to embrace challenge and struggle. A lot of research indicates that this is the best way to succeed in university life. I’ll introduce you to some of these ideas in a future post.