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“School” Images – Unsplash.com
Introduction
The school season is closer than ever, and soon enough you’ll be sitting in that regular desk and seat, assigned with regular assignments, assessments, you name it.
Chances are, you might’ve already started school. And look, trust me, I get how awful it can feel to start the new school season, and feel lost, and confused. That was me every single year during high school, every time.
Seriously, every time the year started, I was demotivated, undisciplined, and sad. I mean, who wouldn’t be sad? If I was starting the new year, with new classes, and was forced to complete rigorous tasks every week, and close to every day, while attempting to get good sleep, balance good grades, a healthy personal lifestyle, personal career interests, and no hobbies (because I simply didn’t have time for that bs), then I would struggle too – in which I really did struggle.
But hey! Things don’t have to be so tough. Life shouldn’t be this constant struggle where you seek to reach the top, but deal with unnecessary obstacles that we shouldn’t be facing.
Of course, don’t get that mistaken. On any path to success, you have to struggle or lose your mind to get to that dream destination – unless you win the lottery. Then, you’ll encounter struggles after the event – not even a journey.
Where we’ve been (personal update)
If you’ve seen our most recent post, you would know that we haven’t posted in close to 2 months. Yeah I know, a while.
But, for good reason. When we last posted, we recognized something. We were missing something. That once original raw value that our posts once possessed a few months ago were gradually slipping away. We were losing a good grip of what we had originally built – Graduation Gurus.
For that reason, we decided to spend a majority of the summer fixing our mistakes, and re-inventing what makes a good post. Now, we’ve created a new GG YouTube channel that you can visit for frequent school tips, academic suggestions, how-to guides for anything school-related, motivational boosts, you name it. Our goal is to innovate and re-define what originally was education. That’s been our goal for who knows how long.
Our Mission Now
What we look to do now is make education what it should rightly be everywhere – free and juicing with value and meaning. And here at GG, we hope to fulfill that guarantee as best as possible.
My Biggest Mistake
What I did, every single time, was not involve myself with the people that I went to school with. When we’re talking about real stuff, the most important and raw stuff when it relates to ‘back-to-school’, one of the biggest points that anyone rarely ever talks about is social connectivity.
I don’t know if it was just me (probably not), but whenever I came back to school, it was almost like I forgot to speak to people, and how to actually connect with other people. And from what I’ve learned in the past few months, I realized that the significant, yet repeated mistake that I had kept on making again and again was not talking to the people that I went to school over summer break.
So, if you’re someone that also likes to disappear every summer, not say a word to their mates, and then suddenly reappear upon the first day of school, you really have to abandon that habit.
However, chances are, if you’re a regular high-schooler, or student in general, you most likely spend your days calling friends, having sleepovers, and frequent real-life meetups. I sure know that I did when I was younger, and didn’t care about my future (not to offend anyone that still does that).
Other (smaller) mistakes
These are the mistakes that you’re more likely to find on almost all blog posts that just repeat you the same stuff. So, here’s the quick run-down of the necessary school essentials, that you must have.
- Tech Gadgets
- Laptop/Tablet: Essential for note-taking and research.
- Portable Chargers: To keep devices powered throughout the day.
- Noise-Canceling Headphones: Great for studying in noisy environments.
- Clothing
- Comfortable Footwear: Important for moving around campus or to and from school.
- Layered Clothing Options: For adjusting to different classroom temperatures.
- Gym Wear: If physical education or sports are part of the school activities.
- Health Items
- Water Bottle: Staying hydrated is crucial for maintaining energy.
- Healthy Snacks: Nuts, fruits, and granola bars for energy boosts.
- Hand Sanitizer and Masks: Depending on the health guidelines at the time.
- Organizational Tools
- Planner: To keep track of assignments, tests, and activities.
- Apps for Productivity: Apps like Google Keep or Evernote can help manage tasks.
- Bulletin Board or Whiteboard: For home study areas to pin important reminders and schedules.
- Personal Care Items
- Skincare Products: Especially for older students managing stress and skin health.
- Personal Hygiene Kits: Including items like deodorant, tissues, and perhaps a small first aid kit.
- Learning Aids
- Books and Reading Materials: Both educational and for leisure to encourage regular reading.
- Flashcards: Useful for subjects that require memorization.
- Comfort Items
- A Good Backpack: Ergonomically designed to reduce back strain.
- Seat Cushions or Portable Seating Pads: For extra comfort during long classes or study hours.
As you can see, this is some really basic stuff that everyone knows.
How To Mentally Prepare For The Back-to-school Season
Before we briefly explain how you can dominate this new school year, achieve your best grades ever, and do so while simultaneously minimizing your workload, and increasing your quality of output as much as possible (while still taking hard classes).
My Personal Tips
- Get your mindset locked in weeks before. This is some really basic stuff, so let me hit you with the very basics. Firstly, understand that the school season is dreadful for anyone. Unless you like going to school, you aren’t going to look forward to the first day. So stop trying (if you are) to make your brain seem like it’s a good day – it’s not. It’ll suck, and you know it will; but you’ve gone over this same obstacle again and again, year after year. There’s no difference. Just like how going to a doctor’s appointment was scary (still is for me haha) as a child, even though you knew exactly what to expect every year, you still went through it, got over it, and continued on. The first day of school is the exact same day of school – but significantly more mentally straining; given that it’s not an hour or half hour, but rather 7-8 hours.
- What I’m saying: Prepare your mind with the workload, the social interaction, mental stress (actually, maybe not so much that), weeks prior. Remind your brain what it’s like to deal with rigorous deadlines, even when it seems impossible.
- Don’t sit around all day. Do some work, do some exercise, find something productive to do. Read a book, go for a walk, journal, write about something that interests you, set up a service on a freelancing platform for whatever skill you have. Give yourself some work to do, and a deadline to deal with, and you’ll be well on your way to normalizing what was once a hassle.
- Expect the unexpected, and the expected. (explanation later)
General Tips
- Set realistic goals: Establish achievable objectives to build confidence and motivation.
- Develop a growth mindset: View challenges as opportunities for learning and improvement.
- Establish routines: Create consistent daily schedules to reduce stress and increase predictability.
- Mindfulness techniques: Introduce simple meditation or breathing exercises to manage anxiety.
- Visualization: Imagine successful scenarios to boost confidence and reduce nervousness.
- Focus on strengths: Remind yourself of past accomplishments and personal strengths.
- Social connections: Plan to reconnect with friends or make new ones to build a support network.
- Gradual adjustment: Slowly transition sleep and study habits before school starts.
- Prioritize self-care: Ensure adequate sleep, nutrition, and exercise to support mental health.
- Time management: Learn to break large tasks into smaller, manageable steps to avoid feeling overwhelmed.
- Develop coping strategies: Identify healthy ways to deal with stress, such as journaling or talking to a trusted person.
Out of the tips above, I highlighted three. These three represent -what I believe- to be the most important out of all of them. Don’t obsess over these points by any means, but just think about them.
Expect The Unexpected, and the Expected
In an earlier point, I mentioned ‘expecting the unexpected and the expected’. Here’s what I mean:
- Say you walk into school, and then into class on the first day of school. What you do expect? Well of course, you expect to get the typical workload, and that’s about it. Right?
The reality is, there’s a little more than just the workload. Do you have a good teacher? Are the subjects on your schedule the ones that interest you the most? Do you even have a schedule?
Here’s another little run-down that you can use to guide you:
- Unexpected: Changes in schedule, new friend groups and dynamics, personal and public opinions, educators, course level (e.g. maybe some friend told you that XYZ class was easy, when it turns out it was everything but easy), workload, fashion
- Expected: Workload, events, routines, basic everyday essentials
When you walk in on the first day, don’t expect to know everything. You don’t. Some things are new, people change, and best of all, new opportunities open up. For what? I don’t know. But a lot of people say that, so I figured that I’d mention it too.
Motivation (must read)
Look. You could’ve skipped absolutely everything in this post, but if there’s one section you want to read especially out of everything in this guide, it’s this one.
Motivation. What is by far the easiest thing to obtain, but is glorified again and again. Truth is, beginners rely on motivation, but those that have ran the same road, day after day, know that motivation only gets you so far. However, because you’re still in school, and most likely need a quick boost of motivation to get going for the week, or month, or even year, we’ll make this quick.
First off, motivation is readily available. You can find it everywhere. The reason you like watching TV, and binging a TV series (don’t lie, because your brain loves it) is because you get rewarded for the attention you give it. So, if we can copy and paste that towards our work, we can make getting work done so easy.
Yet, it’s nowhere near this easy. What motivation would I have to get an assignment done that means absolutely nothing to me in the long-run?
“Download X, do this, and copy Y!”
A majority of creators on the internet will tell you to copy what they do, follow a certain productivity “hack”, or follow this certain routine that apparently maximizes your weekly output. Look, the truth is a lot of this is just bs. It’s information just forced fed to you to make you think you’re being productive, though you’re not.
The key to productivity, good work, high output, and sustained levels of motivation, is purpose. I talk about this a lot. You are doing X task, but why?
Examples:
- Why are you writing that English Essay now? The deadline is in 6 hours, and I procrastinated way too heavily; so I have no choice.
- Why are you going to school today? I have no choice.
- Why are doing your math homework? Math helps train my brain, and we have a test tomorrow, so I need some good practice.
- Why are you completing that puzzle? Puzzles help train my brain, and increases my intelligence and capability with similar tasks.
The answers suck quite a decent amount. But guess what? Those are examples of purpose. You don’t want to fail, you don’t want to seem like a disappointment in front of your parents, and do like the idea of increasing IQ, however it be done.
Sources of Motivation, Aside Purpose
Purpose works. Seriously, think about the potential consequences of not completing a task, and imagine it in the short-term and long-term. However, chances are, you know that if you don’t complete X task, you’ll still be OK. School doesn’t define the person you become in 10 years, but rather your work ethic, market value, and a variety of other parameters.
What NOT To Do
Please, and I mean it, do not waste your time with the following methods to “increase your motivation”
- Clean your workspace
- Create a new Google Drive folder and organize tasks collectively
- Read/watch a small productivity tip and get working
- Set a timer
- Reward yourself: I’ve tried rewarding myself so, so many times. Turns out that my brain quickly figures out (because they literally make up our behaviors and actions) that it attempts to waste as much of the time spent during said amount of time, and then compensate with a quick reward – which it’s given. And if it’s not given the reward, you stay distracted and unable to complete X quantity of work, despite everything you might try.
- Coping
Here are some better techniques. And, as you’ll see, they’re not direct sources of motivation; why? Because they aren’t motivation.
What To Do
- Brea XYZ task into bite-sized chunks that your brain doesn’t stress over
- Envision the feeling of success, and imagine how good it’ll feel to get X task done
- Consider the consequences of not getting said task done. Use this as motivation to get the task done now.
- Use the “5 Second Rule”. Count backwards from 5, and when you reach 1, immediately start the task. This can help override procrastination.
- Just start. Stop reading, stop obsessing over what to do and how to focus. Just do the work.
5 Second Rule – DALL-E
Conclusion
It’s now time to do what’s right. Have fun, but also concentrate yourself on the next few weeks. School is terrifying, but you get through it year after year. Take time to realize that it’s going to be the exact same, some people will act above others, and that you have to find your place, and your spot of the social hierarchy.
Nah, I’m just kidding. Sort of. Enjoy what’s left of your summer (if you still have time off, that is), but be sure to focus on what’s important to you right now. I sure know that my obsession in high school wasn’t schoolwork, or school at all, but rather my personal career work to achieve the spot in life that I wanted years prior. Make your future self proud, and that’s all the confirmation you need.
