I wanted to share with you all habits I
personally struggled with last semester, along with habits I believe other
students may constantly battle with. I pray that this post enlightens and
encourages you to break from habits that are hindering your academic success!
And that your summer is full of reflection, rest, and growth for the upcoming
academic year. God bless. – Angela.
- Rest
and Wellness
- I
was not resting the way I should have been. Many of us wonder why we are
not working to our full potential and it is simply because we are not
caring for ourselves the way we should. God calls us to have divine
health in its FULLNESS. That means physically, spiritually, mentally, and
emotionally. We must stop neglecting these aspects of wellness and
wondering why we are not prospering in our classes. Make time to have
quiet time with God, get adequate sleep, eat well, and be active. All
these matter. Stop burning yourself out like God has not given us grace
that is renewed each morning. Seek Him for strength and endurance to get
it all done and maintain your sanity.
- Personalized
Study Habits
- Although
it’s always nice to ask people who excelled in a course what exactly they
did to earn a good grade, we must learn what works for us. This seems
like common knowledge but oftentimes we find ourselves adapting to
someone else’s study habits without realizing it. Assess the pace at
which you grasp the material and figure out what is required of you to do
well. Maybe it is doing all those readings no one ever does, or doing
every one of the excessive amount of problems no one ever finishes. Do
what YOU must do, don’t be content in your efforts because the person
next to you is, because more than likely they are doing more than you are
behind the scenes. Galatians 6:4 NLT emphasizes this!
- Priorities
and Procrastination
- There’s
a clear difference between putting something off because you do not feel
like doing it and deciding that now is not the appropriate time. One is
procrastination, and the other is procrastination with purpose. Stop
putting stuff off with no intention of getting back to it until necessary.
That’s exactly how everything you should've prioritized simply becomes a
product of your procrastination, until you are left pressed with a crap
load of deadlines and studying to do in a short time frame. Stop using
God’s grace as an excuse to lack proper preparation. If you discipline
yourself to get everything done when it needs to get done, you will never
have to choose (in more relatable terms, you will never have to let one
grade sacrifice for another).
- Undeserved
Breaks
- Even
if your exams are back to back, and you want to take a mental break from
a class after working hard on an exam, you can’t. #sorryfam. That’s just
the way school is, you can’t stop showing up to class to study for the
next class, because then you’re going to have to catch up on missing
material. And if you don’t catch up on that missing material you’re going
to end up learning what you should be reviewing come exam time. And trust
me, that does not turn out well. So, do not skip the class just because
you just took a test, especially if you are not disciplined enough to
immediately catch up on the material. And don’t stop going to office
hours to ask questions about that week’s material, because the professor
is not slowing down for you. Lastly, go over your exams thoroughly to
understand concepts you struggled with and make sure you master that
joint before you move on to the next. Meet with the professor if
necessary to go through your mistakes. Don’t wait until it’s too late to
learn from your mistakes, and don’t grant yourself undeserved
breaks.
- The
Facade of Finesse
- Finesse,
in my opinion, is the art of putting in minimal effort/ time into
something and still receiving a relatively maximum reward. I know you
don’t want to hear it, and I can’t believe I am typing it, but finessing
is not the Lord’s will for us. Maybe we can get away a few times, but the
craft of finessing as we know it can easily have us validating our
procrastination and crippling our excellence. If Jesus, the son of God
had to prepare for his next assignment, so do we. Stop making excuses and
start making plans. Let’s stop praying desperate prayers after minimal
effort when it comes to classes and let’s start praying confident prayers
after we know in our heart that we put in the best effort possible. At the
end of the day, we will reap what we have sown, and we can’t look like
mister crabs when we see grades that we deserved.
I pray for nothing
but academic success for you all! And for anyone struggling with these habits,
I proclaim them broken from you in the name of Jesus. I come against any form
of stagnancy and complacency, and I profess progress and growth over your life!
This is your year, use your summer as an opportunity for the Lord to reveal to
you the things that are holding you back (whether it is mindsets, habits, or
people) and ensure that you are only moving forward in this new chapter of
life. It’s not about the fall, it’s about what you do after it. "For a
just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall
into mischief.” (Proverbs 24:16 KJV)
Comments
Post a Comment