Failure is Another word for Motivation

Some aspects of college that I feel that I am failing probably has to be my math class. I don’t know why I feel like I’m failing. I never was the one that got math it took time for me to comprehend it. It was something that I have always struggled the most with all the way from 6^th grade to now in college. Even though I have been so far successful in passing and completing math, I feel that now since I am in college it’s more on me to teach myself math which is a difficult task because a person like me who dislikes math and struggles cant self teach a subject that they don’t have “passion”. However I know that I have to over come this feeling of doubt and how to be more active in class by asking more questions and going to the professor’s office hours.

Here are some points that I found online about overcoming failure

1.     Learn from your mistakes and failures.

2.     Don’t dwell on it.

3.     Don’t be afraid to try again.

4.     Think about worse case scenarios

5.     Take baby steps

6.     Tell yourself “I can do this!” (and believe it.)

7.     Surround yourself with positive people.

8.     Talk to others (or read)

9.     Realize that failure is part of the learning curve.

1.     Mobilize your fear.

With these steps you rare sure to over your fear of failing and being successful.

7A. Its Ok to Fail

No one wants to fail at anything, but failure is an experience that everyone has encountered at one point in life. Truly there is no way to avoid failure in life even if you don’t do anything. If you don’t do anything you’re still failing because you may not be truly happy. In order to fail you must make mistakes and making mistakes scares people because that means that you failed.

Are kids allowed to fail, yes. Reason is because they need to be able to experience the feeling and to able to have the motivation to turn that failure into success. As a society do we encourage them to fail, yes. Reason is because while we encourage them to fail, they know that they will have the support system they need to overcome it and that leads to society protecting them from failure because when someone fails they tend to look for comfort. In fact they is a safe place to go to if your fail and that is when your family. That is family always look at each other as a blessing, they aren’t negative in situation that makes the person who failed feel like they don’t have what it takes to be successful. They provide uplifting energy and they always point out the positive than the negative.

Overall failing is a part of life. You’re going to encounter it even if you don’t want it.  Even though its not fun to fail majority of the time, as J.K Rowling said in her speech at Harvard in 2008, “I was set free because my greatest fears had been realized, and I was still alive. And so rock bottom became the foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”  I believe everyone should have this attitude because it tells that even though you failed you can still be successful because you learn and grow from your mistakes that you may had made.

6I

Some of the major health problems students in college is that some don't get any sleep. Studies show that even teens in high school don't get the full amount of sleep due to other activities they may have. The proper amount of sleep a college student should get is between 7-9 hours of sleep.
In my IQ class we did an experiment that dealt with a time schedule and it was based off a weeks time and the amount of sleep a student was receiving was very shocking. Some people were getting the full 8 hours of sleep and then some but some said that they only slept for 4 hours a week which was very shocking to me and the professor.
Overall sleep plays a huge role on student and their studies and they should be getting at least 7-9 hours a night of sleep. 
 

What we learned and How it Ties In

Over the 6 weeks we have been learning new material in class and while they are all different readings they seem to connect well together because they help us not only become a better student but help us become better problem solvers and how to manage our life better to.

At first the reading were sort of plain because it talked about how to college is different and how to manage your time wisely. Something’s that upcoming freshmen’s new already. But as the weeks progress the more and more the reading became more relevant to us students. During the course of college I was able to get useful information and apply them into my studies in my other classes. I think that these readings aren’t just homework for us to do but its kind of a student guide on being a better student than you think you are.

One of the article that I connected the most with was the intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation. Reason why it stood out to me is because it gave me the chance to think about what kind of motivation motivates me to do better in anything I do. First for those who forgot what intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is well intrinsic motivation is motivation based on taking pleasure and in an activity rather working an external reward. Extrinsic motivation comes from outside such as performing for money or reward. So after reading that article I came to the realization that I have an extrinsic motivation because for instance I’m in college to have a great career. And I came to realize that with having extrinsic motivation it came have a positive and negative conflict.

This week we have talked about grit, and how it relates to being able to work through tough problems. In the Angela Duckworth article she share that “the grittiest students not the smartest ones have the highest GPAs”. In my opinion the reason why they had the highest GPAs is because they had motivation to be excellent at what they do and they either had intrinsic or extrinsic motivation to have a high GPA. 

6V. Persistence

When I searched the word Persistence on Merriam-webster dictionary it gave me, Persistence means the quality that allows someone to continue doing something or trying to do something even though it is difficult or opposed by other people.

I find that this word is important to a college student because throughout college majority of the student use persistence during midterms, finals and to graduate on time.

Without have persistence it would be much harder to live in the real world because all you would do is quit and not try.

New Words

Durability- able to exist for a long time without significant deterioration

Endurance- the ability to do something difficult for a long time

6A. Getting Over A Challenge

A significant challenge that I faced in my life was completing the UAP program during the summer. Reason why it was a challenge was because if I didn’t complete it successfully with at least Ct, then I wouldn’t be able to attend SCSU. The workload that they handed out was ridiculous, I mean homework everyday and an essay due every Friday. It was something that I was not use to and very hard to complete. I also think the reason why it was hard for me was because I really didn’t want to be there because it was summer time and I just finished high school and all I wanted to do was go out and hang out with friends before they leave off to college. But I knew it was something that I had to overcome because I knew that if I did not focus on the work then I wouldn’t be attending SCSU. During the UAP it taught me how to be a stronger student and how college life would be like. So far they were right but the workload isn’t as bad the work during the UAP. Some of the strategies that that I employed was doing my work and paying attention to what the professor was teaching and also to stay focus on myself without the distractions that my friends were doing. One thing that kept me on task was that we were not allowed to have a T.V. and that was useful because T.V. is a huge distraction now thinking about it. Reason is because whenever I did my homework with the T.V. on I found it hard to concentrate because I would pay more attention to the T.V then my actual homework.

After completing the UAP program I knew that I was ready for college I felt more confident knowing that I wouldn’t feel lost and stuck doing homework or writing an essay.