Give Me Only ONE Advice to Improve & Succeed. Here it Is..........

Persevere

The concept of perseverance is nothing new. We understand perseverance at a very rudimentary definition level, yet many of us don’t persevere.

Here’s an example of how our mind protect us “Time to give up mate, you ain’t a cult and this thing isn’t for you”.

We give up too early & easily because we don’t understand the concept of perseverance. Our mind is designed to protect us from everything and every situation. It requires creative mindset to come up with the answers for all the set-backs, negativity, rejection and reasons why you’re not reaching your goal.

It requires lot of practice. The beginning is awful for everybody. There’s no sense of absolute direction. But it’s the sheer willingness to persevere that makes the final difference.

In life, we need to make a choice. Either you give one more shot, or call it a day.

4 examples of people who have built perseverance after repeated failures:

1. Someone scored 43% marks in mathematics in 10th standard is now a young scientist and pursuing PhD
2. Someone who hated studying is now a trained medical doctor & treating patients in remote areas
3. A backbencher was able to get in top investing company as lead analyst with a basic graduate degree, settled in silicon valley and earns more than college topper
4. A NIFT graduate who started a food tech company is now employing more than 10 employees (in <1 year)

They have varied expectation from life but they made a decision of not giving up and to pursue their life goals.

Without revealing the details “one is my sister, one is my best friend, one is my good friend and one is school friend”.

The fact that I know these people very closely, makes me happy. :)

What’s the common ingredient? Perseverance.

The two main ingredients for building perseverance

1. Mindset
2. Belief in yourself

Thanks for reading.

Mithu :)

I understand material but cant solve problems. How to change it?

As someone who teaches computing, I see this issue a lot. Overall, I agree with Jeff Erickson's Answer to I understand material but cant solve problems

I will add some more context.

Many students don’t really know what learning means. They think memorizing facts or “looking over notes” is enough. Often, because they have done well in earlier classes that way. They think that if an assignment says to write a poker game, then submitting a working poker game means they understood the assignment, even if they submit their roommate’s program, find 90% of it on the web, or get TAs to dictate most of the program to them. They focus on getting a grade or a working program by any means they can, even if they don’t actually learn to do the things that are asked of them. I see this every semester. Students come to office to ask about the exams and say “I do so well on the assignments.” So I ask them to describe their work process, and I know where we are when I hear “When an assignment comes out, I read it over [good!] and then go to office hours, because I know I’ll need help [bad].” What’s bad? Going to office hours to get TAs to tell you stuff before you’ve actually tried anything yourself. Getting help AFTER you’ve tried a few times and thought about things deeply is good. Going before you’ve even thought it through or drawn or a picture of a data structure or listed subtasks is bad, because you are robbing yourself of learning.

I often remind students that the world doesn’t need 200 more poker programs (or search tool, or RPN calculator, or whatever). The point of the assignment isn’t to get a working poker program: it’s to develop the skills that, it turns out, let you write something like a poker problem. If you actually engage the exercise authentically, you will develop the skills and you’ll get the program as a side effect of that. Figuring out how to get the result without developing the skills undercuts the assignment.

Any course, not just computing or other STEM courses, should give you new abilities, skills, not just information and a grade. History classes should ultimately teach you how to analyze evidence and historical processes in a way that allows you to interpret, for example, current events. This is MUCH more than memorizing.

One way to understand this situation is to consider a version of Bloom’s Taxonomy of learning (What Is Bloom's Taxonomy? A Definition For Teachers -

)

Bloom classified skills into different levels. There are a few versions around, but let’s pick this one: memorization, understanding, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, evaluating, and some add creating (the one at the link above leaves this out, but I think it’s important).

I was lucky to learn this in high school. I had a high school teacher who would classify her assignments into these categories, and she said memorizing was important, but if you only did the memorization assignments, you got a D. That’s the lowest, minimal level of cognitive skill. And yet most students come to college believing that’s all there is! To get a C, you had to show understanding (usually by being able to summarize things in your own words) and apply information to novel situations. To get a B, you had to analyze situations (solutions) and synthesize novel approaches from the different things you had studied. To get an A, you had do think critically and evaluate things and create something new (for her, this was always a creative presentation to the rest of the class). I had her for two classes. She drove me nuts, and she made me realize what learning really means. Thank you, Ms. Evans! After her class, I not only learned to set my sights higher, but I developed some skill at evaluating my own understanding. “Does this make sense?” That means I might be up to a D level of understanding. Can I recognize when to apply this? Now we’re getting somewhere! I find many students are unable to evaluate their own understanding, and they suffer the self-delusion of assuming that, if they turned in a working program dictated by the TA, and the grade was good, they must have been successful.

Honestly, most exams, even in STEM classes, have most of the questions at the lower levels. But, in computing, we routinely ask you to understand programs on the exam (without a roommate or TA there to explain things to you or a computer you can use to run it), and we ask you to solve a problem, devise an algorithm, and write code. That gets at application, which many students are not used to doing. (Math is the same: can you see when to apply the chain rule, for example.) We will sometimes get at the higher levels, though not so often creativity. For example, we may ask for an algorithm/function to do something, then ask about its runtime or memory complexity, then ask about alternatives and what situations would be best for which alternatives (analysis and evaluation). As a working programmer, this last step, the ability to weigh alternatives based on the current need, is vital.

So, the key to doing better on exams is not to think about how to get better exam grades. That’s trying to get the effect without working on the cause. You need to practice. Do practice problems. Do lab problems if there are any. Then, you and your friends can test yourself by proposing variations on lab/practice problems and solve them. When you read, read actively: do the exercises and work through the examples on your own and make sure you are able to derive everything yourself. It can be very effective to have a study group where you pick problems, work on them separately, and them compare your solutions. You’ll find each other’s mistakes, and you’ll have the experience of solving a problem yourself, and then seeing and evaluating a few other solutions.

Good skill!

-Mark Sheldon, PhD Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT) (1995)

Kind of People Who Will Live Life To The Fullest

Two types of people live life to the fullest.

1: Ignorant

If you are totally ignorant of the happening in the world, you can live life to the fullest.

A sheep or a goat live its life to the fullest even when it is taken for slaughtering because it does not know that it is going to die soon.

In the same way, if you are ignorant of the consequences of your actions and the laws of the world, you would enjoy your life to the fullest till such time, you are hit by a calamity or die.

2: Wise

If you are a wise person, you know the deepest secrets of the world. Hence, you know what is to be done and what is not to be done. You don’t do anything that can bring you suffering and hence you don’t suffer in life. You only perform actions that brings you joy and hence your life is filled with joy and you live fully.

If most people in the world are suffering from numerous pains, it is because they are neither ignorant nor are they wise.

They are only semi-knowledgeable and half wise.

They have little knowledge of the world and yet they believe that know it all.

Hence, they keep doing things for the sake of happiness and joy, but that brings them sufferings and pain.

It is impossible to be ignorant once you have acquired some knowledge.

Hence, the only way to live your life fully is to become wise and live a virtuous life.

-Awdhesh Singh, Phd, Ex-IRS,IITD(M.Tech),IT-BHU (B.Tech)

#13 Last But Not Least, Be Macro-Patient, Micro-Aggressive

Live your everyday to the fullest by doing what’s necessary. Learn to differentiate what’s within and beyond your circle of control. Once you’ve done your best, what happens, happens. Be patient and keep grinding.

As long as you’re working in the right direction, things will work out. The most important of all, enjoy the journey - even if it sucks sometimes.

-David Woon

#12 Make Journal. Help Your Brain To Keep Up With its Thoughts

A human has 50,000 to 70,000 thoughts per day

Let’s assume 99% of the thoughts are crappy, we still have 500 to 700 (1%) valuable thoughts per day. We can’t keep up with all our thoughts. Hence I always journal my thoughts so I can work on them later.

Get your notebooks handy. Or simply make notes in your mobile phones or laptops. Evernote and Trello are there to help you.

-Dylan Woon

Never Base Your Opinion By Seeing Only One View that is Positive or Negative

You should never judge a country based off one picture alone.

This is America:

But this is also America:

This is Kenya:

But this is also Kenya:

This is my country, Vietnam:

But this is also my country, Vietnam:

This is why perspective can be so deceptive.

-David Nguyễn

   {Bloggers Note : Learn about Biases in Psychology.You will know more. See the reality as it is and also look at it from different vantage points}

#11 Vigorous Self-Education. Read. Get Mentors. Observe. Experiment

The best people never stop learning. If you want to be the best version of yourself, do what they do. “Formal education will make you a living, but self-education will make you a fortune” — Jim Rohn.

Never let school interfere your education. Actively educate yourself about topics which can bring you to your greatest height and put all your heart into it.

-Dylan Woon

Why Maths,Physics,Chemistry,Biology,English,History is taught when We are NOT going to use it in Real Life ?

Two months ago, I asked a bunch of class 10th kids in a Trivandrum school: “Why do we have to study Quadratic equations and all this Maths you are going through? Your parents also studied these things, but are they using it?”

You must have seen the delight in the students’ eyes that someone finally asked this question!

Some of them said, “Yes sir, we also wonder why all it is needed. But it is in the syllabus - so we have to study.”

Here is what I told them.

“When you go to a gym, you lift weights or do bicep curls, bench press, or things like that. Why do you do that? In real life, how often do you have to do a bicep curl like movement to lift something?

The reason we do these exercises is to build our strength and stamina so that we can respond to any situation where we need physical strength. Even more importantly, it improves our overall health parameters and quality of life.

Similarly, the reason we study maths or any other subject is that they help build our mental muscle, develop logical thinking, and help us make sense of the world by recognizing patterns.

By studying, we are able to build mental models about the world, so that we can respond to situations more smartly than a monkey or an ape would do (at least that is the hope).”

That, in a nutshell, is my answer to this question.

I also hope that we encourage our children to ask more of these questions and engage them in a meaningful discussion so that we produce thinking citizens, and not compliant robots.

-Rajan Singh,Ex-IPS, IITian, Wharton MBA

{Blogger's Note : Studying various subjects expands the breadth of your knowledge while mastering one subject gives depth to your knowledge. 

By studying history, you can know about war,peace,religion ,treatment of women etc

By studying literature you will be capable to articulate yourself more precisely and also critically analyze the texts.

By Studying a new language, you are expanding the horizon of interaction to new people,culture ,literature etc

By studying Physics, you will know about the phenomenon that goes beyond the superficial observation.

By studying Philosophy, you will get to know about different approaches and ethical issues.It will broaden your mind and you can understand people from different religions.

By studying Chemistry, you will know how everything is made up of simple atoms ,how 2H+O makes H2O and why not always Hydrogen react with atmospheric oxygen and convert itself into all H20(By the way Steam is NOT Hydrogen and Oxygen gas but it is water)

By studying Maths, you will get better at procedural steps and then you will get better in grasping abstract concepts. 

By studying Psychology, you will notice how and when people use various defense mechanisms,what is the relationship between healthy parenting and healthy society. How our  own mind can be and is fooled many of times. You can notice all those things.You will learn about brain,mind,neurotic and psychotic disorders and many more things.

By studying Economics, you will get to know how and why that piece of paper holds value and we can buy services and products with it. Why  a country cannot print unlimited amount of that paper and solve their problem

By studying Computer Science, you will know the working behind the computer how it stores and retrieves data, how that web is designed , how processor is given to many processess. How website is woreking ,how we make it interactive and how to communicate with machines that dont understand our language.

By Studying Medical Science, you will get to now all the intricacies of human body, you will learn each and every part of the body for your anatomy exam. You will learn how a healthy body works ,how a not well body works and how to correct it. You will work very hard both academically and practically and learn all the skills needed and serve the humanity. (Ofcourse if you are top notch,  money will flow as a byproduct)


By studying Engineering, you will first get a taste of different engineering field , you will get a very basic idea of Electrical,Electronics,Mechanical,Programming,English etc subjects in your first year. Then from your 2nd year you will study your branch subjects. You will know all the inner working of a system and how it is designed and why it works. You will get hands on experience in practical labs.
}

#10 Give What You have. What are You Rich At? Figure That Out

You may think that you have nothing to give, but in fact you do. Everyone is rich in some way. Things you can give include money, smiles, inspiration, confidence, skills, arts, musics, jokes, free rides, services, expertise, past experience, wisdom and many, many more. So yeah, you must be rich at something.

Giving what you have forces you to tap into your potential - What do you have in abundance that people are looking for? The more you give, the more you get. But don’t focus on what you’ll get. Just give, give, give. I was reluctant to give, but now I realize that giving is one of the most fulfilling things I can do.

-Dylan Woon 

{ Blogger's Note : If you find you are not rich at anything. Then cultivate good habit and work ethic. You can surely be rich not just at only one thing but many }

Happy with your Salary?

This depends on you … Some are happy by doing Nothing.. while some are unhappy making laks per month.

I am earning Around 25000 Per month.

Currently i am working in Indian Railways (Government of India) in a Remote Village of Bareily Dirstict in Uttar Pradesh.

This Is me now

This is My railways station There is Hardly 2 or 3 Lights on the platform. While I am on night Duty There is so many problems… like monkeys 🐖 Pigs. Insects 🐍 Snake etc…. As I am working on the one of the Bottom most post in railways. The Duty time is 12 hours Per day and we do Shift Duty one week day duty one week night duty and after That i Got 1 Day off To Rest After 12 Days of duty.

This is where i have to sit 12 hours In this summer of 42–44 degree without electricity. Without fan in direct sunlight and on night duty without Light. And There is no Toilet No water to drink. No food shops Nearby .. Nothing

View from outside

This is the quality of water Here. So I have to carry my own water bottle with me.

By now You have an idea about Job now Comes the Part of Happiness …. So basically I am preparing For SSC CGL but That Time I applied Almost every Government job Application and I got Selected For Railways Group D exam In the mid way of preparation… And i joined This job in excitement Of the First Government Job and I stuck Here as. I dont Get Time for studies… so that i can continue my SSC CGL preparation. And sometimes The depression Sometimes The Anxiety … sometimes Fear of Being Jobless I Can't Quit This job But i dont Want to Do this Job for my entire Life. I am In that Situation. That i am not Happy …. I Am depressed I fuck Up my 1 year of Life in this job by Doing Nothing productive.

Now I am In between 2 Thoughts .. should I quit This Job or continue With This Job ……

But In Answer of Happiness. I am not Happy With This job.

 

-Tarun Malik,Traffic Assistant at Indian Railways (2019–present)

 

{Blogger's Note : Not all government job are like this.Some are tough like this while many have 8 hours working and in better place . Perhaps the best job after 12 (any stream)  is by SSC CHSL of Postal Assistant }

#9 Think Long Term - Like 10 Years Down the Road

It’s always easier to enjoy watching TV compared to hitting the gym. Most people cling to instant gratification, because it feels good in the short run. However, the opportunity cost is huge. When you spend an hour on mindless TV watching, you could have read a book which will potentially increase your income by 50%. In other words, you sacrifice that amount of income increment to watch pointless cat videos.

Learn to postpone immediate pleasures for long-term values. The ROI will be phenomenal. Put opportunity cost into your perspective. Things won’t go exactly as planned, but having a big-picture vision helps you move towards the direction you want.

-Dylan Woon

The Fact That People Can Mislead & Be Misled So Easily, is Highly Unsettling

In 1997, 14 year old Nathan Zohner presented his science fair project to his classmates, seeking to ban a highly dangerous chemical from its everyday use.

The chemical in question? Dihydrogen monoxide.

Throughout his presentation, Zohner provided his audience scientifically correct evidence as to why this chemical should be banned.

He explained that dihydrogen monoxide:

• Can cause severe burns while it’s in gas form
• Corrodes and rusts metal
• Kills countless people annually
• Is commonly found in tumors, acid rain, etc.
• Causes excessive urination and bloating if consumed

Zohner also noted that the chemical is able to kill you if you depend on it and then experience an extended withdrawal.

He then asked his classmates if they actually wanted to ban dihydrogen monoxide.

And so 43 out of the 50 children present voted to ban this obviously unsafe chemical.

However…this chemical isn’t typically considered toxic at all.

In fact, dihydrogen monoxide is simply an unconventional name for water.

---

Nathan Zohner’s experiment wasn’t a legitimate attempt to ban water, but instead an experiment to get a representation of how gullible people can really be.

Also, all of the points that Zohner used to convey his point were 100% factually correct; he just skewed all of the information in his favor by omitting certain facts.

One journalist eventually dubbed this event as ‘Zohnerism’, where true facts are used to mislead people towards false conclusions.

And this occurs a lot more often than you think, especially when politicians, journalists, etc., use proven facts to persuade people into believing false claims.

The fact that people can mislead, and be misled so easily, is highly unsettling.

-Anthony Davenport

#8 Form Your Success Cabinet & Shoot for the Stars

You’re the average of five people you spend the most time with, because that’s who you subconsciously set benchmark against. To reach maximum height, you’ll need a group of high performance, trustworthy people around you. They will your benchmarks at least 10x higher. I call them the success cabinet.

Form your own success cabinet and find ways to bring value to the table. Lift each other up. Cultivate genuine relationships. By doing so you’ll improve immensely.

-Dylan Woon

Consistency & Focus

Let me start my answer with a beautiful poem by famous poet Mirza Ghalib:

Hazaron ḳhwahishen aisi ki har ḳhwahish pe dam nikle,

Bahut nikle mere arman lekin phir bhi kam nikle,

English translation:

I have thousands of desires, each so big that I can die for it.

I have fulfilled some of them, but they are very few.

We are all filled with numerous desires. These desires pulls us in every direction. We run from one desire to another as we wish to fulfill all. Instead of moving onwards any direction, we move in the Brownian motion like in this picture.

The result is that we reach nowhere even though travel a lot of distance and spend a lot of energy.

If you wish to focus on one goal and one desire, you must forgo all others. This is the most difficult task for any person.

We simply don’t want to lose anything and always think of gaining everything.

In our attempt to have everything in life, we end up getting nothing of any value.

You have to decide yourself as to which desire is the most important in your life not only for present but also for future. You must decide what you wish to be after five years, after ten years or after twenty five years from now. Once you've fixed your goal, drop all other goals and follow that one goal with full force and passion till you've achieved it.

Swami Vivekananda once said-

“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life – think of it, dream of it, and live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success that is way great spiritual giants are produced.”

If you can follow one goal and discard all other goals in life, there is no reason why you won’t be able focus on your goal and achieve consistent good results.

 -  Awdhesh Singh ,Author Essay & Ethics book for IAS Exam | Ex-IRS | Educator

Helplessness

You can kick this thing in the tail and I’m going to show you how.

Usually people get *stuck* in the feeling of helplessness when life sucks - but to me, these are the most motivating situations of all.

Here’s how to get to a place of motivation….

First - Look at The Evidence

When nothing is going your way, you have *evidence* that if nothing changes, this is where you’ll be for the long run.

It has to change, or you’ll be in this horrible place for the foreseeable future!

**Acknowledge this truth. Know that if you stop here, and don’t try and move beyond it…this is your life & YOU ARE CHOOSING IT.

Curious as to what the other choices are, but not yet a believer? Keep going….

Second - Dare to Imagine What You Want

If you want to find motivation, you have to create something compelling, something exciting!! What would you genuinely like for yourself? What kind of future would you want? So many people never even *dare* to think about what *they* want…but now is your chance!

The holdup? People start getting stuck here, thinking it will *never* happen, that they don’t deserve it, etc… DO NOT FALL FOR THIS. DREAM ANYWAY.

Third - Call Yourself on Your BS

If you are like most people, you’ll find reasons why you can’t have the life you want. You’ll find a thousand excuses.

Remember: Telling yourself why this “can’t” happen is exactly the reason you are in this mess. You are making a decision to be better than this.

You are making a decision right now to take a chance…maybe you have never taken a chance like this in your whole life. Allow yourself to actually *feel* what a different life might be like, and get excited about the new possibilities.

Allow yourself to believe and try.

Step up, take the chance, and see what happens.

Fourth - Brutally Challenge Yourself

Ask yourself: “What is stopping me?” “Why do I keep putting up with this?” “Why am I settling?”

Get real with your answers. Look at what patterns or beliefs are holding you back and why you keep dealing with this *same crap* over and over again in your life.

Examine what you’re scared of, what you fear…but also what *could be* on the other side if you took the chance and tried!

Set One Task that gets you to those goals - just one.

It should be small (sending an email, reaching out by phone, doing some research online), but the very first step in getting to that life you want.

Fifth - Take the Leap

This is going to scare the S*&t out of you…but it will be the biggest rush of your life. Time to start actually ACTING on that one task…follow through!

Getting started is the hardest part…now that you’ve acted, you started *momentum!*

As soon as you complete the first task, set another that is the next step for tomorrow and go for it…your motivation will continue to grow as you take action.

NOW GO GET IT!!

 

-  Julie Gurner