Most people believe that college success comes down to a single thing–completing the stated requirements of each course that you take and earning your degree.

But many students quickly find that strict adherence to such an attitude can actually impede their learning. And those who do find pleasing their teachers to be easy may graduate from college wondering what the experience, and the degree, has done for them.

A Better Approach to College Success

Successful college students, those that I call Renegades, turn this approach on its head. These students do not focus on how to please their professors. Their primary concern is with pleasing themselves. In other words, successful students want to make sure they are getting their money’s worth from their education.

To do this, successful college students focus their attention on understanding what each aspect of the college experience does for them.

These are the students who perpetually ask, “How does this experience prepare me for the life I wish to lead?”

Two Qualities Define Successful College Students

Of course, in order to answer these questions, successful college students pursue their studies with very clear goals in mind. Having goals in mind, whether those goals are very specific (such as to become a teacher, doctor, or nurse), or more general (such as to get a good idea of what you like and what you want to do), is the first step to insuring your college success.

Because this is so important, I’m going to restate it: The first step to becoming a successful college student is to understand your purpose for attending college. Your purpose doesn’t have to be specific—it’s okay to go to college to enhance your understanding of who you are and what you might like to do. Just make sure that your purpose is one that is meaningful for you.

The next step to becoming a successful college student is to identify the challenges to achieving your goals that are unique to you. Do you have a hard time getting to classes that meet early in the morning? Do you struggle to retain information that is presented in a specific way? Is your memory not as strong as you would like it to be?

Identifying your unique challenges is step number two.

Becoming a Successful College Student

Once you have clearly identified both your goals and your challenges, your next step is to take action.

Successful college students do not enroll only in classes that are meaningful to them. They take advantage of other college experiences that interest them and that can help them to achieve their goals. Before they can do this, they devote time and energy to researching what their campus has to offer them.

In addition to identifying resources that will help them to achieve their goals, successful students also work to identify resources that will help them to overcome their challenges. Colleges generally have a wealth of resources available for students who are willing to take the time to find them.

But if you are unable to find such resources on campus, you may have to look elsewhere. Coaches and resources like The College Success Toolkit can come in handy. These resources can not only help you to clarify both your goals and challenges but also offer your support, guidance and accountability that can speed you on your way.

Tips for Becoming a Renegade

Once you have identified both your goals and your challenges, you are ready to become a Renegade.

The Renegade college student is less concerned with pleasing the teacher. Instead, the Renegade student asks the following:

• How does this course serve me?
• How does each class contribute to what I already know about the subject I am studying?
• What does this course tell me about the world?
• How does this course enhance my understanding of me?

Always remember that the key to achieving success in any situation lies in understanding your self and your goals. This information will serve you well, even if you decide you don’t wish to become a Renegade.

Are You Ready to Become a Renegade?

If you are ready to become a Renegade, try keeping of journal of all that you are learning every day.

You may find it helpful to organize each of your journal entries into the following categories:

• What I learned about the topic I am studying today
• What I learned about the world I live in and the people who live here with me
• What I learned about myself today

Then ask yourself, how can I use what I am learning each and every day to become the person I most want to be? How can this information help me to lead the life I wish to lead?

A Final Word of Warning

Despite what you may have heard or may even believe, your development will not stop when you reach a certain age. In fact, scientists have demonstrated the capacity of the human brain to learn and grow throughout our lifetimes, even as we age.

So be prepared to make adjustments to both your goals and your challenges as your knowledge and understanding of yourself and the world you live in grows.

Open your mind to the possibility that at any point in time you may make a discovery that will alter your understanding of the world you live in and your potential to achieve all that you can be, and your college experience is sure to be rewarding.

In many places around the world, students are heading back to school for the start of another semester. A new semester can induce stress in even the calmest of minds. New classes come with new responsibilities, new people, and a new set of criteria you’re going to have to meet if you want to succeed.

A Simple Way to Ease Anxiety

When faced with this particular kind of stress, you may find it helpful to place your immediate situation in the context of your larger goals. Stop to consider why you have decided to take classes in the first place. Are these classes moving you closer to an academic degree you have decided to pursue?

Stepping further away from the moment, consider your reason for having chosen this particular degree. Is your goal to achieve a certain career or attain a particular lifestyle? Or is it to enjoy the sense of accomplishment from having completed a challenging task?

Why Focusing On the Big Picture Works

Research has demonstrated that identifying your broader goals can help to keep you focused on the steps you must complete to achieve those goals. This may be because taking a birds’ eye view of your situation can disrupt the stress process in your brain. As you focus your attention on your larger goals, you can bring to mind the steps you have already taken towards accomplishing those goals, allowing yourself to acknowledge and appreciate your capacity and strength for getting things done.

Returning to your tasks at hand with your brain in a calmer state will help you to reap greater benefits from the classes you attend, the books your read, the assignments you complete, and even the tests you take. That’s because when the brain’s stress response is calmed, your capacity to learn is enhanced.

The Biggest Challenge To Ending Anxiety About Grades

Many students find the hardest challenge to maintaining this sense of calm and equanimity comes at evaluation time. The mere realization that others are evaluating your activities can cause your stress to once again rise.

If being evaluated by someone else causes you to forget your larger purpose, you are not alone. For many students, grades carry a meaning that is much greater than their main intent, which is simply to inform you of how well you have integrated the goals of the course you are taking.

You may find it useful to remember that all grades, good and bad, carry an instructive value. While a bad grade may be an indication of a lack of aptitude for certain subject matter (which is certainly useful to know), it can just as easily serve as a reminder of the disruptions that occurred in your life, disruptions that prevented you from devoting necessary time and energy to your studies.

When you don’t earn the grades you want or deserve, you might be tempted to slip into anger, resentment, or even despair. These negative feelings are indications that your brain’s stress response has once again been triggered. If the stress response is strong enough, you may even be tempted to abandon your goals.

In these moments, focusing your attention on your larger goals can help to ease your stress and bring equanimity to your current situation.

These are also the times you may find it helpful to remember the best advice I ever received when I was heading off to doctoral school. It came from a veterinarian who cared for my cats. During a check-up, I told the vet about my plans to return to school. His advice was delivered as a question. He asked, “Do you know what they called the person who graduated at the very bottom of my class?” His answer: “Doctor.”

For many people, a new year isn’t complete without at least one resolution.

But we all know what happens with New Year’s resolutions that get announced in the excitement of the moment…they are dropped by the wayside as soon as the party is over.

So here are four simple steps you can take to make sure your New Year’s resolutions don’t get forgotten.

Four Steps for Achieving Your New Year’s Resolutions

1. Write down your resolutions. Resolutions, like goals, are much more likely to be achieved if you write them down.
2. Post your resolutions someplace where they are visible, so you can remind yourself every day about what you are trying to achieve.
3. Remind yourself of your goals each day when you wake.
4. At night, before you go to sleep, mentally review your day. Did you take steps toward achieving your goal? Or did something get in your way? Either way, set an intention to return to your path in the morning.

If you faithfully follow these four steps, you’ll soon begin to notice the roadblocks that stand between you and your intentions.

As you take note of these roadblocks, you may begin to see some patterns. The same roadblocks may appear again and again. A clue to this may be a negative feeling that becomes as familiar to you as an old friend.

Chances are those recurring roadblocks are little more than self-sabotaging mental habits. Mental habits are patterns of thought and action that occur so frequently, we see them as truths.

Self-Sabotaging Mental Habits: An Example

Say, for instance, that you have resolved to earn better grades in the coming year. As a student who has typically gotten B’s and C’s, you decide it’s time to try harder.

And then, on your first graded assignment of the semester, you earn a C.

Because you are in the habit of earning such grades, you are in danger of accepting that you are a “C student,” and giving up your search for new ways of completing assignments and earning higher grades.

The Problem With Mental Habits

The problem with mental habits is that often they are so familiar to us, we can’t see them for what they are. There are many things that a student who earns low grades can do to change. But before any change can occur, the habit of earning C’s has to be recognized.

The great thing about mental habits is that once you are able to recognize them for what they are, you’ll be in a position to change them. But first, you have to see them.

It’s a simple fact. You’ll never reach your destination if you continually encounter detours and dead-ends.

Don’t let giving up on your resolutions, your intentions, your goals, become yet another subconscious mental habit.

Write down your goals and place them where you will see them every day. Regularly reaffirm your commitment to achieving your goals. And pay careful attention to the detours that block you on your way.

Only when you bring your subconscious beliefs and habits into the light of day will you then have the power to banish them from your life.

Most of us don’t like to admit to having stereotypes or stereotypical views of others. But have you ever wondered if you’ve been the victim of someone else’s stereotypical thinking?

In the 1990s, two psychology professors, Claude Steele of Stanford University and Joshua Aronson of the University of Texas, Austin, conducted a series of studies designed to shed insight on the academic performance of students in stereotyped groups.

The researchers found that when students in stereotyped groups were given tests they thought would confirm a widely held stereotype about them, the students’ performances on those test conformed to the stereotype. For instance, African American college students performed below their white counterparts on tests of intelligence while women who were majoring in math performed below their male counterparts on tests of math ability.

But when students were explicitly told that the same tests did not reveal a bias, they performed as well as, or better, than their non-stereotyped peers.

What’s going on?

The researchers term the phenomenon of performing according to a preconceived notion of who you are stereotype threat. They suggest that stereotype threat exists because people who have been stereotyped simply get tired of trying to defy the stereotype.

In other words, if someone fears that no matter how hard they try, they might confirm a stereotype, they’ll just stop trying. Not trying relieves the stress of worrying about confirming what others have suspected to be true about them.

And as the researchers found, when you remove the stress, people feel free to exert their fullest effort, often to good effect.

Is stereotype threat impacting your life?

The researchers note that it is extremely difficult to know if or when your behavior results from stereotype threat. This is because our decisions about how to act in any given moment usually occur at a subconscious level.

But if you suspect that stereotype threat may be playing a role in your life, here are some things you can do.

To begin, think about the groups that you belong to—your gender, your race, your ethnicity, your age, your religion. Maybe your physical features place you in a group (are you blonde? curly haired?).

Next think about the stereotypes that exist about these groups. Make a list of all the stereotypes that come to mind. These may be things you have heard or things you’ve seen in your environment or on television.

Now ask yourself if these stereotypes accurately reflect who you are?

Now let’s take this exercise a little deeper. Can you think of times when your behavior conforms or has conformed to the stereotypes you have identified? What’s going on in these situations?

You may find it helpful to write about your memories, and to record the feelings that come up for you as you remember these situations.

Another way to stir up your memory is to think of times when you behaved in a way that you felt was expected of you. Or try to think of a time when you felt that your behavior was somehow inauthentic, that it wasn’t the real you, but you felt a little at a loss to control what you were doing.

Another way to recall times when your behavior may have been conforming to a stereotype is to make a list of the following:

• Tasks that make you uncomfortable
• Moments when you find it difficult to focus
• Periods in your life when you’ve experienced a high level of anxiety

It’s not essential to know that a stereotype threat is behind these situations. But you may find it helpful to consider that your struggle to achieve a desired outcome might be because of this threat.

Finally, consider that the stereotypes that are hardest for you to recognize may not be widely held at all. Many of us earn reputations in our families, amongst our friends, and even from our teachers while we are growing up. Some people are told they are troublemakers. Others are told they will never achieve. These perceptions may not be widely help amongst people who don’t know you. But they doesn’t mean they can’t exert a powerful influence on your subconscious mind.

Regardless of where the perception comes from, the research makes one thing clear. Setting out to disprove someone else’s beliefs about us can be stressful indeed. It might just be easier to stop trying.

What You Can Do

Because EFT changes the structure of the brain, it’s the perfect tool to use when you fear your performance is being limited by stereotype threat. So I’ve made a video for you showing one way you can use EFT to eliminate the threat of stereotypes. I’ve purposely made this very general, so feel free to change the script in any way necessary to make it applicable to your situation.

And let me know how this works for you by leaving your comments in the space below.

Are you feeling overwhelmed by the quantity of homework you need to complete every single day? Do you find it hard to remember what you read? Are you wondering how you’ll manage getting your assignments completed by the end of the term?

No doubt about it, the reading load that accompanies college coursework can be the most daunting part of academic life, especially for new or returning college students.

To be sure, the average college reading assignment is not easy. Most college professors assign upwards of 100 pages of intricate, detailed text every week.

But it’s not just the quantity of reading that overwhelms. If you are working towards a college degree, chances are that every time you take a new course you are going to be required to read materials on topics that are completely new to you. This means that you will be encountering not only new ideas and vocabulary, but also new language and text structures for expressing those ideas.

Sure, everything is written in English. But did you know research demonstrates that reading materials on an unfamiliar topic can parallel the experience of trying to read in a foreign language.

No wonder you struggle!

An easier way

If the stress and anxiety of all that reading is starting to take a toll, then you need an easier way to manage your assignments. The best approach can be learned from Jack and Annie, the two main characters in Mary Pope Osborn’s elementary school level book series, The Magic Tree House.

In this series, brother and sister Jack and Annie discover a tree house in the woods near their home. The tree house is filled with many wonderful books. But it has another special quality, the power to transport its occupants to the time and place of any picture found in those books.

As Jack and Annie travel in the tree house, they quickly learn that they don’t always have all the obvious skills they need to survive in the places they visit.

But they do have their youthful curiosity and desire to learn.

And they have their books. In each adventure, one book serves as a valuable guide, providing Jack and Annie with the important information they’ll need to explore their new surroundings.

Like Jack and Annie, every time you take a new course you are traveling to a different time and place. If your knowledge of this new place is limited, you can feel very scared indeed.

But if you remember a few powerful tools, you will survive.

First, like Jack and Annie, you must always remember your sense of curiosity and adventure. These will help you to learn.

Second, you must learn to read with purpose.

When Jack and Annie open their books, they do so to make sense of a troubling situation. Sometimes the information in the book makes immediate sense. And sometimes, they need to gather more information from their surroundings to make sense of the book.

You can do the same.

If each new course you take is a visit to a foreign land, then your reading assignments are the guidebooks that will help you make sense of this land.

So before you sit down to read, determine your purpose for reading.

• What questions do you have about this land and its inhabitants?
• What resources do you already possess that will be useful to you during your time there?
• What else do you need to know in order to survive?

Formulating your questions before you begin reading will help you to avoid the sense of overwhelm that comes from either the volume of the assignment or your lack of familiarity with your topic.

Having a purpose for your reading will give you direction. You’ll be able to both absorb what the reading has to tell you as well as ask intelligent questions about what is missing from the reading.

And the best part of approaching your reading this way is that it will be far easier for you to remember what you’ve read.

If you ever want to get a refresher course on how to be a successful college reader, just pick up a book in The Magic Tree House series. You’re sure to enjoy traveling with Jack and Annie.

School has finally gotten underway in the quiet New England town where I live.

No matter where you live, the back to school season probably seems a bit hectic. Suddenly everyone has so much extra work to do as they transition themselves and their families into a new academic year.

For many people, this increased workload creates feelings of anxiety and overwhelm.

In my community I notice that right around this time, people seem just a bit edgier, a little bit more impatient, and a little harder to be around.

But I know in a few days, everything around here will be back to normal. With less to do, my neighbors will go back to being more friendly, less hurried, and more tolerant of others.

Of course that won’t be true for everyone. In fact for many students, the anxiety and overwhelm that accompany the start of the school year will continue to grow as the demands of the courses they are taking become real.

Reading assignments, essays and research papers, school projects, tests and exams–these things produce fear, dread, and anxiety in the lives of students who wonder, will my work be good enough?

The problem with stress

The problem with negative feelings like anxiety, fear and overwhelm is that they consume energy. When you devote too much energy to these feelings, you become exhausted, both mentally and physically.

Unfortunately, without deep reserves of mental and physical energy, your learning ability is impaired. And as a result, your work suffers.

The good news is that eliminating feelings of fear, anxiety and overwhelm can be much easier than you might think. All it takes is the ability to shift your perspective.

What does shifting your perspective mean? When it comes to school, it means that rather than worry about whether the work you must do will be good enough for your instructor or professor, you focus your attention on the ways that completing the work will enhance your life and your understanding of the world in which you live, as well as your place in that world.

When you shift your focus away from pleasing others and direct it instead towards pleasing yourself, your experience of the world begins to shift. Completing an essay or studying for a test feels more like an opportunity than a burden.

Does this sound impossible to you?

If you can’t imagine feeling positive about completing an assignment or studying for a test, you may have internalized a faulty belief about the purpose of your education.

People who define education as a set of tasks that must be completed in order to please a teacher or a school system are less likely to enjoy the full benefits of their educational experience. Such a belief can also make the process of becoming educated enormously stressful.

That’s because a life spent trying to please others will quickly burn you out. After all, what pleases one person may not please everyone.

But if you define education as an opportunity to enhance your understanding of your self, your personal gifts and talents, your own strengths and abilities, you will have far more energy for the tasks of schooling. These tasks can help you to better understand the world and your unique place in it.

And the surprising result of shifting your focus to yourself? Your work will likely be enhanced as it reflects the unique being that you are.

A simple process for reducing stress

If you would like to ease the stress and anxiety of going back to school but aren’t sure of how exactly to do it, the A.R.T. process can help.

I created the A.R.T. process by combining three tools that have effectively helped me to overcome the stress and anxiety that was interfering with my ability to achieve my goals. You may be surprised by just how simply you can complete this three-step process. But trust me, the results you achieve are likely to be profound!

To complete the A.R.T. process, you begin by paying attention to how you are feeling at different moments throughout the day. As you pay attention, strive to pinpoint the precise moments and events that cause your negative feelings to elevate.

Your next step is to take some time to quietly reflect on the reasons these moments trigger a negative response in your mind and/or body. You may find it helpful to record your reflections in a journal or notebook. Can you identify an underlying belief that is preventing you from embracing the opportunities that your education is designed to provide?

Finally, when you are ready, use tapping to transform your negative responses to the challenging situations you encounter in your life.

You can learn more about how to use tapping by watching watch this brief video. You may also find it helpful to download this guide to the tapping points.

You can learn more about the benefits of tapping here.

When you use the A.R.T. process consistently, you are likely to discover subconscious beliefs that prevent you from achieving your goals. You will also see how easy it is to eliminate these self-sabotaging beliefs, freeing up your energy to pursue your goals and dreams.

If you’d like to learn more about using the A.R.T. process to enhance your education, check out The College Success Toolkit. The Toolkit contains dozens of exercises to guide you through each step of the A.R.T. process so that you can identify and release any and all of your self-limiting beliefs.

Here’s to your success!

In colleges and universities across the United States, the end of the academic year is marked with parties and celebrations. But don’t be surprised if you find yourself feeling on the outside of all the revelry.

For many people, the end of the academic year brings far more anxiety than cause for celebration. Much of that anxiety can be attributed to the unavoidable changes and transitions that are about to occur. As classes come to an end, so too do the routines you developed to achieve your goals in those classes.

As a result, you may be left wondering exactly what will motivate you to get out of bed in the morning or how you will fill all the hours that you so recently spent attending classes and completing your assignments.

The end of the academic year can also be a time of transitioning relationships. Some of the people whom you are accustomed to seeing and interacting with on a regular basis may soon disappear from your life. It’s perfectly natural to have grown attached to the intellectual, emotional and even spiritual support you benefited from during the time you spent with the people in your classes. After all, these people have been participants in your journey of personal growth and development.

In addition to your classes ending, you may be facing other transitions as well. The end of the academic year may herald a transition in your work or living situations or even in your home.

And to make matters worse, your mind is probably really, really tired from all the effort it exerted to get you through your final exams and end-of-year requirements. When your mind is tired, you are far more likely to see events in a negative light. Instead of looking toward the future as an opportunity to embrace, you may very well view the changes that end-of-year transitions bring as hassles to be dealt with or problems to be solved. Even worse, these transitions may feel like threats to your very existence.

With all these negative feelings swirling around in your mind and body, you may even find yourself experiencing more frequent and intense conflicts with others as you move through this time of change.

As the writer, neuropsychologist and meditation teacher Rick Hanson points out, having a tired mind is “deeply unnatural.” To resolve the negativity brought on by mental exhaustion, Hanson advocates rest. But not physical rest. The rest he refers to is mental rest.

According to Hanson, mental rest involves three steps.

The first step is to monitor your thoughts on a regular basis. At various moments throughout the day, stop to ask yourself the following questions:

• What am I thinking about?
• Is this productive?
• Do I want to keep thinking about this?

The second step is to give your mind little breaks. You do this by bringing your attention into your body and paying attention either to your breath or to your movements. Hanson suggests looking up into the corner of a room and exhaling. Exhaling, he explains, “engages the calming and restorative parasympathetic wing of the nervous system to slow your heart rate; the longer the exhalation, the more parasympathetic activation.”

The third step is to “take a bird’s-eye view of wherever you are, as if you were looking down on it from a few hundred feet above.” Watching yourself in an impersonal way activates “circuits on the sides of your brain that are associated with spacious mindful awareness.”

To Hanson’s three steps, I like to add a fourth: tapping (EFT).

Tapping is especially useful for putting an end to those nagging thoughts that just won’t go away, even after you’ve identified them as being unproductive and made the decision that you’d like to stop thinking about them.

I’d like to leave you today with a tapping script that you can use for any nagging, unproductive thoughts that may be reflective of the resistance or struggle you are experiencing as you go through any period of change.

The EFT set-up phrase:

Even though I really dread making a change to my routine, I deeply and completely accept myself.

Even though I fear that changing my routine will set me back, I accept who I am and how I feel.

Even though I don’t want to change from my routine, I love, honor and accept who I am and how I feel.

Now tap through the points, repeating the following phrases:

Eyebrow: I don’t want my life to change.

Side of Eye: I don’t want this period of my life to come to an end.

Under Eye: I don’t want my life to change.

Under Nose: I don’t want to say good-bye to the people I’ve known during this time in my life.

Chin: I don’t want my life to change.

Collarbone: I don’t want to say good-bye to the surroundings that I’ve grown accustomed to during this time in my life.

Underarm: I don’t want my life to change.

Top of Head: I don’t want to create a new routine for my life.

Eyebrow: I don’t want my life to change.

Side of Eye: Change is so hard.

Under Eye: I don’t want my life to change.

Under nose: Change is such a hassle.

Chin: I don’t want my life to change.

Collarbone: I want everything to stay just the way it is.

Underarm: I don’t want my life to change.

Top of Head: New routines are so hard to establish.

Eyebrow: I don’t want my life to change.

Side of Eye: It takes so much energy to set up a new routine.

Under Eye: I don’t want my life to change.

Under Nose: I have to work so hard just to make a tiny change.

Chin: And I’m too tired to work hard.

Collarbone: I’ve been working hard.

Underarm: And I just want to rest.

Top of head: I don’t want my life to change.

Now take a deep breath, exhale, and then continue tapping on the following:

Eyebrow: But what if my life could change for the better?

Side of Eye: What could be better than this?

Under Eye: Well, there probably are some things that could be better.

Under nose: I could think of a few things that would be better than this.

Chin: But things are pretty good here.

Collarbone: So who am I to think there could be more?

Underarm: After all, I’ve gotten pretty comfortable in my life.

Top of Head: So why would I want to change?

Eyebrow: But what if change didn’t feel so hard?

Side of Eye: Would I be more willing to embrace it?

Under Eye: To give change a try?

Under Nose: Obviously, I don’t have a choice about change.

Chin: Change happens.

Collarbone: No matter how much I resist it.

Under Arm: Change happens.

Top of Head: But I don’t want my life to change.

Eyebrow: What if I could embrace change?

Side of Eye: I wonder if that would change how I feel about change?

Under Eye: I wonder if I could feel happy about change?

Under Nose: But that might upset someone.

Chin: Other people might be hurt if I embrace change.

Collarbone: They might think they aren’t important to me if I embrace change.

Underarm: I wouldn’t want that.

Top of Head: I wonder if I could embrace change and still convey my feelings for the people I care about?

Eyebrow: Other people do that.

Side of Eye: Why can’t I do that?

Under Eye: I’m going to try to embrace change.

Under Nose: I’m going to try to welcome the changes that are coming into my life.

Chin: Because welcoming change will be much easier than resisting change.

Collarbone: And I want my life to be easy.

Underarm: So I’m choosing to embrace change.

Top of Head: I choose to embrace change.

Eyebrow: And I choose to trust that others will embrace change with me.

Side of Eye: And I’m choosing to know that change is good.

Under Eye: And I’m choosing to honor all of my feelings about change.

Under Nose: Even if change means saying goodbye to someone or something I love,

Chin: and that makes me sad

Collarbone: I choose to embrace all of my feelings about change

Underarm: And I choose to embrace change

Top of Head: And I choose to feel good about the changes I embrace.

Take another deep breath and as you exhale, notice any changes you may be experiencing in your mind or body. If you notice any negativity arising, take a few moments to identify the thought or feeling associated with the negativity, and then do a round of basic EFT tapping to release the negativity you are experiencing.

You can learn the basic EFT recipe by watching watch this video. You may also find it helpful to download this guide to the tapping points.

And if you have any comments or questions about the exercises in today’s post, please leave them in the space below.

So you want to get As in all of your classes. You dream about making the Dean’s list. You wish to graduate with honors.

Of course you can achieve this.

But to do so, there’s a special something that you’re going to need. That special something is an A-student mindset!

Certainly, an A-student mindset won’t be the only thing that will earn you the success you desire. You will have to do all those other things that lead to academic success, including attending and participating in class, completing all of your assignments in a timely manner, studying for your exams.

But none of these behaviors will lead to your success if you don’t have an A-student mindset.

Qualities of an A-Student Mindset

I’ve put together a list of qualities that contribute to an A-student mindset. How many of these do you have?

• An A-student understands her purpose for going to school. She knows that every class she attends contributes to the fulfillment of that purpose.

• An A-student is eager to learn. She knows that what she learns may potentially impact her view of the world and her place in it. She is willing to change her current beliefs, and perhaps even her goals and aspirations, in order to adjust to the new information she is acquiring.

• An A-student sees every class as an opportunity to get closer to her goals in life. She knows that successful people draw from many resources. They don’t place limits on their knowledge and understanding. They don’t live in a vacuum.

• An A-student values her past experiences, and uses them to assess the validity of the information that she is receiving. She knows that knowledge does not exist outside of the realm of experience. She understands that every experience is a valid experience.

• An A-student doesn’t hesitate to speak up when someone says something that sounds off the mark. She feels entitled to contribute to the conversation, both to enhance her own learning and understanding and to contribute to the learning and understanding of those around her.

• An A-student asks questions when she doesn’t understand. She wants to make sure she is getting the education she came for. She doesn’t expect her teachers to know what her challenges will be.

• An A-student isn’t afraid to ask for help when she needs it. She doesn’t expect to succeed in life on her own.

• An A-student knows that she needs to take care of herself. She knows that nurturing her body is just as important as improving her mind.

• An A-student knows that when she struggles in one course, it doesn’t mean she will never succeed in life. She uses her struggles to gain a better understanding of her self, and she uses this understanding to make necessary adjustments so that she can continue to take joy in the life she leads.

• An A-student may sometimes decide that the time and energy required to earn an A in a particular course isn’t worth it to her. She’ll be okay with a lower grade, knowing that she herself made the choice to put her time and energy elsewhere.

Do you have an A-student mindset? Are you able to bring it with you to every class you attend?

Cultivating an A-Student Mindset

If you have trouble cultivating an A-student mindset, you may need to do a little bit of soul searching. You may find it useful to ask yourself why you are going to school and what you hope to achieve by doing so.

But perhaps you fully understand why you are in school. Perhaps, on most days, you do have an A-student mindset. Perhaps you find yourself struggling with recurrent moments when your A-student mindset seems to have slipped away.

If this is so, then you’ll want to spend some time paying attention to the social or environmental cues that cause you to lose this mindset.

When you identify these cues, you can use EFT to alleviate any negative feelings that these cues trigger in you.

Cues that trigger a negative response, that cause you to feel disconnected from your goals, intentions, and positive mindset, can come from any number of places. Your particular cues will be unique to you. They will depend on your life experiences.

So you may have to spend some time paying attention to your moods and emotions throughout the day in order to identify the particular cue that sets you off. Writing about your feelings, in the morning and at night, can help. So can pausing throughout the day, taking a few deep breaths, and paying attention to how you are feeling in the moment.

When you discover a cue (most of us have many of these), you can use EFT to eliminate the connection in your brain between the cue and the negative response you are having.

Here’s an example.

Let’s say you are enrolled in a class that you are required to complete in order to earn your degree. The class isn’t in your major area of study, and you aren’t really thrilled about taking it.

You begin to notice that on the days this class meets, you wake up in a bad mood.

So one thing you can do is use EFT to stop this cycle of feeling bad every time you realize you have to attend this class.

But suppose, after doing EFT, you still can’t bring your A-student mindset to this class. So you investigate a bit deeper. You write about your experience of the course in your journal—exploring your feelings about the professor, the course requirements, the course location, the students enrolled—in order to understand why you are so opposed to taking it.

In the midst of this internal exploration, you come to understand that it’s not the class content you dislike. What you are dreading is the final project. You recognize that this assignment sounds a lot like an assignment you had to complete in third grade, one that caused you a lot of anxiety and frustration.

In this instance, you can use EFT to ease your dread of the final project. Doing so is sure to make it easier for you to successfully complete the project and earn a great grade.

But it may do nothing to help you avoid this cycle of negativity the next time you are assigned a project like this one.

A more effective way to use EFT in this instance would be to address the feelings of anxiety and frustration that the third grade project created.

When you use EFT in this way, you’ll disrupt the project-anxiety-dread-negativity cycle for good, and you’ll create the possibility of forming a new neural pathway, one that associates these kinds of projects with the rewards you are seeking.

Maintaining Your A-Student Mindset

I’d like to leave you today with a tapping exercise that you can use on a daily basis to invigorate your A-student mindset. Try using this whenever you find yourself feeling uncertain of your purpose and intention for going to school.

You can find instructions for completing an EFT session here.

The EFT set-up phrases:

Even though I don’t have an A-student mindset, I deeply and completely accept myself.

Even though I don’t really know why I’m going to this class, I accept who I am and how I feel.

Even though I haven’t fully articulated my reasons for pursuing this line of study, I honor and accept who I am and how I feel.

Now tap through the points, repeating the following phrases:

Eyebrow: I don’t know why I’m taking this class.

Side of Eye: I don’t see how this class is going to help me to fulfill my purpose.

Under Eye: I don’t even want to learn the material in this class.

Under Nose: I’m not sure I can learn this material.

Chin: I’m not sure I want to know this material.

Collarbone: I don’t see how I can benefit from the material in this class.

Under Arm: I don’t have any way to relate to the material in this class.

Top of Head: I don’t even know what questions to ask when I’m in this class.

Eyebrow: And I don’t want any help trying to figure out what this class can do for me.

Side of Eye: Thinking about this class makes me tired. I want to go back to bed.

Under Eye: I feel like such a failure.

Under Nose: I’ll never get a good grade in this class.

Chin: No matter how hard I try. It’s hopeless.

Collarbone: I might as well just quit now.

Under arm: I’m so miserable.

Top of Head: There’s NO WAY I can have an A-student mindset in this class.

Eyebrow: I wonder what it would feel like to have an A-student mindset in this class?

Side of Eye: I wonder if it’s possible for me to have an A-student mindset in this class?

Under Eye: I’m sure I would feel better if I could bring an A-student mindset to this class.

Under Nose: I wonder if I would learn more if I had an A-student mindset in this class?

Chin: I wonder if I would understand the benefits of this course for my life if I brought an A-student mindset to this class?

Collarbone: I’m ready to have an A-student mindset in this class.

Under Arm: I choose to be inspired to bring an A-student mindset with me to this class.

Top of Head: I choose to have an A-student mindset, for this class, and for every challenge I choose to undertake.

Notice how you feel in the moments after you complete this tapping. Pay attention for any negative thoughts or feelings that arise, and use EFT to clear those away.

If you have any questions about this process or about how to use EFT to develop your own A-student mindset, please contact me. Or leave your comments below.

Here’s to your success!

High school students are notorious for staying up late and burning the midnight oil, especially when they’ve got an exam to study for or a project deadline looming.

But findings in neuroscience suggest that missing sleep comes with a cost, and that cost increases as you age. Sleep deprivation has been shown to play havoc with your brain, your metabolism, and your overall biochemistry.

If you’re going to college as an adult, you’ll soon discover that all night cram sessions don’t pay off the way they did when you were in high school. You may struggle to remember key concepts or to muster the energy needed to fully participate in your activities.

Clearly, you need to find another way to get your studying done if you want to succeed.

Finding time to study may feel like a daunting task, especially if you have multiple demands on your time. But if you follow the shortcuts I outline below, you will find you have time for not only your studying, but all the other important activities in your life as well.

The two shortcuts

1. Take control of your time.

Whether or not you are a student, you likely have numerous demands on your time every day. Taking control of your time can help you to feel that you are living a life of purpose as you accomplish the things each day that you set out to do.

Here are several steps you can follow to take control of your time:

Use a calendar.

First, use a calendar to schedule everything you need to do each day. Don’t leave anything out. Schedule your shower, your workout, each meal (including time for meal prep), your appointments, and your study time.

Don’t forget to schedule time to be with friends and loved ones as well. Be specific about how you intend to spend your time, and be comprehensive so that nothing gets left out.

And be sure to schedule enough time to get all the sleep your body needs.

If you find your day is getting away from you and you aren’t getting to everything you’ve scheduled, try spending a few days tracking what you are doing. Every 15 minutes, stop and write down how you are spending your time.

Keeping track of your time in this way will help you to see whether there are hidden forces sabotaging your efforts to take control of your time. You can use EFT to help you to eliminate the time-sucking self-sabotaging behaviors from your life.

Schedule wisely.

Scheduling your time can help you take control of your life. It can also help you get to everything you feel is important.

But if you don’t schedule your time wisely, you’re sure to experience frustration, and even failure.

Scheduling your time wisely means knowing which tasks are open-ended and thus not likely to be completed in a single time slot, and which activities are time-consistent.

For instance, all of the activities that make up my morning routine are time consistent. I know that each morning I need 30 minutes to meditate, and another 5-10 minutes to write down any thoughts that come up during my meditation.

I also know I need one hour to complete my morning workout. And I know that after working out, I’ll need about 40 minutes to shower and dress, and another 20 minutes for breakfast.

So now I no longer write out all these details on my calendar. Instead, if I have a 9:00 a.m. appointment, I know I need to be out of bed no later than 6:30 so that I can complete my morning routine.

But other tasks are harder to schedule, like writing these newsletters. That’s because I’m never sure how long they are going to take for me to complete. These kinds of tasks might require research (or review of previous research), as well as time to get my creativity flowing, which I usually do by sitting down and freewriting about the topic I plan to develop.

If I try to constrain the time I spend on creative tasks, I usually end up feeling stuck.

For me, unlocking my creativity is a lot like siphoning water out of a fish tank. At first the water just dribbles out. But eventually it begins to flow.

That’s why I try to schedule large blocks of time for creative tasks.

And on days that I have a lot to accomplish, I make sure that my time for creative tasks is followed by things that can easily be rescheduled, like walking the dog or going to the grocery store. That way, if I find my creativity is flowing, I won’t have to disrupt it.

Remember this when scheduling time to complete creative tasks. Not giving yourself enough time to get into the flow state may leave you feeling frustrated and wanting to give up.

Make your calendar your friend.

Check your calendar at least twice each day, once when you wake up to remind yourself of what you are going to be doing, and once before you go to bed at night, to allow your subconscious to help you prepare for the following day.

The other way to make sure you are getting the most out of your studies is to

2. Take control of your learning.

Imagine that your brain is like a gigantic spider web. Spiders build their webs by attaching new strands of silk to existing strands.

You brain works in much the same way. New information can only be retained if it attaches to information that already exists in your brain.

Here are some steps you can take to make sure that the new information you are learning in school firmly attaches to the information that already exists in your brain.

Get in the habit of discussing what you learn every day.

Take the time to discuss what you learned in class with your professor or your classmates as soon as class is over. Then, the next time you are meeting with someone, anyone, tell them what you are learning. Ask for their input. Try to make connections between what you’ve learned in class and some other area of your life. These connections are going to help you to remember.

Ask questions in class.

Asking questions is a great way to build connections between new information that you are trying to absorb and knowledge that you already have. When you ask questions, you are building links that will help you to retain your new knowledge.

Ask questions about your reading.

Before you begin a reading assignment, make a list of questions that you would like the assignment to answer. If you are doing research for a project, get a clear idea of the questions you want the reading to answer before you begin.

As you read, make connections between what you are learning and what you already know. These connections can be in the form of a statement, but they can also be questions that you would like further research to answer.

And be sure to discuss what you are reading with your friends, classmates, professors, colleagues, family.

Keep a notebook with you at all times.

Use your notebook to write down any thoughts, insights, or questions that occur to you as you are reading or gathering information. A voice recorder can work just as well, if you find taking the time to write is too cumbersome.

Bring your questions with you to class every day.

When you ask questions at the beginning of class, you are insuring that the time you spend in class is time that is well spent. That’s because your questions come from the information that already exists in your brain. By posing your questions, you are making sure that any material you are meant to learn will be presented in a way that you will be able to remember, because that material will be presented as an answer to the question you asked.

Keep a learning journal.

Use your journal to reflect on everything you are learning in school. Write about how what you are learning makes you feel. Write about how the information you are absorbing helps you to better understand yourself, the world in which you live, and your place in that world. Schedule time to write in your journal every day. You’ll be amazed at how recording your thoughts and ideas helps you to retain information and makes that information easier to recall when it comes time to take an exam or to write an essay or term paper.

These two strategies will help you to make the most of your very limited time. They will add meaning not only to your educational experience, but your entire life.

If any of these suggestions are difficult to follow—if you resist taking action—try completing a few rounds of EFT, focusing on your inability to act. Then read this article again to see if it isn’t easier for you to take the steps I suggest for taking control of your success.

If you have any questions about how to use EFT to overcome your resistance to taking control of your life, be sure to leave them in the space below.

It’s happened again. You waited until the night before your assignment was due to get started. You were up all night working furiously to produce something you could hand in. You left class feeling certain you’d pulled it off.

And then you got your grade.

And you’re not happy.

Homework assignments are an integral part of every college student’s life.

But even if you enter college knowing you are going to have assignments, you may still struggle to get your assignments done.

I’m going to share with you ten steps you can take right now to end the stress and anxiety you feel every time you have an assignment to complete. If you follow these steps, not only will you get your assignment done on time, you’ll end the cycle of stress, anxiety, and low grades that plague so many college students.

And you might even find your grades going up. Now wouldn’t that be nice?

The 9 Steps to Completing Your Assignments with No Stress, No Anxiety, and Higher Grades

1. Start immediately!

Shortly after you receive your assignment, take time to review it carefully. Make sure you understand precisely what the assignment requires.

Lack of clarity about an assignment can lead to procrastination. Fortunately, the solution is easy. Call your professor, or send an email, and ask for clarification. If you can’t figure out what to ask, request a meeting, either during office hours or before or after class, to discuss the assignment.

One thing you don’t want to do is ask a classmate, or even a tutor, to clarify an assignment for you. If the assignment has not been clearly stated, then these people are going to be making assumptions about what your professor is looking for, and those assumptions may be wrong.

Best to get your answers straight from the source.

2. Review the assignment and make a list of the steps needed to complete it.

Do you need to spend time doing additional research? Do you have to purchase materials? Do you need to do some writing?

Frequently college assignments require multiple steps: conducting research or gathering resources, making lists of what you know, making sense of what you know and relating it to the assignment that you’ve been given, presenting what you know. Most people who dread assignments find that they are much more successful when they focus on the individual steps that are required for completing the assignment.

3. Schedule each step in the assignment on your calendar/planner.

Make sure to schedule several blocks of time to focus on your work. Never try to complete an assignment in a single, marathon sitting.

And don’t schedule more than one step each day. You’ll just get overwhelmed.

By scheduling small, manageable steps each day, you can go to bed at night feeling a sense of accomplishment rather than defeat. This will give you the energy you need to move forward.

4. Once you have received an assignment, discuss it every chance you can.

Discussing the requirements of your assignments will help you to clarify those requirements in your mind.

Discussing your plans for meeting those requirements will help you to better understand what you are trying to do.

You don’t have to be formal about this. Your discussions can take place during casual meetings with friends or even at the dinner table with family.

But if you find it hard to bring up your assignments at these times, schedule time to discuss the assignment with someone you respect. This could be a classmate, your professor, or even a friend who isn’t familiar with the course.

Depending on the assignment, you may wish to do this again and again. Talking about what you are doing is one of the best ways I know for you to keep your intentions crystal clear.

5. Be clear about where you will work on the assignment.

Do you need to visit your school’s library? Or will you do this assignment in your designated study space? Take time each day to visualize yourself being productive in these spaces.

6. Set an intention to complete each step on the day you have it scheduled.

Each night before you go to bed, review your calendar for the next day. If you have scheduled time for completing a step of your assignment, set an intention before you go to sleep to complete this step in the time you have scheduled.

When you set an intention to accomplish a task, you give the creative part of your brain permission to focus on this task. Doing this the night before can help you to feel well primed for the task when you wake up.

But sometimes your brain gets so excited by the task that it generates ideas before you fall to sleep. If you have thoughts or ideas come to mind that prevent you getting to sleep, write them down. This will put your mind at ease and allow you to get a better night’s sleep.

In the morning when you wake up, once again review your calendar for the day.

Once again, set a clear intention in your mind to accomplish your daily goals with ease and grace.

As you remind yourself of your intention for the day, you may discover that you have a lot of ideas about how to complete your assignment. Take some time to write a few quick notes before you get started on your day. This will free your mind to focus on whatever tasks you must complete before you can work on your assignment. You can return to your notes at your scheduled study time.

7. Eliminate external distractions.

When it comes time to work on your assignment, turn off your phone and log out of your email program. Hang a “Do Not Disturb” sign on your door.

8. Re-assess your progress at the end of each study session.

If needed, update the steps you need to take to complete the assignment. Then make adjustments to your calendar as well.

Remember, college assignments are designed to enhance your learning and understanding of the course material. For most people, this is not a linear process.

As your understanding of the material you are studying deepens, you will likely need to review and revise some of your earlier steps.

This is perfectly normal and natural. If you resist this, however, you will very likely impede your progress.

9. Try to complete your assignment at least 24 hours before it is due.

Completing your assignment before it is due will give you time to review your work and correct any errors before you submit it for a grade. You’ll be able to submit your work with confidence that you’ve done your very best.

When you break your assignment down into manageable steps, and you schedule time in your life to complete each of these steps, you are sure to find completing your work on time to be much easier.

But if you find that you are stuck at any one of the steps in the process, try using EFT. Remember, EFT works best when you are very specific about the problem you are having.

For instance, you may discover that you become anxious the moment you receive an assignment. Your anxiety can actually impede your ability to fully comprehend the assignment.

If this is true for you, try using EFT to alleviate this pattern anxiety.

Or you may discover that a specific step in the assignment trips you up. For instance, you may dislike spending time doing research, or you may struggle to commit your ideas to paper.

These times are also great opportunities to practice EFT.

Any time you find yourself feeling stuck on your assignment, see if a round of EFT can help. You may be surprised at the results.

If you’d like some help setting up your EFT phrases, leave a comment below.