Three rules of success

Ever wish you had a simple plan for success? I recently read about in a book about three simple rules for success. They do make sense and maybe they could help you out. This was done by polling college professors and they identified three rules of success. These can not only be applied to school but in the rest of your life at work, play, family etc. Here's the list:

Rule #1 Show up. - Kind of makes sense doesn't it. If you skip classes miss work you miss out or have to play catch up when you come back. This past semester I missed the the first class of exch class because I didn't read the schedule correctly. I had to play catch up for a couple of weeks after. After that I made it a goal to attend every class after that. The only class I missed was canceled because of snowstorm. I also did well in both classes to boot.

Rule #2 I do my best work. Another no brainer perhaps. Granted your best work isn't always possible but you should make it a goal. In doing some assignments this semester it was acceptable to hand some papers hand written but many times I went the extra mile to type and print them out to make a better appearance. I felt more pride handing those in then handing in a sheet of notebook paper for an assignment.

Rule #3 I participate actively. Be committed to participate actively in your tasks and roles in life. If you don't your just being reactive and have no control over the outcome. Be prepared in class or work, Listen attentively and plan ahead. Like Stephen Covey would advise to be proactive. Don't be a bump on a log.

Even though I haven't perfected these three I've at least got some guidelines to go by. To me they make sense and can be applied to all facets of life. Remember to show up,do your best and participate! Thank you and have a Merry Christmas!

*Sources: On Course (5th Edition) by Skip Downing, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

Lessons learned

Well this past week I had my final Oral Communications class this week. I took the final and I believe I did ok. Probably will know within the next week what my final grade is. I haven't heard anymore on my Student Success class yet. It's the holidays so I probably won't find out the final grades until after Christmas. I liked both of my teachers and felt I came a long way since September. Even the Oral Communications teacher was very positive and felt I had come a long way. The whole experience itself was personally uplifting. I feel energized by feeding my brain is one way to describe it. I'm hoping in the next couple of weeks I hope to share some of the things I learned before my next classes start in mid January. I actually going to miss school in a way but a break isn't bad to recharge my batteries. I'll be able to catch up on some personal things and enjoy a week off from work and spend time with my family as they are the most important things to me. Being on the opposite shift that my 5 year old son goes to school is tough. I miss him a lot and many times go all week with seeing him. He's growing so fast and he's doing well in Kindergarten. I got to see him at school sing for a Christmas program. I was so proud of him as he sang with his class. You definitely can't pass up those moments. Not to forget my wife I miss her too. I see her a bit more during the week so we try and catch up on things then. She's very understanding about me going to school and gives me a lot of slack even when I don't deserve it. Well I hope you all are able to enjoy this Christmas season. I'll be a away for Christmas for a couple of days but I'll be around online just not as much as usual. Take care and Merry Christmas!

Plan ahead

Here's some simple advice from motivational author Jack Canfield. Sounds like good advise . I'm working on it my self . I usually email myself a to-do list and I've found it helps. I haven't gotten to the point of planning each hour out.

Final Week

I had my final Student Success class yesterday which I turned my final essay in (70% of total grade). Before we left while we were doing some class work apparently our teacher read our essays. He was very impressed by it and even thought it worthy of being published in the textbook(On Course by Skip Downing)which has similar stories. Needless to say I was very flattered and somewhat speechless. He was going to share it with his department head and see what he or she thought. Not bad for a guy that hasn't written an essay in probably twenty years. That pretty much made my day. Even if nothing else happens with it, it was the highlight of my semester.
I've got one more class on Thursday for my Oral Communications final, and I'll find out my grade from my last speech(i almost don't want to know). So I'll be concentrating on that until then.
I'm actually kind of sad and glad the semesters ending soon. I thought I've learned a lot and actually can't wait to find out what I'm taking next semester. I also know it'll be good to take a break and recharge my batteries. I have another Stephen Covey Book on the way from Amazon called First Things First. That should give me some reading material over the holidays. That's it for now and see you later.

Healthy Stress reduction

Here are some healthy stress reduction tips. These are adapted from my Student Success textbook "On Course" by Skip Downing. I can see the heavy influence of Stephen Covey's 4 quadrants theory. Here we go.

• Sail Away - Separate your self from your external stress. Seek some solitude to reduce stress.
  
• Make a list of priorities you have.
• Assign priorities to each task : A= important & important, B = important & not urgent, C = All unimportant items.
• Cross the C's off the list as they are pretty much a waste of time.
  
• Delegation- Wherever possible delegate(A's and B's) to someone else to a task. Ask a favor from a friend relative. Have someone help you with some of your items.
• Complete remaining A's and B's yourself.
• Look for time savers. Consolidate errands or tasks whenever possible.
• Just say No - Say no to any unnecessary commitments. Do it in a polite way whenever possible.
  
• Keep Finances organized. Finances can be a big stress do best to keep in order.
• Exercise - Oops I really slack on this one. Helps reduce stress and is good for you to boot.

I hope these can help you out among these stressful holiday season. Thanks for coming by.

Victims and Creators

My Student Success book teaches us about people who are Victims and Creators. This is similar to Stephen Covey's Proactive and Reactive people. Victims tend to keep doing what they are doing whether it works or not. They blame outside forces and or are heavily influenced by them. Creators change beliefs and behaviors to create solutions. They also take responsibility for there actions and such.
The reason for my intro was to bring about this incident at my work place. At my work we have crews of people who work for different supervisors in different trades. Trading of workers does happen from time to time if someone switches a job(sometimes against there will). Our crew short on people many months ago took on some new members several months ago. One such member came from another crew who was interested in our trade and seemed like a good worker. Also it was well known he didn't get along with his last boss. Over the past several months there have been several incidents involving him and other crew members. Not always his fault but he was in the thick of it. Well just this night while leaving for work he shouts over to me and my friend who were headed for out cars "You guys got me switched back to so and so's (back to his old boss) department next week." Blaming us for his departure from our crew. We had ourselves little if any decision or impact on his leaving. I just thought this illustrated the Victim persona so well.
How often do we our selves blame others for our misfortune, rather than looking into ourselves for our own responsibility? This class and book has made me see the difference in my own thinking and seeing it others.

Been awhile

Since I've been around here. Been busy with other things I guess. I've been working a lot at my PC repair blog. As far as school news has been I've been doing pretty good. I gave my last speech last week for Oral Communications. Mine was a speech of persuasion to read Stephen Covey's book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It went ok. My time was a little short and there were a few things like actually using the blackboard for visuals. Not sure what I was thinking not using visuals it may have helped my time issues. It also didn't help that I had changed the subject at the last minute. Oh well. Got my final test next week. My other class Student Success I've got to finish up my final essay this week and that will be last of that one. I wonder what next semesters classes will be?