Help Your Teen Discover a Personal Mission
Too many times, our well-meaning attempts to listen to our teens result in failed one-sided snippets of conversation. Parents and teens tire of the same old questions: “How are you?” (fine) “How was your day” (ok please leave me alone) “What’s new?” (…please just get off my back already!) Teens, unfortunately, don’t come with instruction manuals. But I’ll tell you one thing–teens are new to adulting, which, when you think back, is even more daunting. While some teens discover their life passion from early on, some need help to begin forming their life’s passions, goals, and mission. Parents can help their teen, not by asking her to choose a college major or career path, but by first learning more about her developing personal mission. In his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens, Sean Covey says, “Life is a mission, not a career. A career is a profession, a…
Inspiration for Preparation
Test preparation, at its noble core, seems almost too simple: if you prepare for a test, you will do better on the test. Yet sometimes even the most obvious connection escapes some people! Fortunately, the impact of exceptional preparation on achievement, success, and even luck has been well-documented throughout the ages. If you’re not sure you should be preparing for the next challenge ahead, read and be inspired… Success is where preparation and opportunity meet. — Bobby Unser Be prepared, work hard, and hope for a little luck. Recognize that the harder you work and the better prepared you are, the more luck you might have. — Ed Bradley The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today. — Elbert Hubbard There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. — Colin Powell Spectacular achievement is always…
How is a Test Like a Climbing Wall?
I’ve been happily immersed in ACT Certified Educator training over the last week. This is a great program with terrific trainers. Jason Derby, for example, is a true educational triple-threat, teaching high school classes, ACE courses, and private test prep. No wonder so many of his insights resonated with my own experience of testing. For example, who could argue with this analogy? The ACT is like a rock wall: there are usually multiple ways to climb to the top. Jason hits the nail on the head here. Great climbing walls are designed to challenge a wide range of complementary skills and strategies along a spectrum of successful outcomes. Great tests do the same. Neither trial is necessarily designed to allow every competitor to attain the summit but still permits numerous paths to the highest levels of success. The comparison doesn’t end there. Solving a tough test question is a lot…
Patience is Not The Ability to Wait…
Sometimes in life, you find yourself a holding pattern, forced to delay when you dearly desire to act. You want to take the field, but the big game hasn’t even started yet. What else can you do but wait? Here’s what you can do: Be patient. As author Joyce Meyer said, “Patience is not the ability to wait but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting.” Be strong. As Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, another author, said, “Patience is not passive; on the contrary, it is active; it is concentrated strength.” Be planful. Some wise individual observed, “The day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit.” Last but not least, be present in the moment you find yourself. Sometimes you have to let go of the picture of what you thought life would be like and learn to find joy in the story you’re living.…
A Smooth Sea Never Made a Skilled Sailor
When the school year started, nobody–and I repeat, nobody–could have predicted that Spring 2020 started with school closings across the United States and utter cessation of all sports and activities. But this really is happening. Take heart! Now, how will you use your social distancing downtime to pursue all the dreams you have for when society reconvenes? Stay strong and never stop working towards what you really want!
What to Do When You Want to Be Successful
Earlier in the year, I shared some pointed quotes about What to Be When You Want to Be Successful. However, as Carl Jung observed, “You are what you do.” Success in any specific area requires very specific steps; the path to superior test scores may resemble that for other endeavors, but requires demonstrably more practice tests! In a larger sense, though, elite performance depends on consistently doing the right things the right way… Do you know what to do now? If you want to do one more thing to supercharge success, subscribe to the massively motivational Chariot Learning Instagram feed!