There are many people who believe that the life of a Student is an easy and carefree one. But this is not necessarily true. The practises and habits that you set in place when you are a Student will often remain with you for the rest of your life and lead to your success. So it is important to realise that you have both strong points and weak points, and to then do what you can to improve yourself.
Entering into an academic environment for the first time, you may be overwhelmed by the level and pace of the course, and it may seem that other Students are managing much better than you. Remember, though, that they may be feeling the same and will have their own strengths and weaknesses to deal with.
You may find that you thrive in some areas and struggle in others, and this knowledge can be used to improve yourself. A key capacity that all Students need is to be organised. As a Student you will have to balance a number of different factors: studying alongside a social life, looking after a family, and in some cases a full or part-time job. The only way to balance all of this is with good organisation.
Set up a calendar where you can set times for study and submitting achievement tests and assessments. If you set some goals, you can aim towards them and it will keep you on track.
Hand-in-hand with the strengths of good organisation go the strengths of a good work ethic. While organisation will certainly make your life easier, you also need to match this with hard work – getting the results you want means putting in the necessary hours of study. Sometimes study will need to come first and the social life second in order to achieve your goal.
Undoubtedly one of the greatest curses of Students everywhere is procrastination. This is a common weakness among Students – substituting the task you need to do for other things which will not help you at all. Try to be strict with yourself. Give yourself a limited amount of time to work or read, and then take some time off to do the other things that you want to do. This is the only way to combat procrastination and, for that matter, a lack of motivation.
One of the reasons that motivation becomes a problem is either that you are feeling worn down or that you lack interest in what you are currently working on. Again, this is a common weakness among Students, who can easily become overwhelmed by a big workload. If this happens to you, take some time out to do something fun for yourself. Go for a walk, get some endorphins flowing and come back to the studying later. It serves no purpose to beat yourself up. If you see yourself in any of these descriptions of strengths and weaknesses, use it as an opportunity for personal growth. Knowing your weaknesses is the first stage in improving upon them.
There are many articles in our journal about organisation skills, motivation and procrastination that can help you with your studies and achieve your qualification.
The Legal Secretary Journal
