Secrets of all those high-achieving high schoolers

It’s certain that in your class, there are always going to be a few students whose academic performances were certainly a lot better than the rest of the class, and for some reasons most of them are still able to stay healthy, sleep well, as well as being able to participate in a lot of activities outside of school. In this post, I would like to share some of the tips you can implement into your life in order to be one of these people - being amazing in academics, yet also high-achieving in other parts of life.

The first tip, which is something that you should definitely learn first of all, is to have the mindset of a high achiever earlier on. So what is “the mindset of a high achiever earlier on”? So basically, this means that you will always have the mindset: “I need to be successful, I need to keep pushing myself forward in order to create great achievements”. I know that it can get a bit forceful here, where you are pressuring yourself to be better. But if you strongly believe that you are perfectly capable of achieving more than what you have been performing, then by forcing yourself to move forward, this will help you tremendously with working hard and persevering in the face of tough issues.

Next, for a person who is a high schooler who can succeed in different aspects of life, you need to learn to plan the day strategically. There are of course going to be a lot of stuff that you have to do, either that is academics-related or out-of-school activities, hence we have to be strategic when planning the next day. How much time are you spending towards doing homework and preparing for exams? What time is dedicated to doing extracurricular activities? How can you use spare time in order to get some exercise done? These are only some of the main questions that you will have to ask yourself whenever you are making a schedule a day. Oh, and also, apart from a flexible schedule for the day, you need to set up some small goals too - what are you trying to do in the short-run? This can help you with designing the schedule better, when you are not wasting time but actually doing things for a certain purpose.

Everyday, you have around 7 hours of school where you will go through a lot of classes. Therefore, the next tip here is to always be focused in class and ask questions. This can be very beneficial for you in some certain aspects: firstly, when you are in class and have some questions, you can ask the teachers directly since they are available at that moment of time. Second of all, by focusing on class and actually understanding the materials presented there, you will have to spend less time going home and relearning the content over and over again. And thirdly, this can create a good impression on the minds of teachers - when you ask a lot of questions as well as paying attention in class, the teacher can realize that you are actually interested in their lessons, and certain they will have a soft spot for you!

Next is to seek knowledge proactively. So usually, the thing is that you will wait until the teacher teaches you whatever content you’re learning, and then you are practicing them and preparing them for exams. But this doesn’t have to be the case! Instead of just waiting for teachers to give assignments and teaching things, while not seeking them before that? There are a lot of free resources online where you can learn things beforehand, and by doing this, you can be more confident on your ability to take grasp of information - since the teacher teaching you about that is going to be the second time you’re exposed to the same information, so certain you will able to make that knowledge stuck in your mind longer, right?

The last tip that I would like to share with you guys today is that, as much as possible, you should learn to prevent “dead times” - basically, the times when you have nothing to do. I know that to rest is very important, but dead time is not about that - dead time occurs when you have nothing to do and you end up spending it wastefully. The best way to prevent any dead times is to create a timetable beforehand so that you will only follow the plan without worrying much about this - remember that you need to have breaks in that schedule! Or, you can list out a list of things beforehand that you can do in case you have absolutely nothing to do - things like painting, cooking, preparing for the SAT, or basically just take a bath!