Keep my long-term goals always in sight for motivation and to beat the slumps. Long-term goals currently:
MBA from Ivey League.
Land big internships at reputable places that give me leverage. (Big 4, FAANG)
Keep feeding my learning hunger and do side projects and psych me up. Always search for problems to solve.
Effective Altruism - do some good in the world by making technology secure. (Through cybersecurity and tech security strategy) (Yet to be more defined)
Gain technical know-how to become a good leader so I know what to delegate to people. Don’t need to code everything myself.
Move away from people with a victim mentality. People who have gratitude and are constantly hungry to optimize themselves for the better are the shit. Treat school like a job, and extracurricular pursuits as passion.
Align my extracurriculars to double down on my strengths and focus on my weaknesses for my academics.
My list of exploration that uses all these strengths:
Going in hackathons knowing the functions/capabilities of different technologies. I don’t need to code like crazy, but ideate ideas knowing what each tech can do.
Starting Effective Altruism at Western
Reserve the weekend to be ONLY fun. I need that energy to push me through the week.
Leverage the curve of forgetting. Review for a lecture for 10 minutes at the end of the day. For hard classes, I’m making a study group study each week starting this week.
Exercise occasionally. Every successful person I know somehow manages to make some time out of their weeks to exercise. I am going to stay at this and explore how this makes a difference in my well-being.
Embrace the 2-minute rule. Every single day I think of something, possibly that I don’t want to do. Now, I am going to promise to do it for 2-5 minutes at least and go on from there.
Screw the comparison of marks, internships and everything. In high school, how I excelled in COVID years by obsessing over being better than myself and I ended up beating the competition by a margin. Same mentality.
Can’t do applications and prep for interviews last minute anymore. Leverage the 2-minute rule and start it the day of. Can I really not take out 2-5 minutes for this?
Set a schedule every week for what I will study each day of the week, eating only eggs for brunch and a heavy dinner. Sleep early and wake up early. Automate my life so it becomes easier. Habits are harder to maintain initially but once made, they make life so much easier.
If I don’t act on advice/coffee chats - I wasted the other person’s time and my time. In the modern world, taking action is the most crucial thing, and it’s funny because it’s so easy to not take action and take action. It’s the difference between opening Instagram in the new tab or the thing I am chasing.
Even if I am tired as shit, I can get stuff done. The afternoon slump is an excuse for me. I never get slumped when a deadline is close. I need to condition my mind to grind by taking on a shit ton of commitments so I don’t have time to waste. Right now: its hackathons, starting a club and internship applications.
In all honesty, the first semester was a shitshow. My study habits weren’t efficient. I’d be catching up on one course and then suddenly find myself so behind on the other. I struggled to maintain a social life and study life balance. I struggled to balance my social life and academics and was completely left out of most extracurriculars.
After ruminating reflection, I have come up with a few mistakes and their fixes that might resemble others and that I truly believe were huge obstacles in my learning ability.
Mistakes and fixes:
Lack of specific goal-setting: Prior to university, my one goal was to get into the university of my top choice. Fortunately, with hard work and luck (you’re lying to yourself if you don’t admit luck in your successes), I achieved my goal way better than I hoped. But, after achieving what I had been working on for so long, I landed in a slump. It’s like senioritis but less severe. I was still working with a goal (maintaining an 80% average), but it was so much less ambitious and that isn’t as rewarding as my last goal.
Fix: I am writing down my long-term goals and assuming I don’t live beyond five years. Learned this mindset from The Knowledge Podcast (Episode #135). Similar to getting into my top schools, I will strive every hour to achieve these long-term goals. As defined by Angela Duckworth, grit = passion and perseverance towards long-term goals. And, there’s no force stronger, not intelligence, not EQ.
Additionally, I am going to focus on why I am taking each course. Being annoyed and complaining about how I am going to apply any of the material learning in real life is an excuse. I’ll talk more about this in point #2.
Occasional victim mentality: Few things I loathe as much as victim mentality. I never hear from my overachieving friend’s complaints like “this wasn’t taught in the syllabus” or “we’re never going to use this in life.” I only hear it from others who didn’t do well and were too busy scrolling on TikTok mostly or unfortunately from myself when I was drained. Considering how much I hate this mindset, this is never getting in my head again.
Fix: I read this amazing essay coming across sigilwen.ca. Paul Graham says to treat your school like your “job” and your passions/calling your outside work. I like this approach. Complaining never got me anywhere in life and I believe that people with this mentality never become successful or happy with their lives. All my life, I have been able to find fun in the most boring things. I hate memorizing with all my heart, regardless I started a study group for my psychology class and now it’s genuinely fun. I need to be strategic and troubleshoot than complain. Gamification over complaining any day. And, I need to remember I am at University not for the degree, but the people and the learning.
Misconceptual Self-Reflection: I’d watch a cool tech movie and think for two hours I am the shit and then struggle to make a block of code work for an hour only to realize I was using round brackets instead of square brackets. My point is, in today’s world, it’s so easy to think you’re the shit at anything really, even when you’re not.
Fix: After reading CliftonStrengths and The Unfair Advantage, I have come to realize to say screw you to what’s deemed prestigious or cool, which I had been doing a lot. I believe I or anyone can become good at absolutely anything. I failed Grade 8 Math for example but got the highest grade in Math in Grade 12. However, I can be good at everything but best only in a few things. For my career, I need to find these few things and I need to double down on my strengths. To avoid the common confusion of wrongly evaluating my strengths, I asked the people closest to me what they think I am exceptional in. I believe I got the best results through this method.
My list: Strategic-thinking, being extremely passionate about one thing and going all in discipline, command, brainstorming and altruism. The next step is to follow my calling that utilizes these strengths. How do I find this calling? By making a list and exploring.
My list of exploration that uses all these strengths:
Going in hackathons knowing the functions/capabilities of different technologies. I don’t need to code like crazy, but ideate ideas knowing what each tech can do
Starting Effective Altruism at Western
Not social for weeks: I know by nature I am an extrovert and this wasn’t the best decision. Here’s my theory: dopamine detoxing can do wonders but there’s a thin line between maximum efficiency and demotivated. I need to balance at the edge so I don’t become sad. Social life and career aren’t separate, they are interdependent because our brains need some sort of dopamine.
Fix: Reserve Saturdays for a lot of fun. No exceptions, even in exam season. I will force myself to become efficient with a hard cut off Friday night. I find myself falling a prey to Parkinson’s Law always. I will have something scheduled for every Saturday. Even if I am getting a shit grade, I am not missing out on Saturdays. Remember, I am only alive for five years. I have loved doing crazy shit. In Grade 11, I used to go random skateboarding and cliff jumping with friends at 3 AM. I need that back in this grind to balance out my life.
Lack of reviewing and application: when I don’t review things in 24 hours, I forget most of them. Learned this through my psychology class.
Fix: Schedule study sessions on the day of the lecture with my friends. Study and review together. Make this a weekly thing where are constantly reviewing and learning. 10 minutes of review for the day of the lecture. 5 minutes of review the next week. Source
Lack of Physical Exercise: Everywhere I go on the internet, I get this advice to better my mind. Locking myself in a room for hours probably isn’t the best approach after all.
Fix: I am not the biggest gym person. And I get really tired very quickly. I think know I can make time for swimming every 3 days though. Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays in the evening for 15 minutes. We’ll go on from here.
Procrastination with hard tasks: After making the same mistake repeatedly, I am pissed. I am going to start small as I have read so many books and not applied.
Fix: Doing internship applications is a ridiculously vague and big task. I need to break it down A LOT. New task: work on internship research for 5 minutes. This is more like it, if it goes well, I’ll extend it. The thing about any big task is nothing is hard. It’s the imposter syndrome and the unfamiliarity associated with it. I never procrastinate on washing clothes for example, because I know all I have to do is put the clothes in the machine, pour detergent, put in my student card and off I go. It’s clear as a crystal. With tasks that are not clear, I simply work on them for very short intervals, and I will get more familiar with them eventually and I’ll get more done. There is absolutely nothing one human can’t do. Another important thing to do is start assignments the day I get them - even for 5/10 minutes. I have gotten this advice so many times but I haven’t applied it like a dumbass. This rule helps eliminate vagueness and that imposter syndrome from things that seem hard, but really, aren’t.
Constant Comparison: This is debatably my biggest mistake of the semester. I would compare marks with people and either feel at the top of the world and start slacking or feel so down that I beat myself up about it. Moreover, I’d compare how much time someone is spending on a task and I’d compare how much behind is someone in a subject and comfort myself with them slacking too.
Fix: STOP IT. I genuinely couldn’t care less and I should start caring less. I need to obsess with my own priorities. In my gap year, I had absolutely no comparison and man, how much I became obsessed with self-improvement is the reason for some achievements I am proud of in 2022. I need to adopt this same mentality again. Not only am I going to stop comparing marks, but also, screw LinkedIn. It’s me against me with my ambitious long-term goals. No better self-improvement technique than that.
Doing applications last minute and not preparing for interviews: This year, I got rejected from three clubs of my top preference. It’s embarrassing but a reality check. I had become too overconfident, just winging interviews whereas, with every interview before, I have prepared well in advance and started their applications way before.
Fix: Procrastination fix. Do applications for 5 minutes a week before, 10 minutes before 5 days and then raise the time. Lastly, get it proofread by someone I trust. I need to prepare for interviews 2 hours in advance, by looking up YouTube videos with the most commonly asked questions and aligning my interview with the story I am telling in my application. This mistake needs MAJOR improvement.
Using afternoon slump and tiredness as an excuse: I have realized no matter how tired I am, I can get shit done. No matter how tired I am, I will get an assignment done that’s due at 12 AM. Similarly, I just need to push through when I am close to making excuses and stay accountable to myself.
Overall, great sem. Met some amazing people. Now, the grind begins again.
Here’s my picture of my completely sober friend to end the blog.
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We love to see a list of action-oriented goals!! You’re going to do great in the second semester, Hardeep :) 💯