Shareeta L. Brown

English 109

April 7, 2006

Philosophy of Success Essay

 

            Are you unorganized person?  Do you procrastinate?  Do you always put yourself down?  Do you want to be a successful student in college and life?  Success is the outcome you make of something or the results you get out of something.  To be successful in college you need to be organized, on time, and have a positive mind.  Here are some ways you can be successful student in college and in life according to author and college professor Skip Downing.  To get on course with your success, accept personal responsibility, find things that motivate you, find out what’s important, employ interdependence, gaining self awareness, adopt lifelong learning, develop emotional intelligence, and then staying on course to your success.

           

When I was in high school, I was unorganized and never on time.  I would do my homework then place it in my backpack, with the ton of other junk I had in my backpack.  When it was time for class, I wasn’t able to find it.   Not being able to find it resulted to me getting a failing grade.  I was always going to class late.  One time I missed a pop quiz, and I wasn’t able to make it up, which impacted my grade.  By having that attitude in school, I had to hurry up, and I devised my plan to have successful journey in life while I was in college.  These are some thing that might help me be a successful student in college and help me move the right direction in life.

            What is success? According to Skip Downing success is staying on course to your greatest dreams, creating wisdom, happiness, and unconditional self-worth along the way.  To have success one most set goals and achieve them, no matter how many time one fails.  The first time I took my English standards of learning test I failed, and I put my self down numerous times.  But I took my test over and I passed, which makes me successful.  I worked out a plan. I told myself I told myself I could pass The English standards of learning.  By doing this, it gave me the strengths that so I could pass the English standards of learning test.  I believe in myself and I developed self acceptance.  This was a success because it is something that I set and succeed at.  Self-esteem plays a big role; by saying positive things to myself I can achieve whatever I put my mind to. 

 

            To have success one must accept your responsibility.  Victims are people who are always blaming, accusing other people for their problems.  Creators are people who seek solution to their problems and try to find something new that will help them see the problems.  Victims barely ever achieve their goals and creators often achieve goals.  I was the one who always had an excuse for showing up to school late every day.  Then one time I came to school late when they were doing lock out. I had an excuse: I couldn’t find a parking spot.  But it didn’t work that time, which resulted in me having to stay after school for detention.  I thought about what I did, and I came up with a plan it.  I would come to school a little earlier I would find a parking spot so I wouldn’t be late for class.  So I made a wise choice to come to school a little earlier, so that I would not have to sit in detention anymore.

 

            Everyone has something that motivates them to do excel at something.  So you have to think of your life role and dreams.  My dream is to graduate from college.  If I graduate from college, no one can take my education away from me.  I was reading the On Course book by Skip Downing, and it had a story about whenever this student lost track of what she wanted to be, she would look at a picture of herself  in her sisters cap and gown and that was what she wanted to be to help her stay focused.  When I look at the amount money that I am making now, it motivates me to stay focused and get my degree so that I can have a better chance of getting a job/career.  I know once I get my degree, I will have enough money to start a family.

            Do you tend to waste a lot of time doing nothing?  Do you sometimes you tell yourself you will look at the last few minutes of the show and then study after that - then a few minutes turn into a few hours?  Well I always do things like that.  There are only twenty-four hours in a day and one hundred sixty-eight hours in a week, so it is not possible to do every thing you want to.  So a person needs to find out what is it important and not important.  One can do that by writing a list and finding out what important and not important and from A to C, with a being the highest and C being the lowest.  Then write how many hours you spend on each hours a week.  With this list one should be able to know how much time is wasted and what is needed to stop and to stay on task.  It is also helpful to carry around an agenda to know what to do for the day.  For instance, I always tended to forget to do homework in high school and I would end up saying if I wrote it down I would end up with a good grade.  No one can remember everything that is why it helpful to carry around an agenda or planner.  Finding out what is important and what not important helps a person be a more successful in college and in life.

            Do you think you can do everything by yourself with out any help?         Well you can’t. In order to be a successful student in life and in college one has to seek help from other and also give help to other.  During my first semester of college, I wasn’t doing so well in writing papers. When I turned in my paper, I thought I had a perfect paper until my teacher handed me back my grade I was shocked.  She offered me some help and told me about other place on campus where I could go get assistance.  I went and got help with my paper and by that I got a better grade than the last time.  I used to be a dependent student but now I am an interdependent student.  By being an interdependent, I am having fun getting help and helping other students as well.  By me moving from dependent I will say I have matured a little.  It is okay to get help in college because I can’t do everything by myself.  I didn’t let any obstacle stand in my way to prevent me from getting where I wanted to be in college.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

           What is gaining self- awareness?  Gaining self awareness means knowing when you are off course and being able to identify the self defeating patterns.  One of my self-defeating patterns is wondering if I’m college materials.  This pattern started after I got out of high school because I didn’t do so well in high school. What caused my problem was when I was in English, and I wrote a paper and my teacher told me I would have to take some prerequisite classes.  I told myself it would make me be in college an extra year.  When I first entered the calls I felt so dumb.  But there was no reason for me to feel like that because I wasn’t the only one in that class.  I got help whenever it was needed.  Sometimes I did fall off track by waiting to the last minute to do homework assignments.  However, I was able to realize what I was doing.  Then I got my problems corrected, I was able to identify what was important and what was not. That is how I gained my self-awareness.

 

Is your professor making it hard for you to learn?  Everyone has their own way of learning. Some are visual learner and some learn by hearing lectures.  When I do things, I think like a map. I like to relate everything to traveling.  I also like to look at notes in Cornell notes style that is when you divide the paper in half and write the question on the left and answer them on the write and at the bottom you summarize what you have learned.  When I first started school it was so hard for me to study and to look at my notes.  I used to just write everything down on my paper and when I looked at I didn’t know what I was looking at. That is what made me decide to do my notes in Cornell style.  By doing my notes in that way my grades started to increase.  The way you organize your notes and the way you study have a lot of ways to do with your learning style. 

To do well in college, you got have to develop emotional intelligence.  I used to let other people’s problems worried me half to deaf.  I used to let my problems overwhelmed me and made unwise choices that made me come off course.  I try not to let my personal get in my way of studying. One time, I lost seventy dollars and I was so upset.  I was throwing chairs and breaking everything.  I never got this angry before. I punched a hole in my door.  Then I realized after I did all that it didn’t solve any problems for me. I was like a hurricane I destroying everything in sight.  I stressed my self out that day and I made a promise to myself that I would never let something get me so angry.  It wasn’t worth all that stress, and it didn’t solve any of my problems, only brought more problems.  So now when I lose things, I try to retrace all my steps so I can remember where I had the item.

 

 

            Learning to stay on course to your success in life and in college to do what your goal is.  To stay on focused to your success you have to adopt lifelong goals, believe in yourself and develop emotional intelligence. Everything you do in life is for a reason, and you can learn a lesson from everything.  Try to keep a positive mind about goals and how you can achieve them.  Finally, believe yourself because if you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will.  By following this philosophy you will have a successful life.