Achieving Success | Richard Smart

Realising your goals can often be a long and arduous process. There are many obstacles one must navigate in order to achieve the desired results, however, not every method of action is able to produce sustained success.

Being a second-year commerce student, the transition between first and second-year university has been almost seamless, since many of the habits I obtained throughout last year have made me more comfortable with factors such as workload and time management. In order to guarantee that I will be able to reach my potential, some of the habits I have developed include ensuring I attend all lectures; even though they are posted online, and actively seeking help from a range of people including friends and tutors. Although these may seem like obvious ways to maximise success, it is easy to decrease your workload given the relaxed nature of the university environment, and examples of people dropping marks and even failing subjects due to their own laziness and bad habits are not rare. As such, I believe that I am much more likely to achieve success now and in the future, as opposed to a year ago, due to the routines I have forced on myself.

Despite reinforcing a number of good habits, there were a multitude of negative behaviours I developed throughout 2016 that needed to be quelled; the process of eradicating these tendencies began with identifying their limitations and acknowledging that, in order to achieve my goals, I must do away with these bad habits.

One habit that I have since removed has been leaving assignments to the last minute. Previously, this was a common occurrence due to a combination of an insane amount of assessments at once and poor time management skills (most of the time it was due to the latter), and whilst I would achieve good results, it was obvious that this would not be sustainable in the long-term. I am proud to say that throughout the entire first semester of 2017, I was able to submit every assignment the day before they were due; this personal success is purely due to recognizing previous faults and eliminating my bad habits.

It is easy to become frustrated when attempting to achieve your objectives as poor habits and lifestyle choices can interfere with the process; acknowledging what has worked and what is holding you back can often be the factor that enables you to attain your goals.

– Richard Smart –