Your Mindful Guide to Academic Success: Prevent Burnout

Tran

Chapter 1

HOW TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS WITH METACOGNITION

Contents: Understanding Your Learning Styles, Making Your Brain Work for You, Coping with Learning Disabilities, Identifying Your Personality Types

The main point of education is to learn, right? Although your grades may not always reflect your knowledge, doing well on exams helps you get into college and perhaps graduate school, and on to the career of your choice. The future belongs to those who believe in their dreams, stated Bob (21, m, California). If your goal is to learn a lot and succeed on tests and in classes increase your motivation by doing job shadowing to experience careers that interest you. Interview recent graduates from your school to learn about their choices and take advantage of the career information in your school library to imagine how you’ll put your studies to use. Studying smart is in your best interest in this era when so many students are working to help pay for their education; use metacognition to learn about how you learn most effectively and take action to implement those strategies. Becoming a lifelong learner and critical thinker is an important reason to attend college, as well as earning much more money than workers who just graduate from high school. Various essays, including William Cronon, Only Connect, explain the purpose of college education other than job preparation.¹ Know Your Why is discussed by Michael Jr.² Thomas Oppong suggests high-impact books to read to be a successful learner.³

Metacognition

Many educators are interested in teaching students about the process by which we think and learn, called metacognition (coined by developmental psychologists John Flavell and Ann Brown in 1976) or Cognitive Strategy Instruction. It aims to create a self-regulated learner who evaluates and plans learning strategies. The goal is to teach skills used by successful students to every student, to figure out personal strategies for learning and problem-solving such as study skills and techniques for memorizing. For example, students may not understand why they spent a lot of time studying for a test or writing a paper but got only an average score because they didn’t provide their own analysis and integration of ideas. Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning defines different stages of thinking such as remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate and create.⁴ As writers, we need to do more than memorize and regurgitate other people’s ideas. We need to identify our strengths and weaknesses as learners and then plan effective strategies, such as asking a teacher for more feedback and evaluation.

A common problem is spacing out—losing focus—while reading or in class, which wastes our valuable time. We can study smart by staying focused by writing notes or diagrams while reading or in class rather than day dreaming or being distracted by media--another example of a metacognition activity. Instead of just reading passively, a student can do self-questioning, ask how and why questions, compare and contrast, and write test questions thinking like the instructor. Another strategy may be to study in a quiet place in the library away from distractions.

Evaluating and analyzing our study strategies and our weaknesses and strengths as writers and learners is a metacognitive activity. For me, it’s a waste of time to study late at night or when I’m tired. It’s better strategy for me to get up early to study, while you might be an owl who is wide awake at night. An example of thinking about how to succeed on tests, if math word problems on tests are difficult, it may be better strategy to answer the numerical problems first. My strategy with math classes was to get a tutor. If an approach isn’t working, evaluate and formulate a new plan. The basic point is if we’re not satisfied with our performance, we can figure out a different technique, perhaps by talking with instructors, more experienced students or family members.

Analytical thinking is fundamental to academic success; getting feedback from instructors in this skill is an important reason to attend college. This means we rely on reason and evidence rather than opinion and prejudice. Critical thinkers realize that, No matter how skilled they are as thinkers, they can always improve their reasoning abilities and they will at times fall prey to mistakes in reasoning, human irrationality, prejudices, biases, distortions, uncritically accepted social rules and taboos, self-interest, and vested interest.⁵ Linda Elder added, They avoid thinking simplistically about complicated issues and strive to appropriately consider the rights and needs of relevant others.

Part of critical thinking in this era when the majority (62%) of adults in the US gets their news on social media (Facebook is the most popular) is digital literacy.⁶ We need to watch out for fake news and political statements made without evidence, as surfaced often in the presidential campaign in 2016 and after. His spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway even justified alternative facts, such as statements about the size of the crowd at Trumps’ inauguration. A study reported that candidate Donald Trump misspoke 87 times in five days of his presidential campaign, about every three minutes that he campaigned.⁷ In his book Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade, Robert Cialdini describes techniques used by salespersons and others to influence us. A journalism professor gives 20 suggestions for how to approach news and Dan Levitin wrote A Field Guide to Lies: Critical Thinking in the Information Age.⁸

A Stanford University study reported that young digital natives are easily duped by misinformation, in need of Metaliteracy. It refers to being aware of how our feelings influence how we process information. For example, we are more likely to fact-check when we don’t agree with a statement than if we agree with it. An example of biased thinking based on culture, I assumed that marriages based on love and mutual attraction were the only viable marriages until a teacher in New Delhi told me about her happy arranged marriages and the value of not having to play dating games. In Egypt, Ahmed (17, m) reports,

I’m aware how global media can form your opinion or sometimes be used to brainwash or implant certain (whether good or bad) ideas in your mind to serve a certain agenda, and so I work on filtering all the information I receive. I make sure I benefit from these tools to communicate, share, express myself, and reach for the truth and to educate myself.

Hassan, a college student from Pakistan, advises, Know your goals. It is important to identify your end task. If you know where you’re going, then you’ll get there quickly and will look for ways to get there before everybody. That’s the edge that everyone is looking for in such a competitive world. In his book The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg suggests that goals need to be defined with precision, such as instead of I want to lose weight, say I want to lose 10 pounds over the next six months by not snacking.

He also emphasizes the importance of visualizing your goal with details. Sean’s goal is to acquire knowledge:

Knowledge is power that may bring us closer to understanding truth. Truth will help us to understand ourselves so that we can grow and be happy in the future. To learn is like traveling; you can go to many places. The more you learn, the easier understanding others will be, so that we can all get along. Sean, 26, m, California

Perfect, a 14-year-old girl in Tanzania asks, "How can I apply all Seven Habits of Highly Effective People at once?" Stephen Covey reports in his book that the keys to success are: Be proactive, begin with the end in mind, put first things first, think win/ win, seek first to understand--then to be understood, synergize, and be balanced. You can’t do all of them at once, but keep them in mind when planning for your future as you read this book. It can be challenging to formulate your own goals, as Nancy (14, California) describes.

My most difficult challenge as a teenager is finding out who I am, where I belong, and how far I am willing to go to meet my goals. I’ve learned to set my own goals and to strive to reach them, to look ahead into the future and not to look back on my mistakes but learn from them. I’ve learned that I don’t need to meet anyone else’s expectations but my own and to have morals and self-respect.

Bob (18, m, California) reports on his distractions from achieving goals:

Being a teenager is sometimes very difficult. There are many challenging things I face every day, such as drugs, smoking, alcohol, peer pressure, and trying to fit in. The thing that I have most trouble with is a place I go almost every day. It’s a place where it is supposed to be fun and exciting, a place where you have a lot of friends, also a place where you learn new knowledge. Yes, I’m talking about school.

Amber (15, f, California) also isn’t happy with her school; she blames tired teachers:

When I think of my school, I think of a horrible, boring dirty place where teachers don’t care how you’re doing. To most teachers, it’s just a job. When a teacher doesn’t care, the students can tell. It makes me feel discouraged and not want to go to school. But the truth is, I do care. School has always been difficult for me. I have to struggle very hard just to get a passing grade. It doesn’t help that I don’t like being there. One of the ways I keep myself from not giving up is I tell myself, if I ever want a good job, I have to stay in school and try my hardest. The advice that I’d give to anyone who asks is always try, never give up, and think about your actions.

Ana Karina (16) is from Mexico where she advocates the importance of teacher and parental support: Adults should also think about us, that we struggle a lot to get good grades and they don’t even notice how hard we try. I don’t feel that nowadays adults care about students. This book is a suggestion for those students who want to quit, because they’re too tired, they have much anxiety and stress and they just want to give up, and this book can help them to keep going. (A video interview with her about her political and other views is on the book YouTube channel.⁹) We know that students today are under great pressure to succeed in an increasingly unequal economic system, but we can learn techniques for how to use time well so we can make space to socialize, exercise, and volunteer to help our communities. Write down your goals for this year and for five-years ahead in your journal and prioritize useful strategies to implement them, as listed below.

Steps to Achieve Your Goals

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.

John F. Kennedy

1.Set a specific and realistic goal for yourself. Use positive words such as, I remember the right test answers, rather than Don’t forget, or a healthy weight rather than lose weight, or put only healthy substances in my body rather than quit smoking. Post the written goal in many places, such as your backpack and bathroom mirror. Some experts advocate that you visualize specific details of what it will feel like to manifest your goal.

2.Study smart, focusing on the most important topics. Pareto’s Principle says that 20% of your efforts lead to 80% of the desired results. This is an example of metacognition, becoming aware of how you learn best. Keep this principle in mind while test taking as well. An interesting article based on the book The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World (2016), by scientists Adam Gazzaley and Larry Rosen, explains how we get distracted from our goals.¹⁰ If you have more reading to do than free time, skim your text focusing on subheadings and outline notes as you skim. Don’t try to study if you’re exhausted and can’t retain anything; it’s a time waster. Take a nap or get up early to study.

3.Balance your body with bi-lateral movements and drink water so you can think clearly.¹¹ (Explained in Chapter 4.) When we’re out of balance we get fuzzy thinking and clumsy, but this can easily be corrected by crossing the midline of the body as by cross-crawling, touching right elbow to left knee and then left elbow to right knee.

4.Research a plan of action to achieve your goals, based on a strategy with specific actions. You may want to talk with role models who work in your interest areas about how they accomplish their goals. Avoid procrastination by breaking a task into small parts and doing at least one part daily. For example, set aside 30 minutes of uninterrupted work and then reward yourself for taking action, using behavior modification with positive reinforcement. A reward can be as simple as taking a short walk outside. Rewards can be things or emotional like praise. Cognitive restructuring is another approach, changing our thinking to view the glass as half full rather than half empty or reminding ourselves of our long-term goals. We’re social beings so it helps to have a support group such as a study group or exercise buddy. (See an article about more learning strategies.¹²)

5.Make a vision board so you have pictures of your goal to inspire you. Get old magazines, cut and paste images on a heavy piece of paper to post in your study area, or draw your own pictures. Also, post affirmations and cartoons that inspire you and make you smile since laughter is preventative medicine that helps us stay centered so we can achieve.

6.Develop a support group, understanding that the first weeks of learning a new skill are often the hardest. A study group with the same goal reinforces each other’s actions and can make friends who share similar interests. When I was studying for my Ph.D. comprehensive exam, I organized a group of students who gave each other reports on the information we thought would be covered in the exam. The reports I prepared and what I learned from the others in our group helped me pass the test. You might suggest that an instructor help facilitate such a group or see if peer tutoring is available.

7.Be aware of self-sabotage and negative thinking, such as I don’t deserve, I can’t, and My family would be threatened if I succeed where they didn’t. Use energy psychologies used by many therapists to clear unconscious blocks, discussed in Chapter 4. Energy psychology uses techniques to involve both brain hemispheres and tapping on acupressure meridian points to clear old trauma that was too potent at the time to be processed and released. (Meridians are energy channels discovered by Chinese doctors thousands of years ago, with acupuncture points along the meridians used by acupuncturists.) Here’s a seven-year old boy’s report on using Emotional Freedom Technique used by many therapists and psychologists: It makes the bad stuff not hurt as much. They look at me funny [at school when he’s tapping on the acupressure points]. But now they know why I do it. My friend got over his dog dying by tapping. I showed him how to help his heart.

8.Record your progress in a journal or chart. Evaluate your progress once a week to see if you need to research a different plan of action that works better for you. Hassan comments, I totally agree. When we do projects here in Pakistan, we always emphasize setting realistic goals and in the end, receiving feedback to evaluate and improve for next time.

Understand Your Learning Styles

Analyze your learning styles in your journal and keep observing how you learn most efficiently so you have time for fun activities. Learning about your personality type facilitates selecting appropriate solutions to manage stress and challenges. Free Internet tests help understand you learning and personality styles, mentioned below.

*Know your learning type. We don’t all learn the same way. It’s helpful to identify how you learn best, and be aware of your teachers’ styles. School counselors can give you tests to identify your style or take them online. The belief that the left or right brain has different learning approaches is a neuromyth because the two hemispheres are connected by fibers; learning skills like language and reading use a network on both sides of the brain. However, Neuro Linguistic Programming studies find that we do have different learning approaches—you can take their typology online and see a guide to different ways to study by learning styles.¹³ We shouldn’t limit ourselves by thinking we only learn one way since in reality a combination is most effective. The brain is very plastic, changing as we learn over the lifetime.

*Auditory learners learn by hearing, such as listening to verbal instructions from a teacher.

*Visual learners favor reading or looking at a diagram or chart.

*Kinesthetic learners like to take concrete actions, such as learning geometry by making three-dimensional shapes. Some learn by touching (tactile learners), so Montessori schools teach letters to children by having them touch textured letters.

*Auditory-digital learners like me need to have an internal conversation with themselves, as defined by Neuro Linguistic Programming.¹⁴ I was snorkeling in Puerto Rico when suddenly three large dolphins swam next to me. Surprised, I reverted to my basic type and thought to myself, This is a great story to tell my friends, instead of focusing on looking at them or listening to them.

Most of us remember better if we combine methods, such as learning a new vocabulary word by writing it and seeing it on a flashcard, saying it out loud, and connecting it to something we already know.

These percentages indicate that it’s a good idea to talk about what you are learning in a study group or to practice explaining a difficult idea to a friend or family member. Reading your essays aloud before turning them in is imperative so you hear the flow of ideas, even if you’re not an especially auditory learner.

Another way to think about your learning style is whether you tend to be global or analytical. Rita Stafford Dunn and Kenneth Dunn have written over 10 books on learning styles, such as Complete Guide to the Learning Styles Inservice System. They report that about 55% of the population are global thinkers, about 28% are analytical, and the rest are integrated learners who don’t favor either approach. If you are a global thinker like me, you like to understand the overall concept before tackling details. You tend to be intuitive and look for patterns in information. Globals like some background noise and low lights when they work, and they may like to have something in their mouth (eating, chewing gum, biting on a pencil). They often like to learn in a group, while analytical thinkers learn better on their own.

Analytic thinkers like to work step–by–step in logical progression from point A to point B. They like to do one thing at a time until its finished, while globals like to take breaks and have multiple projects going at the same time. Analyticals like to work quietly, with bright lights to help them concentrate, and rarely eat when they are working. Hassan reports, Really helpful. Helps me learn my style too. Love it. Pakistani private students who study English Medium of Education are global thinkers. They tend to grasp the whole concept first and then aim for next steps. Da-Uh compares US and Korean styles:

I would say most Korean students are probably analytical learners. They were taught to be this way. Many Western students are probably global learners, because they may see people behaving as such in the media, or they see friends studying that way and it looks cool. I know when I used to live in the U.S. many of my friends were global learners, and you would see high school students studying with music on, eating chips and watching TV all at the same time. When I came to Korea, studying like that was discouraged, as the adults said doing so would hinder my concentration and therefore lessen the quality of work.

We’re working in an increasingly globalized society, so it’s useful to be aware of learning styles in different countries. Students are expected to be analytical and critical thinkers, which means relying on step-by-step logic and evidence rather than opinions. I tell my students you have the right to believe that the moon is made from green cheese, but you need to move past beliefs and opinions to facts and analysis when you write logical research papers and exams backed up with facts.

Know Your Biorhythms

Biorhythms chart our cycles of low and high energy in terms of emotions, intellect and physical activity, which can be charted using your birth date.¹⁵ Do important and difficult tasks during your peak energy time when you think most clearly. Luna from Japan adds, In my case, I take a nap because my brain works great after a nap. Use metacognition to be aware of when you work best and try to schedule your most challenging work then. If you brain is zonked by 10:00 p.m., that’s obviously not the best time to study for a difficult exam and is probably a waste of time. Usually it’s best to do your hardest homework first when you have the most energy. It’s a frustrating waste of time to sit and space out. Get up and move around to be able to focus again.

Hassan is a morning lark rather than a night owl, so he suggests, Study in the early morning as that is when the mind functions the best. Study the most difficult lesson in the beginning, as you’re fresh, and in the end as you’re eager to finish. The middle part is boring so use that time for the chapters you’re master of. IA similar approach is Michael Breus’ The Power of When: Discover Your Chronotype — and the Best Time to Eat Lunch, Ask for a Raise, Have Sex, Write a Novel, Take Your Meds, and More. He classifies us in four activity patterns of lion, wolf, bear or dolphin and suggests how to work with these inclinations. (Learn about your type at www.thepowerofwhen.com. (Breus also has a book for how to get better sleep called Good Night.) Extroverts and introverts also have different approaches to learning.

Being an Introverted Person

Highly sensitive people have a different makeup than extroverted, less sensitive personalities. An introvert is energized by spending time alone, while an extrovert is energized by being with people—they’re the most common type. This orientation influences how we take tests and interact with other students. Therapist Elaine Aron reports in her book The Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) that introverts, around 20% of the US population, are bothered by high levels of stimulation, such as noise or crowds. They are more likely than other people to respond to subtleties, be intuitive, and overwhelmed. They may not set boundaries between themselves and others. Aron explains HSPs often are prescribed drugs to cope with anxiety and depression because the serotonin levels in their brains get eroded by stressful cortisol levels, caused by the ongoing stress of over-arousal. Aron also provides a workbook and writes a newsletter titled Comfort Zone.

Just knowing you’re an HSP can reframe your judgments of yourself. Give yourself permission to set aside time alone to recharge your emotional batteries. HSPs can benefit by taking these actions: use ear plugs to dampen loud noises, eat protein snacks to restore blood sugar levels, meditate, do deep breathing, listen to peaceful music, drink calming herb teas such as chamomile and lavender, and get plenty of sleep.

Visualization tools can help HSPs to be less reactive to the environment by changing emotional patterns. Imagine tucking an energy bubble in under your feet so that you feel a complete egg-shaped shield around you. You can imagine satellite dishes that track and block incoming energy to stop other people’s energies before they enter your field. Put a violet flame around your energy field if it feels protective. To define your boundaries, imagine big, bold No Trespassing signs outside your body and visualize filling your energy field with soothing colors. Author Barbara Marciniak said, Everything changes when you start to emit your own frequency rather than absorbing the frequencies around you, when you start imprinting your intent on the universe rather than receiving an imprint from existence.

If you’re an introvert, when you’re in a group, look for one person who looks interesting and get to know her or him, rather than trying to meet and greet many people. If you go to an event with an extroverted friend, take different transportation so you can leave if you’ve had enough. Take a deep cleansing breath and exhale through your mouth after an interaction or being around crowds. You’ll be able to communicate more clearly without other people’s energy swimming around you. You can also carry a little spray bottle of essential oils like lavender to breathe and purify the air around you. Taking a walk or run in nature is also grounding and energizing, my favorite way of getting balanced. Read more about traits and coping skills for introverts to have more energy and clarity to achieve goals.¹⁶ If you’re an extrovert, do you have a friend who is an introvert or HSP? Does this help understand him or her better?

Helping Your Brain Work Well For You

Since your brain is your main tool to achieve test success, let’s identify the various parts and how to use them, as explained in The Whole-Brain Child by Dr. Daniel Siegal and Dr. Jane Bryson.¹⁷ The brain is so complex that it takes until the mid-20s for it to mature. It has around 100 billion neurons, each with an average of 10,000 connections to other neurons. When they fire together they grow new connections that rewire the brain throughout our lives: Neurons that fire together wire together. This means repeated experiences and thought patterns—negative or positive--imprint the brain and we are able to change it. The ability of the brain to change with new stimuli is called plasticity. The brain shows the stages of evolution, from reactive reptiles to humans with consciousness and language. The lower brain, called the reptilian brain, acts instinctively to keep us safe from danger and controls basic functions such as heart rate and breathing. It developed first in fish.

The amygdala, about the size of an almond, is in the mid-brain mammalian or limbic area that records memories that trigger our emotions. It processes emotions, especially anger and fear. If it kicks in during a test, the focus goes to mid-brain as the stress response excites neurons in this area and they consume more oxygen. This gets in the way of critical thinking required