2 Things School Never Taught Us (But Really Should Have) Part 1

Introduction

We are introduced different subjects in school… Maths, Science, English ect… But schools failed to teach about essential skills. This is why a student can actually go through school and still fail in life. Once, a guy approached me and asked me for my number. Because I was not taught how to deal with it in a respectful and efficient way, I was confused on what to do. This is just an example. For example, we are not taught how to be independent, how to stay disciplined, how to handle relationship issues or things that allow us to differentiate between right and wrong. We are just taught by the environment in school and the subject we are taught. This is why you see students who started brilliantly but because of the environment at school, they either change for the best or the worst. `But that’s not the point of the blog, the point here is to introduce you to 2 essential skills you’ll need as a student that you’ll also need for the future.

1. Know yourself and being self-aware

• Thinking for yourself (not following trends blindly)

This one doesn't even require statistics, all you need to do is look and observe a pattern that happens very often at school. You see students doing things that are “popular” or very “common”. Let's take the example of vaping. Vaping was not famous in the Uk for young students years back. But guess what ? A few students started vaping and then others followed. Soon, it became a national “flex” and everyone does it. See ? Several students are not mentally mature or informed enough to know that vaping includes long term complications. This is when thinking for yourself comes in. I do agree that many students are naive and easily influenceable BUT if they were taught how to not follow trends blindly, many wrong things would have no future in the lives of young people. Thinking for yourself would look something like this: Why do people vape ? What are the consequences of vaping ? Is it actually worth my life ? Would I rather appear cool and popular vaping or just abstain from it ?. Then from there, you could decide that based on what you have worked out, that you don’t to be involved in such even if your friends try to convince you. Because you have a mind of your own. Now i’m not saying that your friends can’t influence you, that’s another life lesson. You can check one of my previous blogs about bad influence here. But the point here is that you need to learn it now. It's not something you can start doing automatically, its a process. So you don’t fall victim of “trends” or popular “flexes” that don’t make any sense.

• Finding your purpose

I noticed something while in university, many students who are in my course have no idea what they are planning to do in life. They just picked the course because they have an interest in “Science” and just picked something related like this course. Many don’t know their purpose in life and so they easily get swayed by everything on the show. Finding your purpose in life does not only speed up where you want to be. It also gives you satisfaction and a goal in life. When you have a goal in life, you don’t expire, you stay motivated. You have a vision and where this a vision, there is stamina. Finding your purpose sometimes takes a while but you can have a leading by answering and finding what you want. Finding your purpose also includes who you are as a person. Again, I made a blog post specifically for that. You can check it out here.

• Setting boundaries

Let’s be direct on this one. Many of you cannot say “no” to certain people, friends and circumstances. This is called setting boundaries. This also applies to when a guy or a girl “overstep’ boundaries and say “its not that deep." I learned this the hard way. There are certain things that people did or told me that I don’t feel comfortable doing but I did anyways, I had difficulty speaking up when things didn’t go the way I saw it. Either I would not be honest about something about myself or I would just say “yes” even when I didn’t understand. Let me give a practical example that makes sense. This is what it looks like when someone doesn’t know how to set boundaries: A friend offers a cigarette or something that the person does not support or encourage. Then rather than saying no, they just “try” it anyways. Or when a guy approaches a girl and its clear that the guy is interested in her but she is not interested in being in a relationship. But she doesn’t make it clear to the guy and so allows anything. This is what it looks like and setting boundaries with others is very important. Saying “no” is also important. If you don’t like something say it, don’t keep quiet. It might take you a while for you to get your head around this but just keep doing it. You will be more settled about setting boundaries and saying no.

2. Managing yourself

• Mental health

We also aren’t taught to manage our emotions and our mental well-being. This is why a lot of students keep things for themselves when they get harassed, bullied or simply when something is happening. We aren’t taught to tell the difference between speaking up when absolutely necessary and keeping certain things for ourselves.

• Discipline

Next is discipline. Discipline is extremely important to keep going and moving forward in life. There are some days that you won’t feel like studying, working on your assignment or performing your academic duties. Even motivation won’t be enough and will give up on you. It definitely runs out. This is when you need a tangible backup such as discipline. Discipline allows you to stay consistent even when you don’t feel like it. It's not always easy but if you keep trying and exiting your comfort to achieve your goal, you’ll get used to it.

• Being responsible for your choices

Have you ever heard someone saying “Its because…” or “If it wasn’t for so and so, I wouldn’t be in this situation…”.

Yes you probably have, even once in your life. We live in times where people blame events, people or even their life situations for their failure in life. But let me be honest, you can only blame yourself. I am not talking about when the way your life has been structured even before your birth don’t influence your starting point, it does. I'm specifically talking about people who blame everything but themselves about why they failed or why there are not successful. They will give millions of excuses and it's not their fault. Because they weren’t taught that actions and your level of responsibility determines how far you go in life. One good example is GCSE results day. Your GCSE results are determined by how much work and effort you put int studying and understanding concepts right. But many students aren’t happy with their results because they either get lower than expected or they perform terribly. But at the end of the day, there is no point blaming the invigilators because they are “biased” towards other students or that they “aren’t knowledgeable in the subject”. Everything is tie down to your hands and how much work you put in. You need to be responsible for your choices. If you have this kind of mindset, you won’t just do everything anytime or anyhow, you’ll be mindful.

Conclusion

Institutions gave us a lot of things. But as you can see, it left out some of the most important ones. Knowing yourself, managing your mind, taking responsibility for your life — these are not extras. These are the foundations. And the earlier you start building them, the better. Part 2 is coming and count on me because we are not done yet !