Do you believe in fate?

Have you told yourself before that it is fate that you did not get into a good school or did not get good grades for certain subjects? And you think that there is nothing you can do about it?

I have always believed that fate keeps people from changing their lives for the better. It removes all possibilities that one can achieve. By saying fate to your life only means that you do not wish to do something about it. It is just meant to be. If you are fated to be a genius in studies, then no matter how lazy you are and whatever you do, you will end up scoring straight ‘A’s for your exams. If you are fated to be a failure in studies, then you are very unlucky. No matter how how hard you work, it will all be taken away. But you know all these are not true. That’s no such thing as fate cannot be changed. When you believe in fate, it means that you have absolutely no control over the outcomes in your life. For the people that went to fortune tellers to ask about their fate in life, they have 2 choices after hearing their fate:

1) To change it!
2) Live with it.

One of the causes is because they do not plan for your future path. They walk blindly and believing all the stuffs that makes them feel good. For example, people who went for driving test. Those who fail will usually say it was not their fault. They blame it on the lousy car they are in, on the heavy traffic, on the heavy rain, on the drivers on the road, on the strict tester, etc. They blame the whole galaxy except themselves! Some even resigned to fate after failing numerous times!

Is driving that hard? NO! It is because they do not learn from their mistakes. They always think they are right. I heard of rumors like: “there is a fixed number of people that can pass every month, so you must book your driving test at the start of the month to have higher chance of passing”, “do not book the first session for driving test as the testers are still in sleeping mode and will get agitated easily”.

What reasons are those? There is no such thing as fixed number of people passing every month and no sleeping testers! If you are really good, there is no reason to fail you!

Back to studies, I strongly believe that every student out there can achieve straight ‘A’s! There is no such fate that you have no talent in study! There will be a way to achieve those ‘A’s!

2 new websites for you!

I am glad to present to you 2 websites that had requested to link up with me to provide you with any additional help you need!

Tuition Finder

As the name represents the service, it is a tuition agency that helps you to find for a suitable tutor of your criteria! Be it school teachers, full-time tutors or A Level graduates, Tuition Finder has been very committed in assisting you to find the right tutor! You may also sign up as a tutor so that Tuition Finder can assist to help you get assignments. Look no further! Call up Tuition Finder today to get a tutor!

NextTutor

You may also like to check out on NextTutor. It provides the free service of searching for tutors, assignments and tuition coordinators. It acts as a portal between parents/students and tutors/coordinators. They also have a blog that updates on the latest news and articles that are relevant to your education! NextTutor is committed to improving the tuition industry and the educational arena. So do check out their site for more details!

Thanks for reading!
These 2 links can be found on my Links section! I understand that not everyone out there is looking for tuition. But do inform your friends, if you know they could benefit from this!

Do 1-to-1 tuition help in your studies?

How many of you have home tuition lessons?

Did your grades improve because of the tutor’s help? For some, it will improve.

If your tutors are motivating, inspiring and teaching you relevant skills to do well in studies, you had got yourself a good tutor and also a motivator.

But in some cases, you will get a tutor that you feel that, you are unable to absorb the points your tutor taught you. In this case, who is at fault?

The answer is both. Firstly, the tutor does not know how to teach and speak in the right tone to attract the student’s attention. Or because the tutor is not interested in teaching. When someone has no passion in doing something, he or she will not do a good job in doing. Also, it may be because the tutor does not have good grades in his or her education level.

Secondly, how much did you pay for that tutor? Face this truth. The amount of money you willing to pay will attract different kinds of tutors. If you paid less than S$20 per hour for a tutor, you will most likely get an average ‘A’ Level graduate or below.

This is the reality. The average rates for a school teacher are at least S$40 per hour! For JC assignments, some school teachers are paid over a hundred bucks for 1 hour of tuition!

Why parents would afford to pay so much for their child’s education? Simply because they want the best for their child. Want them to succeed in their studies.

This shows that some parents will do whatever it takes to assist their child in their education! So, you, as a student should put in your 101% in your studies and make use of your tuition (if you have) as an advantage.

Are Your Beliefs Limiting Or Empowering You?‏

Like it or not, our beliefs play a big role in determining the quality of our lives.

If you believe that math is tough, there is someone out there who believes it is easy. If you believe that it is easy to make a million dollars, there is someone out there who believes it is impossible. If you believe that times are tough, there is always somebody out there who believes it is a great time to make money!

At this time, many people would argue,

But what if the beliefs I have are really true?
What if I am really not good at selling?
What if it the economy is really down and going to stay down?
What if there are really no opportunities around?
What if it cannot be done?
What if I don’t have what it takes?

What you must understand is that the beliefs you have are never absolutely true. Beliefs are not proven facts. They are nothing but perceptions, opinions, generalizations we make about the world around us.

For every belief you hold, no matter how much you think it is true,there is always somebody out there with a totally opposite belief. And to them, their belief is as valid as yours is to you.

The following example illustrates how one person has the power to change the belief of others.

Breaking the Beliefs of the World

For hundreds of years, runners had never been able to run one mile in less than four minutes. Many had attempted this feat but had fallen short. As a result, it was generally believed, and supposedly backed up as fact by the medical community, that it was not possible for a human being to run that fast!

All these changed in 1954, when defying all conventions, all it took was for a single person to break these facts and records. Roger Bannister, a postgraduate student from Oxford University set a goal to be the first to break this ‘impossible record’. The fact was that he was nowhere near being the best runner of his time. There were many other runners better than he.

But this didn’t deter Roger. Besides physical training, he engaged in a lot of mental training. He kept visualizing himself breaking the four-minute time barrier.

Then, on May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister stunned the world by running the mile in three minutes and 54 seconds. That was not the most amazing thing. What was truly amazing was that, within a year, 37 other runners had broken his record. Within the next three years, over 300 runners had repeated the same feat. For so long, nobody came close to Roger Bannister’s record. The minute an ‘ordinary’ person achieved the feat, it led to many others achieving it too.

This proves that what holds people back in tapping their fullest potential and achieving their goals is not a lack of capability,but a lack of strong empowering beliefs. Beliefs are never absolutely true, but it becomes totally true for the person who believes in it! This is simply because whatever we believe becomes our reality.

The essence is for us to constantly challenge ourselves by examining the effects of our beliefs, and finally to adopt empowering beliefs that will lead us to success.

Do Goals Motivate You?

How many say yes, goals motivate you? How many say not all the time?

The answer is not all the time. Because I know some people, when they set their goals, they said they want all these things, but they don’t feel like doing. Goals do not motivate you, goals only give you a direction of where to move towards. Goals only give you the benchmark of where to hit but it is not going to get you there.

Let’s imagine you are a spaceship and you set a goal. You say ‘my goal is to reach the moon.’ So by setting a goal, you give yourself a direction. Gives you a benchmark of where you are going to hit. But what gets you there is not the goal, it is the thrust and the push and this comes from the fuel. In a human being, what is the fuel that pushes us everyday? What creates that fuel? One of them is passion. You see when you set a goal, you are telling yourself, ‘I want this.’ But beside the ‘what’, you also have a ‘how’ right? The technique is ‘how’. But besides the ‘how’, there is another thing called the ‘why’.

Now between the ‘how’ and the ‘why’. Which is more important?

It is the ‘why’. Because it gives you a purpose. You see, when you have a strong ‘why’, will you find the ‘how’? You will find the ‘how’. But I can give you all the ‘how’ and you don’t have the ‘why’, you will never achieve anything.

What is this ‘why’? this ‘why’ is called our values. What do values mean? Values are so called your emotional hot buttons. It is the emotional reasons why you want to do something. There are some people who are very driven very much by freedom. Some are driven very much by competition. Some are driven very much by security.

So, you must know what drives you. What drives you may not be the same thing that drives another. The moment you discover your values and you align them to your goals, you have this thing called natural motivation. Let me put in this way. When we do things with a very clear purpose, all of us become naturally motivated. And you owe it to yourself to find out what is your mission.

Therefore, in my e-book on creating your goals, under Step 2: List All The Benefits & Reason For Achieving that Goal and Step 5: Emotionally Charge Your Goal are essential and important.

NLP – Neuro Linguistic Programming

N stands for this thing called Neuro. What is Neuro? Neuro means our neurons, our nervous system, our brain. It is how your brain works, how the brain functions. Not from a biological perspective but from a psychological perspective. Like for example, why do you think the way you think? Why do we all think differently? Why do you have certain emotional patterns in your life? It is because of the way your brain forms patterns. And it will affect your behaviors and results.

The second part is called Linguistic. What does linguistic means? Language. How language affects your neurology. Not foreign languages but the structure of language. Think about it, is it possible when you talk to someone, let’s say you talk to your client, or you talk to your siblings or friends. Is it possible that something you said can inspire a person, at the same time, is it possible that something you said can totally upset someone? Because words affect people’s thoughts and emotions. So NLP is a study of how your words affect you.

Do you also communicate with yourself? We communicate with ourselves all the time. So if you are always feeling depressed, or you are always feeling motivated, do you know why? It is the way you are constantly communicating with yourself, your language of the mind.

P stands for Programming. The programs you run as a person. Not computer programs, but what you called neurological habitual programs.

How many of you have this thing called the sian program? Do you know what’s the sian program? It is when you tell yourself, I need to do this. I should do this but I am sian. You get into that pattern, it always happens, we called it procrastination. How many of you have this thing called the fear program? You want to do something and before you do something, fear stops you. A lot of people have this thing called the fear of public speaking. And some people when they talked to you, they feel totally comfortable and they can speak to you for hours. But the moment you put them on stage, they see the audience, what happens? Their minds cannot work anymore. Why? Because their brains run certain neurological patterns. They start to imagine themselves screwing up and their legs start shaking. But another person looks at the audience and feels totally relaxed. Why?

Because of the neurological conditioning inside us. If you have certain patterns in your head that sabotages you, can you change this pattern? Yes, you can. But a lot of us were never taught how to do it. We were taught just to work hard, just do it, but how?

By using NLP on yourself, you can program yourselves to feel motivated in just 5 minutes! I highly recommend one to master NLP. It is a powerful program that can change your life!

You can always google search ‘NLP’ to find out more.

Keywords Explained!

Do you want to know the keywords’ definitions?

Do you know what information you should give when you see the words ‘compare’, ‘define’, illustrate’, ‘differentiate’, relate’, ‘discuss’, etc. ?

Just take a look and you will understand better.

Simply Right-Click and Save As on the link below to download now:

>> Keywords Explained <<

Dealing with Exam Nerves

Most people experience some degree of anxiety about exams. Whilst a certain amount of exam stress is and can be used as a motivating force, it is important to keep on top of exam anxiety. The best way to do this is to be organised.

Some people suffer with stress more than others. For those people, it is important to learn some stress reduction techniques as well as using specific study tips for revision.

Useful stress reduction measures:
Don’t drink too much coffee, tea and fizzy drinks; the caffeine will ‘hype’ you and make your thinking less clear. Eat healthily and regularly; your brain will benefit from the nutrients.

The physical symptoms associated with stress are caused by the hormone adrenaline, which is necessary to prepare the body for the ‘fight or flight’ reaction. When overproduced by chronic stress, it simply causes unpleasant physical symptoms rather than of being any use to you. Physical activity will use up the adrenaline, for the purpose it is intended. This can help to reduce some of the unpleasant physical effects associated with stress, such as racing heart, over-breathing and muscular tension. Build some regular moderate exercise into your day to boost your energy and clear your mind. A brisk walk for 30 minutes is as good a form of exercise as any and doesn’t need much planning in advance.

Try out some yoga, tai chi or relaxation techniques. They will help to keep you feeling calm and balanced, improve your concentration levels and help you to sleep better. Get into a sensible sleep pattern; make sure that you stop academic work at least an hour before you go to bed and then do something relaxing so that your sleep is refreshing and useful. Don’t work half the night and then get up late instead. Your body rhythms are not designed for this.

Relaxation techniques

Practise tensing and relaxing each of your muscle groups in turn. Begin with your toes. Clench them and hold them tight for a few seconds, concentrating fully on the feeling. Now gradually and slowly relax the muscles, unclenching your toes and letting them go loose. Progressively move up the body doing the same, until you reach the forehead. Frown tightly, screwing up the facial muscles and then relax them.

Practise breathing deeply, evenly and slowly. As you develop this slow rhythm, try to imagine that you are lying on a warm beach, watching the waves. Put the mental picture in tune with your breathing. As you breathe in, imagine the waves washing in: as you breathe out, the waves wash out. Alternatively, invent your own image of a pleasant scene, such as sitting on top of a hill watching the sun go down, or lying in a rocking boat.

Tips for the revision period

• Create an overview of what you want to revise and break each subject down into manageable chunks. Make headings and allocate each section on a monthly or weekly planner.

• Ask your tutors for practice questions/past papers.

• Set definite start and finish times for your revision sessions and have a clear goal for each session.

• Aim to break your revision sessions up with five minutes break every half hour.

• Use active revision techniques to make the best use of your revision time.

• Build a system of regular review into your revision, checking what you know and what you don’t know.

• Develop a technique for question analysis and planning answers to use in the exam.

• Practise making plans and answering questions under timed conditions.

• Plan how you will use your time in the exams before-hand.

• Do it with a friend! Try to make some of it fun and reward yourself with treats and leisure time

General hints

• Believe in yourself. You wouldn’t have been given a place on the course if you didn’t have the ability to do it. Therefore, if you prepare for the exams properly you should do fine, meaning that there is no need to worry excessively.

• Take steps to overcome problems. Don’t battle on alone, get help from a teacher if you don’t understand a topic. Every teacher will give advice on study skills and mentoring service. The internet also has a lot of sites offering advice on study skills like my blog. Psychological and counselling services and staff at the health centre are there to help if it all gets too much.

• Don’t keep things bottled up. Confiding in someone you trust and who will be supportive is a great way of alleviating stress and worry.

• Keep things in perspective. The exams might seem like the most crucial thing right now, but in the grander scheme of your whole life they are only a small part.

• If nothing seems to be helping. Some people find that despite all their best efforts, anxiety levels simply keep on rising. This can be self-defeating and you can go round and round in circles. If this is happening, try taking a complete break for a couple of days. 

On the big day,

• Don’t work all night before.

• Make sure you know where and when the exam is.

• Leave plenty of time to get there.

• Make sure you have all your equipment in advance.

• Avoid too much coffee, nicotine and caffeine containing drinks

• Do some of the relaxation techniques so that you are calm and focused.

• Don’t wind each other up with ideas of what might or might not come up in the exam.

Answering the questions..

There are two rules you should follow in answering any kind of question.
They are:

 1. Always Read Critically

Always read each question slowly and carefully before attempting to answer it. Did you experience doing a question that you thought you had done it before in earlier tests before? Students often read the first few words and assume that the question is the same as one that they have done before, in earlier tests and homework. You may end up giving an answer that it is totally off the point.

Remember that it takes only one word to change the meaning of an entire question. If we do not read carefully, we may miss that crucial word and misunderstand the whole question. So, always be alert to critical key words that appear in the question.

For example, do not read ‘and’ where the questions say ‘or’. Also, do not confuse ‘which of the following are ‘true’ with which of the following statements are ‘not true’.

2. Give the Right Amount Of Information

Never dive into a question without knowing what is actually required. If you do so, you may give too little information, too much information or information that is totally irrelevant.

 The first step is to know how much information to give. The marks allocated to each question are often a very good gauge. If a question is awarded five marks then you would normally required to produce five points, and so on.

For example,

What are the features of an effective thermometer?                                        [3]

You do not need to state down all the features of an effective thermometer. Just state 3 features is sufficient to score full marks for this question.

Approaching the questions..

Easy First, Difficult Last

It is not always a good idea to answer the questions in the sequence in which they are found. This is because, at times, very difficult questions may be put in the beginning while easier ones are at the end. When we encounter such a situation, we may continue trying till we find that we have spent too much time on it. Consequently, we rush through the rest of the paper only to find that we have no more time left to do even the easy questions. The consequence is failure. To avoid this, you should do the following:

1. Whenever you find that you are stuck with a difficult question, immediately circle the difficult question and go on to the next one. You can return to it after you have finished answering all the easy ones.

2. Answer all the easy questions first before proceeding with the difficult ones. Always leave the ones that require a lot of thinking, analysis and writing to the end, when you have finished most of the paper. This is because these are often best done when your mind is in a more relaxed state.

Don’t Get Carried Away

Very often, students get so excited about answering a familiar question that they write on and on until they find out they have wasted too much time on it. Avoid giving too much information.

Never Give Up

Difficult questions, especially if they are put at the beginning of a paper, often have the effect of demoralising you. When this happens, you will probably not even be able to answer the easy questions that come later on because you would have formed the belief that it is a difficult paper you could not handle.

If this happens to you, take a deep breath, relax and do not give up. Skip the problematic questions and tackle the easy ones that would boost your confidence. When you go back to the difficult questions finally and find that you still cannot figure out the answers, never leave the answer space blank because that will guarantee you a zero for that question. Instead, write down whatever you do know as long as it contains a germ of logic. Not only have you nothing to lose but you may still be awarded with some marks and that could make the difference between a pass or a fail mark.

 All the best for your examinations! Do not end up ‘going blank’ during the examinations! =)