4 Pillars of Academic Success

Lately I’ve been trying to find the answer to the following question:

What can students do to get higher grades at school?

After a few days of thinking, I think I’ve figured it out. I believe that there are four different things that lead to high academic performance, and I’d like to take a moment to go through what they are.

1) To have high academic performance, you need to have a hard work ethic

When I was in university, I was a mediocre student. I would usually get a B- or a B in my classes, even though I was probably smart enough to get a B+ or an A-. One of the biggest things that held me back from doing better was that I didn’t allocate enough time towards my studies. In other words, I wasn’t working hard enough. For example, I would start my assignments at the last minute, I would often skip class, and I would rarely study for my tests. My focus was always on other things, such as my business or my YouTube videos.

Looking back at this, I’ve learned that unless you’re one of the few people in the world who is able to get straight As without any effort, hard work is necessary if you want to do well in school. “Being smart” usually isn’t enough.

2) To have high academic performance, you need to be passionate about your field of study

Passion is very closely related to hard work. The reason I believe this is very simple: if you are passionate about your field of study, you are more likely to have the motivation to work hard and get good grades. For example, I have a friend who studied design in an art school, and he LOVED his field of study. As a matter of fact, he loved it so much that he would often do extra work in his classes just for fun. The result of this extra effort was that he was always an A to A+ student. In other words, my friend was so passionate about design that he was always motivated to work hard. This, in turn, led to him getting As and graduating at the top of his class.

3) To have high academic performance, you need to develop & apply core academic skills

I feel like people often overlook the importance of core academic skills (e.g. test taking, writing persuasive essays, effective note taking, etc). That being said, even though they are often overlooked, they’re still extremely important because they reduce the time required to get a high mark. For instance, if you are a skilled note taker, you are more likely to retain more information from lectures. This means you can spend less time studying for tests. If you’re a skilled writer, you’ll be able to write persuasive essays faster than the rest of your classmates. If you’re a skilled presenter, you’ll get great marks on class presentations without having to spend hours upon hours preparing beforehand.

I could continue listing off other examples, but the fact of the matter is this: the faster you develop the academic skills that you’re missing, the easier school will be for you. Period.

4) To have high academic performance, you need to have a theoretical understanding of the material taught in your classes

This is the bread and butter of academic success. Without it, your odds of doing well decrease dramatically. Let me give you an example of this from my life. When I was in high school, I worked VERY hard in all of my math classes. Unfortunately, despite my efforts, I’d still only score 70% or lower on all of my tests and assignments. It was so frustrating!

Looking back, I’ve realized that the reason behind my low grades in math was that I struggled to grasp the concepts that were being taught. In other words, math was hard for me because I lacked a theoretical understanding of the course material. This made it almost impossible for me to do well, even though I was working really hard.

Through this experience, I learned that working harder or studying more doesn’t always result in higher grades. If your grades are low because you don’t understand the content, you’re probably better off to find someone who can help you understand it (e.g a tutor), instead of wasting your time trying to figure it out on your own.

One question that I’ve been asking myself ever since I came up with these four “Pillars of Academic Success” is the following: can these pillars be applied in other areas of life?

My gut says that they can.

For example, I’ve unconsciously been applying them to my window cleaning business, and it has brought me tons of success. In other words, my business has grown consistently because:

• I have a passion for business & entrepreneurship.
• I have put hard work & effort into my business by working 50–80 hours per week.
• I have theoretical knowledge about how to run a business successfuly
• I continue to develop & apply a variety of core business skills such as selling, tracking financials, and managing multiple teams.

I could be wrong, but I think I’ve stumbled across a formula for success in academic AND non-academic situations, which is so exciting! Now that I’ve figured this out, the next time I’m struggling to succeed in a particular area of my life (whether it be school-related or not), all I will need to do is ask myself, “Am I struggling because I’m lacking passion, hard work, theoretical knowledge, or skill?”

The answer to that question will help me determine what my next steps should be in order to hit my goal.

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