5 Rules for Successful Students

The following is gathered from speeches, talks, and lectures given by the infamous Canadian author, clinical psychologist, and scholar, Jordan Peterson. Known for his outspoken views on cultural and political issues, Peterson is also the author of 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

Learning isn’t easy.

But just because it’s not easy, doesn’t mean it’s hard. Hard means that it requires a lot of effort and strength but learning doesn’t need that. It’s good to have if you want to learn quickly, but it’s not necessary.

Like most things, learning isn’t easy because it requires one thing: consistency.

Consistency is often said to be the Szechuan sauce for success. If you want to be a good reader, you have to read every day. If you want to be a good artist, you have to draw every day. If you want to run a good company, you have to run it well every day.

Now good can be subjective. My perception of a good life can be having a positive impact on the world, with the likes of Elon Musk, while someone else's could be having the freedom to live, with the likes of Derek Sivers.

But while good is subjective, effective is a fundamental truth. You either do it or you don't. That’s being effective. You either are an effective learner or you’re not.

This sharp contrast is something I gather from listening to many of Peterson’s talks. It’s also what helped me gather these 8 rules.

1. Stop wasting your time.

How much of your maximum capacity are you working at?

Most students work at 51% of their capacity. They end up wasting, on average, 4 to 5 hours a day on things such as YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, and the likes. What they don’t realize is that these hours build up.

4 to 5 hours a day means 20 to 25 hours a week means 100 hours a month, roughly two and a half full work weeks. This accumulates to nearly half a year wasted every year. Now if time is worth money (which it is), you can value yourself at $50 an hour. Which means you’re wasting nearly $50k a year.

For a student, wasting money might not mean anything since they’re not making any money to actually lose any. But any full time working adult can understand the weight of that number.

Now imagine all those hours in your day again. What would you do if you didn’t waste them?

2. Think don’t write.

In school and university we are told to constantly write. One assignment after another, we’re forced to toil over each and every paper we write. But why is that?

It’s because no one tells you about the power of writing.

No one tells students why they should write. Following herd mentality, we do what everyone else does without thinking of what it means. When in reality, there is absolutely no difference between writing and thinking.

Effective thinking is the most powerful weapon anyone can give you. Imagine you’re in an argument with an effective thinker. You will absolutely get slaughtered. Your opponent will be able to organize their thoughts better and be able to present it in a coherent statement.

Knowing how to think makes you insanely successful too. People will give you opportunities, money, and influence if you could just think.

That’s the power of thinking.

3. Make a schedule.

Make a schedule, it’s not a prison. So many people try making one but it never works because it’s not what they want. They end up never doing any of the boring stuff and end up watching YouTube all day and waste their life.

Then make a schedule of the day you want.*

At the end of the day, you want to end up not being in worst shape than you were before. At that point, you’re just digging yourself a hole and burry yourself. That’s why you make a schedule of the day you want — *practically speaking and with responsibility.

You start off small. Maybe with only 20% responsibility. The right proportion of responsibility to reward is something you decide. You have to negotiate with yourself as if you’re negotiating with someone you care about. And then you try hitting your schedule.

You might hit it with only 50% accuracy but that’s much better than 0%. Then you slowly aim for a bit more and use positive feedback loops. 50 becomes 51; 51 becomes 53; next thing you know you’re in a much better place than you started off with.

4. Stop making things worse.

People activity make things worse because they’re spiteful, or resentful, or arrogant, or all those things in wrapped together in some pathological package. They’re not helping anyone.

If people just stopped making things worse for themselves they would get better just because of that. There’s this weird dynamic between human vulnerability, social judgment, and failure of individuals to adopt responsibility that affects them. What people don’t realize is that not doing well isn’t just only your fate, but its everyone around you.

Humans are inherently social creatures. You end up knowing at least 1000 people in your life, who each know 1000 others. That puts you one person away from a million and two people away from a billion. You’re just one node in your network and the things you do are far more important than you realize.

The ripples of your actions move outward and affect things in ways that you can’t fully comprehend. Of course, the terror of realizing that is what makes what you do matter.

You might say well that’s better than living a meaningless existence. But if you really asked yourself, would you be so sure?

If you had the choice to have nothing matter and you have no responsibility at all OR have everything matter but take responsibility for it all, it’s not so obvious that people would take the meaningful path.

The first option is what nihilists choose. They suffer dreadfully because they reject all moral and religious principles only for convenience. Avoiding that convenient life is what the best plan should be.

As Russian philosopher, Solzhenitsyn, outlined in the Gulag Archipelago, if you live a pathological life, you pathologize your society; and if enough people do that, everything becomes hell.

5. Negotiate.

Sometimes you have to have a conversation with yourself as if you don't know who you are. You know yourself well enough: you never know what you want to do and when you tell yourself what to do, you don’t do it. You’re like your worst bad employee and even worse boss.

You keep cracking the whip and then procrastinating and repeating that over and over again. It’s such a boring and pathetic way to live.

The key is that you have to understand you’re not your servant, you have to negotiate.

You have to present yourself the opportunity of having a good life. You have to take care of yourself as if it was someone you cared about. You have to think of it as if you’re taking a stock of yourself and you want to set yourself up the right way.

6. Know what you want.

One of the main reasons that people don’t get what they want is because they don’t know what they want. Granted, what you want might not be what’s best for you but maybe you can get what’s good for you. Well, why don’t you? You don’t try.

Success is a very low probability and many people don't set up a criteria for success. The truth is, if you want something, you can have it. But you have to take steps to get it.

You have to reorganize your life in a way that will help you work towards your goal.

And this isn’t just something you have to ask your self, you have to actively know the answer. You don't get everything, obviously, but you can get something by asking for it and seriously acting on it.

Strangely enough, if you know what you’re asking for, you will get it.

Wait! Before you go:

Please allow me to introduce myself :)

Hi! I’m Sabeeh and I’m a curious 17-year-old who is super passionate about emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, gene-editing, and more. I would love to connect and learn more about you as well — Shoot me a DM!

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