So the first one, I'm always amazed that when I talk to students about strengths and introduce the topic in workshops and classrooms, that it's a new concept, that we're sort of taught to know what our weaknesses are and figure out how to manage them. But in fact, knowing and using your strengths really has been found to have more significant positive impact on people's success and well-being. There's a tool called the VIA Strength Finder, and that's a tool that's been used in positive psychology to help people know more about their strengths. So the second tip is to have goals. Now the great thing about being a student is you get these nice little syllabuses and they tell you what your goals are for a week, what your goals are for the semester.
And that provides a nice structure for people. I think it's also important, as most extension students know, that knowing how your academic work fits into your future personal, academic, professional goals. And it's important to remember what they are. Some tips about goal setting is really to have specific goals. Really the best goals are kind of specific.
They're also your own goals and the importance of having flexibility. So the third goal that I want to give students is that feeling good matters. So you know when you're in a class working on a project if you're excited about it, if you feel good, if you like your classmates, your teachers, you love your class, you do better, right?
And there's a lot a lot of research that actually Happier people are more successful. And in fact, happiness leads to success versus when you're successful, you become happier. One strategy that has been researched to help students and people improve their well-being is just even writing down three good things that happen every day.
So that's a tool that I have a lot of my clients and students do. It also helps focus you on what's working. The fourth tip is really learning how to be more resilient.
So it's to know that life is going to happen. So I think that's really important. Things aren't always going to go your way, and how do you figure out how to bounce back and be resilient?
Many students at the Extension School have high expectations for themselves, which is great, having high expectations and to be motivated, but they don't have a lot of space to deal with when things don't go right. So the fifth tip that I think is important to know that's always a shock to many students is that you need to build in recovery time. Many students are living in their stretch zone by being students and having jobs and trying to figure out careers and getting theses done, all those things.
So we're often in stretch zone. And so the stress is in bed, but people fail to take recovery time, right? And that's from the taking, you know, a break every 90 minutes, taking lunch, eating meals, spending some time in the weekend just to recover.
Okay, now in... And we all know it's that vicious cycle, well you're so busy you don't have time for that. Those are the first things to go.
Unfortunately, those are the things that are most important to help fuel people and really keep them on course to achieve their goals.