Mastering the Basics: Simple Steps to Academic Success (Part Two)

By: Manya Subharwal

*you can find part one in the Carr Scoop’s 2025 Winter Publication

Actually Do Your Homework
The next tip is basic and almost every single person has heard it: DO YOUR HOMEWORK! Seriously. Completing your homework should be a baseline requirement you should set for yourself. It’s so simple, yet so many students fail to do it. Why? It reverts back to one of the main reasons students fail; laziness and procrastination. I think it’s fair to assume that students have time to do their homework but they don’t. Students make far too many excuses in an attempt to justify their lazy and unacceptable behaviour. Have you realized that when you’re doing your homework, it’s not nearly as daunting as you thought it was before you started? The thing is, with many things in life, starting is the hardest part. Think of something right now that you have done, where just gathering the mental willpower to start was extremely difficult; but when actually doing the task, you realized it wasn’t as bad as you thought it was. This is a recurring pattern you will notice throughout both school and life. From this small rant, your main takeaway should be that starting is the hardest part. Most people try to find motivation when it comes to doing their homework and if you are one of them, eradicate that way of thinking immediately. Discipline is what you should be working towards building rather than relying on motivation. Motivation is volatile - it comes and goes but discipline lasts.

How Do I Get Myself To Do It?
It’s easy to say “just do your homework”.But how? It’s mostly up to you to answer this question, but it wouldn’t be helpful if I didn’t provide some advice. The first tip I can give you is to just start. In the beginning, it’s all a mental game. You need to force yourself to start and remind yourself that doing your homework isn’t as bad as you think.

Usually, it’s easier to do a task when we have something to look forward to upon finishing it. So this is exactly what you want to do. Make a deal with yourself, by agreeing on a reward (which could be anything), you will receive upon completing your homework. Your reward can be anything - from ice cream, chocolate, talking with friends, watching a YouTube video, playing some video games, you get the point. Just think of something you enjoy doing and force yourself to finish your homework prior to engaging in the said activity.This mentally encourages us to complete our homework and can be extremely helpful when trying to make doing homework consistently a daily habit.

Personally, since I have made this a habit of mine, the feeling of satisfaction and freedom after completing my homework is what encourages me. I know I will have the rest of the day to pursue hobbies, talk with friends or just enjoy. I feel guilty for not doing my homework because I know by not doing it, I am only harming myself. The thought of knowing you have pending homework will always linger in your mind and carrying this unnecessary burden is pointless. You’ll remember that you have homework when you’re talking with your friends or when you’re laying down scrolling through social media. If you keep procrastinating your homework, the stress will gradually reduce the enjoyment factor of the activity. Do you really want to endure this constant stress? Wouldn’t you rather just get it over with? Remind yourself of the benefits associated with actually doing your homework, such as receiving a better test grade. Remind yourself of the times you didn’t do your homework and how stressed you were, or how you received an undesirable grade. If you don’t get the homework over with, as time passes, it will pile up and just like that, you’ll have accumulated hours worth of homework. This was a long buildup to the next point, which is to do your homework on time! When you get homework from your classes, finish it that same day. To add to the list of perks above of completing your homework on time, you will understand the material better. If you learned something new today and complete the homework the same day, the lesson is still relatively fresh in your mind, simplifying the process of doing your homework. This is because you would have technically practiced questions related to the lesson, so the material will stick with you better. If you don’t understand something in your homework, it makes you aware of the fact that there is a gap in your understanding, which you need to fix. In addition,as a result of doing this, the amount of time required to study leading up to the test lessens by a considerable amount. If you’re serious about improving yourself as a student and care about your grades, there is no excuse you should use to justify not doing your homework in a timely manner.

Choose Classes You Actually Like
As high school progresses, you begin to have more freedom when it comes to selecting your courses. Due to many students being unsure of what they would like to do in the future, they try to keep their options open by selecting multiple courses which dabble in different fields. This is an okay strategy, but once you begin to have a clearer understanding of the field you want to enter or what you want to do in the future, you will narrow down which courses you want to take. This excuses you from having to take alternative courses to keep your options open, which you may find boring.

The point I am trying to make is that when you have a better understanding of the path you wish to pursue, obviously take the prerequisite courses for that program (which you should enjoy, since you want to go down that route) and courses that you genuinely enjoy. The enjoyment factor in any activity helps alleviate the feeling of “having to do it”. The deficiency of this feeling, paired with the fact you have genuine interest in what you’re doing will result in a higher probability of thriving in those classes. When you are taking classes you have absolutely no interest in, doing the work and studying for them feels like an unwanted chore and that is exactly what choosing courses you like will help you escape.

Mindset
In reality, there is one primary factor which is in our control, and that is the way we think. People underestimate how powerful and significant our mindset is and how much it can affect our performance in anything we do. When it comes to getting good grades, you need to rewire your mindset and adjust it to align with the grades you wish to achieve. Although our grades aren’t fully in our control, you cannot use this as an excuse to justify your current academic standing.

Altering your mindset is an extremely complex and layered task, so for the sake of this book we will keep it simple and short. The first mindset shift required to achieve good grades is holding yourself accountable which is a 3 - step process.
The first step is to accept. In order to improve, you need to accept where you currently are. What you do not want to do is think negatively and project your faults onto others. All this does is serve as a major obstacle, impeding your ability to improve your grades. It’s human nature to deflect and point fingers at other things. It’s easy to blame our “busy schedules” or our teachers or anything else which prevents us from taking accountability. We then develop a strong conviction in our beliefs and this puts a greater distance between us and accepting our current circumstance. This is sort of like a self defence mechanism, where we are perpetually lying to ourselves to escape the truth that will inevitably damage our ego. Instead of pointing that finger at someone or something else, we need to point it at ourselves because at the end of the day, we are responsible. We need to be able to admit that we’re wrong, and that our grades are our responsibility. Without admitting we’re wrong and allowing our ego to get damaged, how will we improve? The process of improvement starts with acceptance.

The second step is to reflect on the types of excuses and mistakes you made that are holding you back. After this period of reflection, you need to start to implement change by fixing these mistakes, because you are the one who is responsible, and has most of the control. Luckily, this book informs you what you need to do.

The third step is completely up to you, and it is to take action. Now you have to implement these strategies into fruition. To simplify the implementation process is where the second mindset shift comes into play, which is to believe in yourself.

In order to improve, we have to believe that we are capable of doing so. By believing in yourself, you develop self confidence. What you tell your mind, whether that be positive or negative affirmations, will manifest into its physical counterpart. If you tell yourself you can’t do something, you are already placing a mental barrier between you and what you want to accomplish. Open your mind to the possibility that you can and will accomplish it. To be confident, faking it till you make it is a solid strategy. What this means is that to a certain degree, you have to be kind of delusional. You have to keep telling yourself that you will achieve what you want because you have what it takes. Obviously, take the appropriate actions which will allow these thoughts to unfold into reality. Feed your mind these positive thoughts instead of negative thoughts filled with doubt and fear. We often emphasize our past failures and by doing this, we believe that we will remain the same. For example, if you have a past history of performing poorly at a specific subject, it doesn’t specifically mean you can’t change. If you were never a 90% student, that doesn’t mean you can’t become one. You can change, if you alter your method of thinking and take action.

Sparking inner dialogue with yourself is another way to build self confidence and helps substantially. It sounds deranged, but talk to yourself in your mind and reinstate positive thoughts. Almost try to parent yourself when needed. If you catch yourself thinking negatively, tell yourself to stop. If you are experiencing a downturn, tell yourself that you’ll be okay and this is how it goes.

Taking action is the greatest contributor towards self confidence. When you start to actually take action and these actions yield you even minor results, it ignites your self confidence. Small progress shows our mind that making greater progress is possible. For example using these mini strategies and start taking action now and soon enough, you will learn to trust yourself.

One thing which has always struck a chord with me is that we are our worst enemy and our best friend. If you seriously want to make a change, it starts with your mindset and way of thinking.

Most of these basic procedures you can begin implementing now to enhance your grades. Yes, these are very fundamental concepts and are borderline common sense but even then, people fail to do it! We often fail to understand the significance of reverting to basic and generic advice. When something is generic, it is often boring and loses its appeal. The same goes with the tips included in this chapter. It’s quite remarkable how far we can get simply by consistently doing the basics and once you start implementing these tips, you will experience it first-hand.