Look, I’ll be the first to admit that I ain’t about physical exercise in the slightest. Why would I run around an oval when I could be re-watching Drag Race for the third time? Yeah, amen. But in life, there’s a type of training that I 110% back (and it’s not just ‘cos it doesn’t require movement of extremities).

Training your mind to be fitter than Arnie is the way to gear yourself up for success – be it academic, at work, or existence in general. And this isn’t an assumption I’ve just pulled outta thin air, folks. The most successful humans to have ever walked this earth have all worked tirelessly to hone their noggin to be the sharpest tool in the shed.

So on that note, here are a few great ways to turn your mind into a lean, mean, success-positioning machine.

KNOW THYSELF WELL

“Self-awareness is a very valuable tool,” says Fiona Henderson, Senior Lecturer & Coordinator of Academic Support & Development at Victoria University. “The more you know yourself, the more you can take up opportunities in a variety of ways.”

AND AIN’T THAT THE TRUTH. Knowing what you’re all about is the best way to kick off your mental training because, without it, you won’t know what needs to be worked on. A lot of young people, for instance, experience an innate fear of failure – having the self-awareness to recognise this will enable you to overcome it. You can develop self-awareness through exercises like meditation, reflective writing, and using personality assessments. In doing so, you’ll be more prepared to make leaps others are tentative to tackle, positioning you to be more successful.

“You’ll be more comfortable pushing the boundaries.”

UNDERSTAND HOW YOU LEARN

“I don’t think anybody has just one learning style,” says Henderson. She does think, however, that it’s a wise decision to know what’s going to work best for you.

“It’s about making your time as efficient and as effective as possible. If they’re not learning it one way, a student can either give up, or they speak to us and come up with a strategy for how they can re-look at the information.”

So yeah, positioning yourself to consume new information in the best-suited way for your mind will mean you learn more – and given the whole ‘knowledge is power’ sitch, you’ll be more geared towards success than others.

What options do you have at your disposal? To begin with, you should review the most popular learning styles. Verywell summarises this by stating:

In Fleming‘s model, which are often referred to as VARK learning styles, learners are identified by whether they have a preference for visual learning (pictures, movies, diagrams), auditory learning (music, discussion, lectures), reading and writing (making lists, reading textbooks, taking notes), or kinesthetic learning (movement, experiments, hands-on activities).

In addition to visual, auditory, reading/writing and kinesthetics, Henderson believes a lot of people are geared towards a logical style of learning. This isn’t limited to just equations, folks.

“If you’re writing, there’s a logical flow to your ideas,” she says. For example, if you’re writing an essay, essentially the point you make in one paragraph + the point you make in the next = the answer to your argument. This is just one example of placing information into a format that might work best for you, so assessing which combined learning styles are going to work for you is imperative to getting ahead.

WORK OUT YOUR MIND

“Students who have persistence, or grit, are the students more likely to be successful,” argues Henderson. Why? Because most of us are quitters. And hey, if you don’t believe me, then maybe you’ll hear reason from Einstein who once said, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”

Reckon you can only concentrate for 30 minutes? You’re not alone on that. But with a bit of grit, you can extend that to 45 mins, an hour, or more over time. Exercise your brain by keeping at it, and eventually, it’ll feel natural.

In addition to this, Henderson believes we need to physically work on our weak spots.

We maybe need to spend more time building up the areas that we’re not so good at. For the rounded person, for the successful person – they don’t just work on making their strengths stronger, they work on their weaknesses too.

A body builder isn’t just going to neglect their legs even if they struggle to get them swol, right? Exercise in the areas you’re weak in, close up those gaps, and become a superstar.

BE CURIOUS & SHARE WHAT YOU FIND

There’s a good reason why the admittedly wanky term of ‘curiosity‘ is being peddled so hard nowadays. Those who train themselves to be curious usually get ahead in life because they’re constantly hunting for answers, sometimes to questions that no one else is answering.

But given the inundation of information we’re exposed to on a daily basis, a lot of us give up being curious – there’s simply too many leads to chase up from the new knowledge that’s being flung our way. Additionally, we know we can easily find that information at some other time and convince ourselves that we’ll look into it later. Naturally we forget all about it, and it’s then a lost opportunity.

What’s the easiest way to fix that? Keep that rogue article, the idea that was raised in conversation, or whatever it may be, saved somewhere. Our phones are glued to our hands, people. Use them to collect this information. That way, you can follow up on that initial flame of curiosity and become more knowledgeable across the board.

Then, if you really want to make sure that information sticks, then talk about it. If you read something, then discuss it at dinner or over a pint, then you’re going to get it more fixed in your memory cells.

“If you read something, discuss it at dinner or over a pint, and you’re going to get it more fixed in your memory cells,” says Henderson. It’s a recognised way to turn passive learning (as in, the learning style of reading something) into active learning. “That’s what makes the ideas stick and stay in your brain.”

Lastly, Henderson stresses that learning doesn’t just stop after you finish high school/uni. That cliche of ‘you learn something new every day‘ is outrageously accurate, but as you’ve now seen, there are certainly better ways of making sure information sticks than others.

Victoria University understands this, which is why they’re shaking things up with their new and game-changing ‘First Year Model’. This model, being introduced in 2018, will focus on two great things: building a sense of belonging and emotional engagement among students, as well as between students and their educators + developing the skills (known as enterprise skills) needed to be adaptable, resilient, confident and competent learners. Sounds pretty good, right? Learn all about it HERE.