Finding a vocational calling means learning your strengths and creating goals to discover how to apply yourself in order to help others. On the other hand, academic success means acquiring the knowledge one wants, polishing skills, and engaging in designing one’s future. With these concepts in mind, I have three goals.
As an achiever, I have “great stamina for hard work,” according to StrengthsFinder. This means once I start working on something, I have to keep going and finish more and more tasks. My first goal is to learn how to study correctly by the end of my first year here in college. When I was in high school, I rarely studied. I would usually just wing it and, unfortunately not by luck or skill, I would get a high grade. However, in my very first test (which was in my western civilization course) here at HBU, I did not receive high marks. To put it simply, I didn’t take very many notes – I would dumbly scoff and think that I would just remember the professor’s lectures. Great idea, yes. So, in the wake of my first flunked test (in college nonetheless) I realized that I actually have to study. Using my achiever strength, I believe things go in this order: write all that I can get during class, read over the notes, and connect the dots to create real knowledge in any material that I need to learn.
As a student-athlete, there are many things I have to keep up with. My number five strength is discipline: I make my own structured environment and design it to my busy schedule, and my I feel at ease when I plan things ahead. So, my next goal is to maintain a GPA of 3.5 or higher throughout my four years at HBU playing golf. I can apply my first goal of learning how to study with this one along with becoming an independent adult. Specifically speaking, I can keep up my grades by sorting out events set in stone (like tests and tournaments) and work around those by organizing times to study, do laundry, eat, and the like.
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The last, and probably the easiest goal of mine, is simply fixing my bed every morning. This goal could also fall into my discipline strength; it sets my routine for the rest of the day, on weekdays at least. I listened to a speech given by U.S. Navy Admiral William H. McRaven. He states, “[Fixing your bed every morning] will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task, and another, and another. And by the end of the day that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed.” Now, the first step in this goal is going to bed at a decent time. Going to bed early means that I have to wake up a bit earlier to leave some time to tidy up my bed. This is a significant part of my daily routine because after a long day of classes and golf, it’s pleasing to say that I’ve done at the very least one productive thing. An inevitable part of life are the bad days – They can come out of nowhere, so having that one small routine part of the day in the morning can give me the smallest spark that things will be okay as long as I keep this single task up every day. It is like a tiny yet simple motivation.
As shown above, these three goals will help me in my journey for vocational calling and academic success. In these next four years I will find a calling and create a response to make the world a better place. Of course, being here at HBU I will also create my own success in academics so I can go beyond my expectations for the future. In this eager yet uneasy adventure of mine, I will find a way to make a difference, however small or big the contribution.
