top of page

Words of Wisdom

Do you need any advice from the GP?

Fill out the form below for a chance to have your question answered in our next edition!

Note: Please do not submit questions that can be researched to be answered (i.e. why do mosquitos bite people and why do people get addicted to screens). Please submit those questions to the Dear Griffin Post form instead.

Failure
by Freyr Wang

Sometimes in life, you will feel at your lowest. Multiple failures drag you down or many things just always seem to go wrong for you. Failures hurt. They sting in yourself, having you believe that you could have done better. No one likes to talk about their failures. We’d like to throw failures into the back of our mind and forget about them. Now what is the best way to deal with failure?

Failures are inevitable; nobody hasn’t experienced failure. However, what makes the difference between normal people and successful people is how they recover and bounce back up after a failure. Take this quote by Michael Jordan, a widely renowned basketball player, considered to be one of the greatest of all time. “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and I missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” They are a necessary step on the path to success. When we learn to accept failure as normal, daily occurrence and an important part of success, then we allow ourselves to be relieved from all of the negative thinking that would lead us to give up. He knew that his success in order to have failures along its journey. In his will to keep working, to keep believing in himself, and to keep setting his sights on new goals that would take him to his next level of greatness.

Now this is what I want all of you to do. Once you fall, get back up stronger and more prepared than ever.

Habits
by Freyr Wang

Everyone has daily habits. They can range from the side of the bed you get off of to the route you take to school every day. Daily habits can impact health, productivity, and mindset, along with improving the path and success of long-term goals. For this reason, developing daily habits is essential in building a successful and balanced life.
A major reason that daily habits are important is that they create or improve consistency. Success often needs consistency, and that does not happen overnight. Instead, consistency is the result of constant effort. This means that studying an hour each day for a week is more impactful than studying 7 hours in one night before an exam. Consistent good habits can completely reshape your life.
Additionally, daily habits can change mental and emotional health. Positive habits such as journaling or taking time to relax can help reduce stress and improve mood. Bad habits or addictions, such as doomscrolling, procrastination, or constant negative thoughts, may lead to increased anxiety or reduced productivity. Since habits can become automatic and turn into muscle memory, they subtly affect our mental health without us knowing it, with positive habits allowing a stable, healthy mindset to grow.
In summary, daily habits are a crucial factor in personal and professional development. They allow discipline, enhance mental and physical health, and transform ambitious goals into achievable, simple steps. Although they may be small, the choices we make each day redefine our future. By fostering positive daily routines, individuals can set themselves on a path toward sustained success and personal growth.

Habits
by Freyr Wang

Everyone has daily habits. They can range from the side of the bed you get off of to the route you take to school every day. Daily habits can impact health, productivity, and mindset, along with improving the path and success of long-term goals. For this reason, developing daily habits is essential in building a successful and balanced life.
A major reason that daily habits are important is that they create or improve consistency. Success often needs consistency, and that does not happen overnight. Instead, consistency is the result of constant effort. This means that studying an hour each day for a week is more impactful than studying 7 hours in one night before an exam. Consistent good habits can completely reshape your life.
Additionally, daily habits can change mental and emotional health. Positive habits such as journaling or taking time to relax can help reduce stress and improve mood. Bad habits or addictions, such as doomscrolling, procrastination, or constant negative thoughts, may lead to increased anxiety or reduced productivity. Since habits can become automatic and turn into muscle memory, they subtly affect our mental health without us knowing it, with positive habits allowing a stable, healthy mindset to grow.
In summary, daily habits are a crucial factor in personal and professional development. They allow discipline, enhance mental and physical health, and transform ambitious goals into achievable, simple steps. Although they may be small, the choices we make each day redefine our future. By fostering positive daily routines, individuals can set themselves on a path toward sustained success and personal growth.

Work
by Freyr Wang

With more and more tools helping you to be able to complete tasks coming out it only makes sense that you should be able to complete your tasks quicker and more efficiently. However, it only seems as though the opposite is happening, as more and more students are turning in assignments late. Missing assignments are also no joke, they can severely impact your overall grade. A recent study with public middle school students showed supporting numbers. Students with no missing assignments (having every assignment turned in), had an average grade of 90.1% in a semester. However, when the student has 3 missing assignments, the grade drops to 78.1%. Just a three assignment difference drops the student’s grade by over a whole letter. So why do students do this? Just a 3 assignment difference which can severely impact the grade? Seems like a no-brainer to anybody. So what really is the reason behind all of this? Procrastination. In a survey involving high school students, over 87% of them admitted to procrastinating in their assignments. Procrastination is clearly an extremely popular bad habit that most students have. So why don’t students change it? Why can’t they just stop?

When it comes to students, most of them do extracurricular activities. Such as clubs, sports and hobbies. Having tons of classes and tons of work on their to-do list seems overwhelming to many. A simple “I’ll do it later” and playing games or lightening themselves with an easier task is what almost all students resort to doing. So in what ways can we solve this? Some common strategies are to keep rewarding themselves with good things after work. For example, “after I finish this assignment I will…”. Another thing students can do is to keep telling themselves “all I need to do is just 5 more minutes”. This strongly motivates them and keeps them moving knowing a short time is left.

    Many personal preferences can be made as they can come up with their own strategies. Overall extra support decreases stress a lot. Tutoring, support and help is a huge benefit to most people. A good role model and strong representation can be helped to motivate students further. Students can be extremely competitive, striving to be someone that is better than them and hoping to be up there one day. Ultimately, procrastination is a struggle a majority of students face, but it’s one they can overcome. With small steps, reliable support, and a willingness to change, students can become more focused and create strong habits that lead to success in school and in their lives.
 

Awareness
by Freyr Wang

The advice this week is to take some time to pause and use your sense of awareness and appreciation for the little things in life. If you’re like me, you lead a busy life with commitments, deadlines, and routines, which can all be very stressful! However, when we intentionally take a moment to stop and observe what is around us, we find that this can help others, our mental health and make you realize the beautiful world around us.
A reason to do this is to understand the world around us and how lucky we are in the place we are. Seeing things might make you happy. For example, sunlight, laughter, and kindness. Seeing good things like these makes us more likely to do better things. We can also zoom out and accept how fortunate we are to live in this gorgeous world around us.
More benefits start flowing in from here. The ability to listen in and really interact with the environment can improve your well-being by miles. Being just a little bit more attentive can help you listen in on maybe a car speeding down the road, rain falling on hard concrete or birds flapping at each other. Realizing the amazing world we live in can help with mental health and can bring joy in yourself.
Finally, doing this helps you to zoom out and see other perspectives of life. This can not just help you, but also others. Recognizing other people’s surroundings and their current state is much better than staying dug in your own personal cave. This increases the chances for you to be more sociable. Whether it's sparking up a conversation with a stranger or helping an old lady cross the street, this allows you to thrive in your social situations. Practicing this can allow you to become more likeable and easier to talk to.
So, I want you all to practice and maybe unlock this skill this week. Paying attention to the little things in life. Whether it's your surroundings, or your background or even another person, doing this can help you become more kind, attentive, sociable, helpful, patient and remove stress. Have a great week everyone, and thank you for taking the time to read this week’s advice!

bottom of page