In this post, I will share what I have read from articles on how to be successful. There are many methods which people have proposed on this topic, and I realise that most, if not all, actually only revolve around one main method: "It's all in the mind".
Focus on what you want, not what you don't want
For a start, let me introduce one video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXvjsK6gasE
A line which has left a deep impression on me is "Focus on what you want, not what you don't want". Yes that's right. We, as human, fear. This is normal and this is usually what pulls us back. Before we get started, we fear this, we fear that. We fear we will fail. Thus, we won't start. Even if we get past this fear of starting, the next fear sets in. We fear the next step. We ask ourselves, can I do it? Sooner or later, we will give up. All these happen because we focus on our fear and give in to it.
Procrastinate
Procrastinating is something that I believe most of us do. Whenever we want to start doing something, we will think for a while whether we want to start or not, and we will make up some excuses to delay our actions. "Let's start tomorrow!" and "Let's get this started later." are just two examples of excuses we give ourselves. Pushing back doing certain task is fine, but pushing back the task all the time is not. I am guilty of this too. If it is important, do it. Otherwise, don't even bother with it.
Lack of Time Perspective
"I have no time now, I will do it later." How many of us are guilty of this? It is true that we are almost always busy, however, it is also true that many people are busy with the "wrong thing". What is wrong? It depends.
Personal Experience On FYP
I started work on my FYP the moment I received information on the confirmation of my topic, MOS-HEMT [1]. I did not know what is MOS-HEMT, I only knew I wanted to do well. I had fear of these 7 letters. Instead of giving in to my fear, I had to overcome them. So I immediately did some research on the MOS-HEMT, without any delay. My confidence increased after gaining some basic knowledge and met my supervisor with the little knowledge. Imagine me giving in to my fear, my mouth would have been wide opened throughout my first meeting with my supervisor, not knowing what he was talking about and stunned by his words.
One of the many mistakes which I made was that I was busy searching for and reading research papers for the first few months, and even after that. Thinking back, I might have done the wrong thing. I spent too much time reading other people's work, resulting in the no-time perspective. I kept thinking that I did not know enough. When I got to doing the actual simulation, I had a "cultural shock". I tried to replicate the papers' work and I could not. In the end, I almost could not produce any good results. The bulk of my thesis was only written 3 weeks before the deadline and I only got the results less than two weeks before. If I could turn back the time, I would have done some simulations while reading the papers, and not only after reading and trying to understand about 15 papers and some books.
In short, do what you think is necessary to achieve what you want. Do not delay, do not fear. You have nothing much to regret about if you fail after putting in your best, but you have everything to regret about for not even starting.
[1] MOS-HEMT: Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor High Electron Mobility Transistor
Focus on what you want, not what you don't want
For a start, let me introduce one video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXvjsK6gasE
A line which has left a deep impression on me is "Focus on what you want, not what you don't want". Yes that's right. We, as human, fear. This is normal and this is usually what pulls us back. Before we get started, we fear this, we fear that. We fear we will fail. Thus, we won't start. Even if we get past this fear of starting, the next fear sets in. We fear the next step. We ask ourselves, can I do it? Sooner or later, we will give up. All these happen because we focus on our fear and give in to it.
Procrastinate
Procrastinating is something that I believe most of us do. Whenever we want to start doing something, we will think for a while whether we want to start or not, and we will make up some excuses to delay our actions. "Let's start tomorrow!" and "Let's get this started later." are just two examples of excuses we give ourselves. Pushing back doing certain task is fine, but pushing back the task all the time is not. I am guilty of this too. If it is important, do it. Otherwise, don't even bother with it.
Lack of Time Perspective
"I have no time now, I will do it later." How many of us are guilty of this? It is true that we are almost always busy, however, it is also true that many people are busy with the "wrong thing". What is wrong? It depends.
Personal Experience On FYP
I started work on my FYP the moment I received information on the confirmation of my topic, MOS-HEMT [1]. I did not know what is MOS-HEMT, I only knew I wanted to do well. I had fear of these 7 letters. Instead of giving in to my fear, I had to overcome them. So I immediately did some research on the MOS-HEMT, without any delay. My confidence increased after gaining some basic knowledge and met my supervisor with the little knowledge. Imagine me giving in to my fear, my mouth would have been wide opened throughout my first meeting with my supervisor, not knowing what he was talking about and stunned by his words.
One of the many mistakes which I made was that I was busy searching for and reading research papers for the first few months, and even after that. Thinking back, I might have done the wrong thing. I spent too much time reading other people's work, resulting in the no-time perspective. I kept thinking that I did not know enough. When I got to doing the actual simulation, I had a "cultural shock". I tried to replicate the papers' work and I could not. In the end, I almost could not produce any good results. The bulk of my thesis was only written 3 weeks before the deadline and I only got the results less than two weeks before. If I could turn back the time, I would have done some simulations while reading the papers, and not only after reading and trying to understand about 15 papers and some books.
In short, do what you think is necessary to achieve what you want. Do not delay, do not fear. You have nothing much to regret about if you fail after putting in your best, but you have everything to regret about for not even starting.
[1] MOS-HEMT: Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor High Electron Mobility Transistor
