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How you Can Focus on Your strengths
“We must look for the opportunity in every difficulty instead of being paralyzed at the thought of the difficulty in every opportunity.”— Walter E. Cole, Korean War hero
While you analyse your strengths and weaknesses, focus on
your strengths. This does not mean that you should ignore
your weaknesses. You need to know your weaknesses
and try to eliminate them. Weaknesses, however, give you
plenty of excuses. You may start to say, “Oh, I cannot do this
and I cannot do that because I am weak.” When you focus on
your strengths instead, you will stop giving yourself excuses
and start to say, “I can do it!”
In the PRAISE model, Analysis is adapted from the teachings of Sun Zi in The Art of War. Sun Zi advises us to analyse
the following five factors:
• Cause
• Heaven
• Earth
• Command
• System
These may sound abstract at first, but as we apply them to
real-life examples, you will see that they are in fact very
practical.
Cause
This is the inspiration — the higher reason — that motivates
a person. If you want to do well in your studies, ask yourself:
what is the higher cause that drives this desire? Why do you
want to excel?
When I was a playful child who strove to become “king” of
various games, my Cause was to develop a sense of self-worth. I was very weak in my studies, so I tried to make up
for it by excelling in games. Later, I set myself a new target —
to become a top student in my postgraduate studies. I
wanted to do it for my mother. I wanted to redeem the years
of humiliation that she suffered when relatives and friends
looked down on her. My mother was my Cause.
My mother had wanted me to be a top student all along.
Now, I wanted to do it. I wanted to make up for all the times
when I disappointed her. This was a crucial difference. Even
though my mother was my Cause and inspiration, I myself
wanted to do well.
When a city bids to host a major event like the Olympic
Games, the Cause might be to revive the city, to give it new
life, boost the economy and bring it prestige and glory. This,
however, is merely the Cause of the host city. In 2005, London
won the bid to host the 2012 Olympics because it spelt out a
greater, higher Cause — to revive interest in sports among
young people. This was a Cause that the entire Olympic
movement could identify with.
Heaven
Heaven may sound abstract at first, but think about what
Heaven is. It is simply the larger external environment that
we cannot change.
We cannot change the Heavens, nor can we change the
sun, the moon, the stars and the weather. But we can understand Heaven and prepare ourselves to cope better with it. If
it is going to rain, we cannot stop the rain, but we can be
ready with our umbrellas and raincoats.
The education system is not something that you can easily change. If you really want, you can study abroad, but this
is not easy. Likewise, it is not easy to change your teachers. If
they speak in a boring manner, you just have to make the
best of the situation.
What about your level of intelligence? Is it a fixed, Heaven
factor, or can it be improved upon? This is a complex issue.
There are different ways to measure intelligence — IQ tests,
examination results, career success, and so on. My observation is this: many people seem to stay at the same level —
below average, average, or above average — throughout their
lives. But some do manage to achieve major breakthroughs.
There are also people who can improve overnight after
attending self-improvement and mind development workshops.
Thus, Heaven factors have a certain element of “luck”. If
your favorite topic comes out as an examination question,
that is your good luck. But if you know that the examiner
likes a certain topic and you prepare for it, and it gets asked
as an examination question, that is your initiative. There is
not much you can do about your luck, but there is a lot you
can do about your preparedness and initiative.
Earth
Unlike Heaven, we can change the Earth. We can flatten the
land, clear the forest, build roads, plant trees, build dams,
create lakes, divert waterways, and so on.
In the PRAISE model, Earth refers to the immediate operating environment and the resources available that may be
within our control. It includes our family, social and working
environments. These are factors we can change, or at least
adapt to.
If your family environment does not support you in achieving your goals, you can work harder to enlist their support,
or you can also “leave” your family temporarily. This may not
be as drastic as it sounds. For example, if your home is noisy,
you can go elsewhere to study. This is equivalent to temporarily “leaving” your family.
Earth also refers to the social environment such as your
network of friends, who can have a profound impact on
you. At university, one of my classmates who did well in pre-university and in the officer cadet’s course in the navy,
failed because he was constantly engaged in boy/girl relationships.
Of course, the impact could be just as great the other way
around. One girl I know started off as an average student,
but because her boyfriend was one of the top students, her
grades improved and she ended up with a First Class
Honors degree.
Command
Command refers to the leader’s ability to lead and inspire
others. What has this to do with studies? First, you need to
“command” yourself. You need to impose self-discipline so
that you won’t be distracted or lazy.
In general, whenever someone forces you to do something, your natural response will be to resist. Likewise, when
you force yourself, you will also resist. Therefore, you need to
find a way to inspire yourself. Lead, don’t force, yourself to
study. Then you will do it willingly and happily.
How? Focus on your Prize-dream. Think of the prize, the
reward, that comes from studying hard and doing well.
Alternatively, focus on your Cause, the higher reason that
drives your passion.
Command is also important when you interact with fellow students, whether in group projects or in informal study
groups. You need not be officially appointed as a group leader. You can “lead” by being active in the group discussions, proposing good ideas, or volunteering for certain tasks
instead of waiting to be assigned. You can also “lead” by
asserting your rights as a member of the group, and not
allowing the official leader to dominate unnecessarily.
system
System refers to a person’s competence in managing direct
and indirect resources to achieve a Prize-dream. If your
Prize-dream is to do well in studies, such resources might
include books and other sources of information, teachers,
helpful friends, and so on.
The one resource that everyone needs to manage is time.
It’s not how much time you have, but how effectively you use
it. You can spend hours reading up on a subject and still not
understand it, during which your time would have been
wasted. Alternatively, you can discuss the subject with a friend
and find that, within a few minutes, you are able to understand it well. Thus, your time would have been well spent.
You may also find that if you study a few hours at a stretch,
your mind becomes tired. But if you take short breaks every
now and then, your mind may
be fresher and you can study
better. You may even find that
walking away from your task —
whether you are reading a
book, writing an assignment or
solving a problem — will cause
inspiration to arise.
You also need to think about the indirect resources that
might be available to you. For instance, is it true that everyone has the same 24 hours in a day? Not really. If you have
family members or friends helping you study — by picking
up books from the library, making photocopies and performing other mundane tasks — you are, in fact, using their
time.
Books are also important resources. The books that your
teachers recommend may well be “the best”. But if you find
them difficult to understand or uninspiring, why not read
others? If reading a basic book helps you understand a subject, that is better than reading “the best” book and not
understanding it.
Finally, the Internet can be a vast source of information
for today’s students, provided you know how to use it well.
Recently, one of my friends needed to check some historical
data about Singapore. After searching both the Internet and
printed materials for two days, my friend gave up as she
could not find the information she wanted. When another
friend learnt about this, he went to the Internet and found
the information within two minutes.
Of course, the Internet is not always a reliable source of
information, so you will need wisdom to discern which
information can be trusted and which cannot.
Author
-George Tan
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