Category: FOR STUDENTS

How to make what’s hard, easy! Stop PROCRASTINATING

Parents, this is for students. Learning how to make hard things easy is ESSENTIAL if you want to learn to get through procrastination and get into action so you can build towards a great future. This video explains how if you struggle with Executive Function, you can use this tip to help you do the things that need to get done for your own well-being.


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Video Transcript: Click here to download the transcript PDF.

Hey students, what’s up? It’s me, Seth, and welcome to my backyard. Not literally my backyard, but this is the town that I live in and this is my happy place. And what I want to talk about in this video is one little trick that I do for myself to do things. So there is this thing that goes, “Make what’s easy, hard. Make what’s hard, easy.” And basically, what was hard for me today was to get up and go out for a hike. Now I knew that if I went for a hike, I’d be taking care of my health, investing in Seth, I would feel good in my body, I would feel awake, alert, strong, that I would enjoy it. And I love being out here. But when I was at home, before I came out here, I did not want to get up off the couch. And come here, I wanted to sit there and watch my Netflix movie and play around on the computer, make some food, whatever, call some people, whatever. And I knew that it was important to me to get out in nature today. And for me, for my mental health, I’ve got to move my body I’ve got to exercise somehow. I don’t like gyms, I like being in nature in some way, shape, or form. Whether it’s mountain biking, climbing, hiking, whatever, I like to be out in nature. And I like to experience this. This is just one of the things that is one of my favorite things in my whole entire life, it has always been getting outside.

Here’s the trick. The trick is for me to not think of myself as going on a two hour hike. The trick is to just tell myself to get to the trailhead. Just drive to the trailhead. I know many of you are not driving, but you get the point, and I do work out of the gym sometimes. But I don’t think “Oh, I’m gonna go do a big workout.” I think, “Seth just get to the door of the gym. If I want to go on a run, Seth, don’t go on a run, just get your running shoes on and stand outside.” And then I will run. For you, think “Okay, I got to do homework. And I don’t do homework because I’m not in school right now. But if I have to do work…” and trust me, I do a lot of work that I don’t like, just like you might not like some of your homework. If I got to do this work, then it’s not, “How do I do all this work? It’s how do I just start? How do I just make a plan? And then I can start the work? How do I just pull out the papers?” I open up the tabs I need or find the phone number of the person I need to call. So it’s how can we just take a baby step to do the thing that we need to do? Instead of imagining, “Oh, my gosh, I have all of these big things, all these big things to do. It’s overwhelming. Where do I even start?” The question is what do I have to do to get started? That’s all that I want to do. I want to make it seem small, not overwhelming, manageable, doable. And that’s what it has been one of my biggest keys to success, trust me students, and most of your middle, high school, or college. Look, I am legit ADD, or I have ADHD, or I have symptoms of ADHD that impact my life negatively. It holds me back in my life. I struggle with these things I always have, I always will. But I’m okay with that because I have learned workarounds. I’ve learned tools and tips and tricks and ways to work with this stuff so that I can take action that’s going to help me invest in my life, rather than staying and procrastinating or doing actions that hold me back, like gaming all day long or doing things that are distracting that get me nowhere in life. So that’s the tip for today.

But again, when I was at home, I didn’t feel like leaving today. And I often feel that resistance. And if you’ve been watching my stuff for a while, you know that the number one problem that I talk about for people who struggle with executive function is resistance. We are resistant, we have excuses. We don’t want to do things, we don’t want to take action. And we have so many mechanisms to keep us from doing the thing that would actually be good for us. In this case, it’s going on the hike or whatever, so here is the trick. What I do for to trick myself, so that I can take action on the things I really want to do is what I tend to do. And what many of us tend to do is what’s called ‘catastrophize.’ Catastrophize means we make mountains out of molehills, we make things seem bigger and worse than they are. So like I’m at home and I’m thinking “Oh hike, I gotta get over to the trail. I’m gonna be out there for two hours. What if I have other things I need to be doing,” blah, blah. So we tend to make it seem very big. And then we stay in procrastination, we stay unmotivated. It just seems too big. We do this with homework, we do this with our chores, we do this with our responsibilities. We do this in all sorts of ways. In our lives, we do this, and it holds us back in life. If you become an adult who never figures it out, you’re going to be an adult who is very stuck, and who cannot achieve their goals and dreams in life.

I hope you’re well, I hope you’re safe, I hope you’re happy. Have some peace in your heart today. And I hope that you can try to apply this. Don’t think about the big overwhelming thing, think about one little thing that’s going to get you to do that thing. Make what’s hard, easy. Make what’s easy, hard. What was hard today was to get to the trail. I made what’s hard, easy by not thinking, I’m going to do a two-hour hike. But by thinking “I just need to get to the trail and make what’s easy, hard.” So if sitting by the TV and watching something is easy, or gaming is easy, make it hard for yourself to find your passwords to the gaming or to find the links to the gaming or to whatever the thing is, whether it’s gaming or whatever, it is that you don’t want to be doing as much. Make it harder to get to those things. Be well take care. I will see you soon. Take care.

Why “just get over it” is bad advice

Parents, this is for students. People sometimes say “just get over it” but this sentiment is wildly misleading, and does not help students learn what they need to learn in order to EFFECTIVELY deal with problems. This video explores how to better look at difficulties so students can have more effective tools to process.


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Video Transcript: Click here to download the transcript PDF.

You see that right there? That’s a big mountain. Can you imagine getting over that thing? Let me tell you, getting over that mountain, and there’s a point to this, getting over that mountain is way harder than it looks. And ii’s way harder than it has to be. Right now, I just hiked uphill for a while. Now making down for a little bit, so I’ll catch my breath in a second. But, what is up students? My name is Seth, SethPerler.com. I’m what’s called an executive function coach based in Colorado. I help struggling students navigate this thing called education so that you can have an awesome life.

What I want to talk about here is getting over it, versus getting through it. You know, in your life, you’re gonna hear a lot of people tell you, “Just get over it. Just get over it.” There is no such thing as just getting over it. It’s so wrong. People who say that, often are people who do not know how to deal with their problems or their feelings. They stuffed them. Our culture teaches us to stuff our feelings, to not feel our feelings. It teaches us that it’s not okay to feel our feelings. “Don’t cry about it, just let it go. Just forget about it. Just stop thinking about it. Just get over it.” Well, let me tell you something. Let me impart some wisdom on you that I have learned in my life the hard way, and I’m sure some of the people in your life have learned this the hard way, maybe you’ve learned it the hard way. There is no getting over it. Getting over it is way harder than it seems. That mountain. If you were to get over it, you would have to have serious rock climbing equipment, serious belayers, people who would keep you safe during that rock climb, and it’s extremely technical and extremely difficult. However, what I’m doing right now is I’m getting through it. I’m getting through it. I’m getting through the mountains here. Okay?

One of the differences between getting over it and getting through it is this. When you are getting over it, when we are getting over it, what we’re often doing is we are stuffing it. We’re stuffing our feelings, we’re pretending it’s not there, we’re acting tough. We’re trying to act like it doesn’t matter, trying to forget about it, trying to just let it go. Trying to distract ourselves with electronics, TV, even social life, even things that are not inherently bad. But when we are using them to distract ourselves from feeling the feelings we need to feel, that’s not good. So that’s getting over it. But getting through it, getting through it is the real courageous thing. Feeling your feelings is the real courageous thing, allowing yourself to move through emotions. So we have basically these two parts of us, we have sort of a rational and logical mind, and we have an emotional mind. When people are able to get through it, that means that they are feeling the difficult emotions, and it is very courageous. It’s very hard to feel our feelings. It takes a lot of time, patience, and persistence. But what we find is that we’re afraid, and we don’t like to think we’re afraid. We’d like to think “Oh, yeah, I’m not afraid. I don’t get afraid of things.” Well, fear really can rule us a lot of times, and being afraid to feel our feelings can really rule us. Even people that look like the strongest people you would ever think, a lot of them are afraid to feel. They’ll act like they don’t, because they’re so terrified to feel they want the whole world to think that they don’t feel. We are supposed to feel we are human. So getting through it. A lot of times what we find is that when we get through it, and we feel those feelings that are so scary, they can be so terrifying, when we allow ourselves to feel them and do what’s called process our feelings in healthy manner. Whether that’s seeing a therapist, journaling, just sitting quietly and allowing it to pass, thinking about it, bouncing it off of a friend, telling a parent, telling somebody about what you’re going through, someone you trust, having a good conversation, a good cry, a good sad moment, lonely moment, it’s okay to feel those things. And what we find is that when we feel them, first of all, they pass a lot quicker than when we try to act like we don’t feel anything. When we try to get over it, it turns out that they pass a lot quicker. It also turns out that they’re not as bad as we were afraid they were going to be. We tend to catastrophize. We tend to think our feelings are so scary, it’s going to kill us, like “How can I feel this? This is terrible. This is awful. I just wanted to stop I just want to go away.” But when we move through it and we allow ourselves to feel the anger, or the sadness, or the loneliness, or whatever the feeling is, we notice that like a cloud, what ends up happening is if you watch that cloud long enough, right now, as you’re watching it, it might seem like it’s sitting still. But if you watch it for a minute or two, you’ll notice that it passes. And that’s what happens when we are processing feelings in a healthy way. They can pass, they can do their work. They have a message for us too. Whenever we feel something, the reason we feel anger, sadness, loneliness, all these things, they’re trying to tell us something that we have a need. A need we need to express or we need to fulfill. If we’re angry, anger is what’s called a boundary emotion. So anger is telling us that a boundary is being hit. We need to work with whatever boundary is being taken advantage of. Now, that may not be true, we may be perceiving things differently. But it also we may not, we may really someone’s pushing our boundaries. And the anger is telling us this doesn’t feel right. I need to, in a healthy way, communicate and move through this, and yada yada.

Anyhow, I really just wanted to make that point. I want you to leave this video knowing when someone says, “Get over it.” That’s not where it’s at. Getting through it and having the courage to feel and process difficult emotions takes time. It’s a skill, it takes years to learn how to do, but that is what’s going to serve you. That’s what’s going to help you create the life of your dreams. That’s what’s gonna help you have a better career when you’re older. That’s what’s gonna help you have better relationships with your family, your friends, your community. That’s what’s gonna help you have peace in your heart. All right, that’s all I got.

3 reasons I failed out of college with Executive Function challenges

I have always had executive functioning struggles, and they caught up with me when I attempted to go to college. I was not ready, but I didn’t know that. I wanted the benefits of college without having to do the work, I thought I could somehow take the quick elevator to success. This video tells my ADHD and executive function college story. I hope you find it insightful and that it helps you get some great ideas and clarity because failing college is not fun.


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Video Transcript

What’s up, students? My name is Seth with SethPerler.com. I’m an executive function coach and I help struggling students navigate this thing called school. And in this video, I’m talking to students who are going into college or who’s in college. I’m going to tell you three reasons I failed out of college. And I’m telling you this because I do not want you to fail out of college. I want you to do what’s right for you and have a fantastic life. And failing out of college is not a necessary step in life.

The first thing I want to tell you is that when I work with college students, most of the college students that I work with, are sophomores or second-year college students. Why do you think that is? It’s because they failed their first year. Or they more or less failed the first year. So they didn’t make it to be a sophomore and they are a second-year freshman, or they are a sophomore and they barely got to be a sophomore. And they struggled a lot and they’re finally ready for help. Asking for help is a very hard thing to do. So anyhow. Why did I fail out of college?

So I failed out of college, went to Ball State University, and I failed so I went to summer school on probation to start, because I almost failed out of high school. I didn’t fail out of high school, I had skated by. And then I had to go, I wanted to go to college really because I wanted to get away from my parents. And I went to college on probation in summer school. So I didn’t even have a summer break after my senior year of high school. I didn’t even have summer break, went straight to college on probation. I had to take three probationary classes. When I was in trouble, I often did well, so I was in trouble because I was on probation to start college. So I did well, I got an A and 2 C’s, true story. One of the classes that I got an A in, the class I got an A in was a study skills class. True story. I got an A in study skills. And 2 C’s and now I could go and fall. So I go fall semester. Failed. I go spring semester. Failed. After spring semester is over get a letter in the mail that says, “Seth do not come back you failed out of Ball State University. Thanks for your money. Good luck.” So I went to another college and I dropped out before I failed out. That college was on quarters, it went fall quarter, winter quarter, I didn’t go spring quarter because I dropped out because I had failed those two quarters before. How did I do it? Here are the three steps of how I did it.

Number one: I didn’t go for me. I went because I was told all my life I was supposed to go to college. I didn’t know there were other alternatives. I just thought that’s what you do. There’s no buy-in or ownership that I wanted to go for me to learn, to get an education, to better myself, to develop who I was, to get exposed to lots of new educational ideas, to get exposed to lots of new people and new ways of looking at the world, to have a great experience, to build a career. I didn’t have any of that. I went because I thought that’s what you were supposed to do and I didn’t want to live at home anymore. I wanted to move out of my house and be independent and be on my own even though I was not capable of being independent. I did not have the executive function skills necessary to be an adult or to be on my own or to be independent, but I thought I did and I want to get away from my parents. They were bugging me, or at least that’s how I perceived it. I regret the way that I was very hard on my parents.  I have a fantastic relationship with them now, but I was not the easiest child. The number one way that I failed out of college is by not going for myself. Not going because I really wanted to go for good reasons.

Number two: The way that I failed out of college was by not having the executive function skills to navigate college. I was emotionally dysregulated, meaning I was depressed, I was anxious, I was uncomfortable. I was uncomfortable with who I was, I was not confident in who I was. I lived with a lot of fear that I wasn’t good enough in multiple ways. So I didn’t have the executive function, what’s called emotional regulation, like ways to work with my own fears and emotions and discomfort and stuff like that. Part of my dysregulation had to do that I was eating horrible food. I was not eating food that was nourishing my body. I was on a diet of processed foods, Doritos, some pop, and whatever. I was not sleeping well. I was up late, I was up all night. It was just horrible sleep. I didn’t prioritize myself. Well, I didn’t exercise hardly. I mean I never did like real exercise at that time. So, and I didn’t have just other executive function skills, like planning and organizing, and knowing how to study, and knowing how to prioritize, and knowing how to do all of these executive function things.

Number three: So number one was I didn’t go for myself, I went for my parents because I thought it was supposed to. Number two was I didn’t have the executive function skills I needed. Number three was I didn’t know how to ask for help. You may think that sounds silly. Let me tell you, it’s one of those important things I’ve ever learned in my entire life is that ask for help. I didn’t know how to ask my teachers for help, did know how to ask my parents for help, didn’t know how to ask tutors for help, for coaches to help, I didn’t know how to ask other students for help. I didn’t know how to ask anybody for help. I did not have humility. I had such a big ego. I could not show you that I had any weaknesses, therefore I could never ask you for help and admit that I didn’t have it figured out. So I thought that that would mean that there is something wrong with me. I thought that that would mean if I ask for help that I’m admitting that I’m broken and that I don’t want you to see that, that would terrify me.

There is a quote by Zig Ziglar, “There is no elevator to success. You got to climb the stairs,” and I wanted the elevator to success. I want to go up, I want a quick fix, I want everything to be easy. I did not want to climb the stairs to success. I didn’t want to put in the work. I didn’t want to ask for help. I didn’t want to build the executive function skills. And I wasn’t doing it for me, so that my friends, is how I failed out of college.

I hope you high schoolers or college students don’t ever go through what I went through. College isn’t right for everyone and it’s not right for everyone at the time when society expects it to be right for you. You got to do what’s right for you when it’s right for you, when you have the skills, when you have the motivation, when you have the buy-in, and when you have the ownership. You have to know how to ask for help and know that there’s nothing wrong with you. In fact, asking for help is a sign of maturity. It’s what real adults do, it’s what we all need to do. We all need help. Nobody does it alone. No successful people, no successful people do it alone. We all need each other.

So my name is Seth with SethPerler.com. I’m an executive function coach in Colorado. I hope you have a fantastic day. I hope you have a fantastic life and I hope this video helps you. If it did, go ahead and give it a thumbs up or comment or like or share with somebody, or something like that. I’ll see you the next time. Take care.

Students, $$$. oops, we forgot to teach you about money

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Students, we teach you all sorts of math, but we do NOT teach you financial literacy. This is not good, but it’s the way it is right now, so here are some thoughts that might help you. 

Your goal = financial independence

11 tips:
  1. Use autopay to avoid late fees. Pay in full to avoid interest.
  2. Buy your own stuff, pay your bills
  3. Learn to save for goals
  4. Open bank account, learn to use it well
  5. Use cash
  6. Don’t spend beyond your means
  7. Try minimalism
  8. Track it
  9. Don’t listen to the hype, think critically
  10. Compound interest
  11. Educate yourself. Google things like Financial Independence, financial literacy, the FI movement, compound interest, travel hacking, index funds, etc.. Learn everything you can because honestly, we failed to educate you on this matter. Your FUTURE SELF will thank you!
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How students “should” REFLECT after semester is over?

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What to do AFTER the semester ends?

What? Reflect – Introspection, become mindful of past semester, raise consciousness, self-awareness. Learning to reflect is a crucial executive function skill that must be developed.
Why? Build the executive function skill of self-reflection in order to look at what went well that we should continue to do, and what we want to do differently to be more successful.
When? Within a couple of days after semester is over
How long it takes? 30-60 minutes
How? Writing is best, then talk it out with someone, but at least talk it through
How else? Do a temperature check and/or hilo on these areas:
  • Each of your subject areas
  • Your systems, etc.
    • How effectively you used your planner to track things
    • How was your organization?
    • How effective is your study space?
    • How consistently did you use the portal?
    • How much focused time energy did you spend on homework?
    • Actual studying?
    • Focused reading?
    • Well-developed writing?
    • Took enough time on projects?
    • Proactive self-advocacy?
    • Forthcoming with parents?
    • Honesty with self?
    • Procrastination/distractions?
    • Mindsets that are positive? Not blaming?
    • Overcome resistance?
    • Fun?
    • Social?
    • Emotional?
    • Physical? Sleep, nutrition, movement?
    • Self-care?
Before you go back for spring semester: Do a reset of your systems – planner update, backpack, folders, inbox. Finally: Set your intentions for spring. Now: Relax, enjoy break!

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Reading the transcript? Great! We’re currently uploading hundreds of transcripts so you can read them asap, but they are NOT all edited yet. This is a big process. If you notice anything wrong and want to help us, feel free to click this Google Form to share it. Thanks so much for pitching in! – Seth

Video transcript:

well Hey, what’s up, everybody, except the stuff perler.com. I’m an executive function coach out of Boulder, Colorado and I want to wish you a happy happy happy with a quitter rehabbing. Winter break. Yes, it is winter break. I’m so students middle high school college students. This video is for your parents. I know you’re watching this video. I know your students are going to watch it. Unless you show it to them first. Even if your student doesn’t watch this video make sure that you watch it because what I’m about to go into is extraordinary really powerful student. This will help your life this video that I’m about to do on the power of reflection over winter break. I know you don’t want to be thinking about school right now, but if you take what I’m about to teach you for a half hour to an hour of your life it is going to help you in the upcoming semester to lower your stress in life and in school and to up your fun and your freedom and stuff like that. It’s going to make your life better. Just this one thing to talk about reflection what to do after the semester ends again. Congratulations on winter break. I’m glad you are done. I’m glad you can chill out and relax right now. What are we going to talk about? We’re going to talk about reflux. When you are done with winter break, what you want to do is reflect on the previous semester. I know you are resisting. You don’t feel like it you’re ready to chop, but just hear me out here. Just listen. What about to teach you about reflection? It’s not the end-all be-all. I’m not going to teach you every single detail of everything but I’m going to give you a really good way to reflect and I’m going to hell if you do this, it will help your life a lot. When should you do the reflection about the state about within two to three days after the semester is over after your fall semester is over the optimal time to do the reflection, but do it anytime but that is the optimal time when you’re going to get the most out of it because it’s still fresh in your hat. How long will it take it’ll take about 30 minutes to 60 Minutes of doing this reflection. Some of you may take longer especially if you’re somebody who likes journaling and stuff anyway, so how should you do it? Well the best Waze download the PDF that I have for you were just look at it on my website and use that templates and the best way to do it is to write about it and then talk to somebody about it. But at the very least print off with there and talk to a parent or an addled or somebody who you respect and liking and can get honest with n talk it out with them at the very least do it in your own head. Now, how are you going to do this Reflections? I’m going to give you some items that you’re going to want to reflect on but the way you’re going to want to do it is in two ways one is called a high low and one is called a temperature check. Here’s that how the Hi-Lo works. I’m going to give you a topic to reflect on for example, I might say reflect on how you did in your math class. Now, you’re not reflecting on your math class or your teacher or what the class was like, although that may be part of it. But you’re really reflecting on you reflection is about introspection metacognition mindfulness self-awareness self-consciousness, not a negative stop Consciousness for the conscious of what you’re doing how you’re behaving what your choices are. You see a lot of times you me we people human beings we run around like robots and we’re on autopilot. We’re not really thinking we’re not really aware and what you want to do with people who struggle with executive function like me and probably like you but not everybody but people who do struggle through executive function struggle with self-reflection. They often are not good at learning from the consequences and repeat the same mistakes over and over and then they blame so it’s it’s the teacher’s fault the teacher hates me. The school hates me. It was too hard though. It didn’t matter. Anyway. Oh, this is stupid all this with my time or I’ll do it later. So a lot of times people are not reflecting and they’re blaming their putting the blame on everybody else and they’re not looking at themselves. So to build the skill, the executive function scale of reflection of self-awareness to build these skill takes time, but it’s extremely powerful and important and will make your life better. So what you want to do in order to reflect two ways, you can do it. Anyway you want but I’m going to give you two ways one is the high low when it’s temperature check, but they were looking at math they want to do a temperature check temperature check says, okay Seth. How did I do in math last semester and I’m going to get myself a temperature. Maybe I would give myself a six and maybe I was and then I would ask the question was so you say what’s your temperature? I would say 6:00 and then my next question is why did I get myself a 6 o y and maybe I give myself at 6 because I did well on the test, but I didn’t turn in a lot of the homework and I sat next to somebody who I would always talk to and then be kind of distracting and I didn’t really talk to my teacher when I needed help but I ask for help eventually so I’ll give myself credit for that but I did ask for help only when things got really bad, but I did try harder than I wanted to so that’s why I get messed up at 6 then my magic question is so it’s what your temperature why and then what would it take to get to the next level for me to Next Level? B-7 if I was at a 6 lb 7 and then I would say well if I sat next to somebody who’s a better influence on me, if I went to the teacher earlier in the semester, whatever you get the idea that the temperature check now the other thing is a high low, so I might say math. Alright Seth. What was my high low and maybe my high and math the best thing about math my afforded math was that when it came to tasks. I really focused. I really tried really hard. I really was present for the test. I studied at least a little bit for the tested while on test and maybe Milo was homework. Being motivated in class in like getting rid of my distractions that you can reflect now specifically, what are you going to reflect on? So you have two ways to reflect the high low and temperature check and you can jot down your answers. Like I said before you can jot Em Down on the PDF, I gave you or Journal if you want or you can just talk them out. But what are you going to reflect on? Well number one thing you’re going to reflect on his these subjects. So let’s say that I took French language arts. Social studies art math and science. So each of those areas, I would do a high-lower temperature check on and just sort of explore and reflect on how it went and what I can do better for next semester. The next thing we’re going to do after we look at the subjects as we’re going to look at the systems and stuff. Okay, and here’s what I mean by that systems and stuff that includes things like planner how well did I use my planner last semester how effectively did I use it? What went well with until well, how was my organization realistically? What went? Well, what didn’t go well, what would I do differently? How was Myspace where I studied did I have a space at home that was conducive to doing my homework and studying or were there a lot of distractions how well did I keep up with the portal looking at the grades examining the teacher websites to see what the expectations were. Did I actually use the portal how well did I use my time and energy on homework was I distracted that? I know what was for homework that I do the homework. So, how is my homework strategy? How about actual studying? What was my temperature on studying? Did I actually study how I’m supposed to study in a way that actually makes me learn material or did I crammed at the last minute? Not really learn or did I do it? Not at all. How about reading when I was reading for reading assignments. Did I actually focus on reading and get present with reading that I skim it that I avoided that I wait till the last minute. I was my reading. How about writing when I had the right things that I actually plan it out or did I just vomit ideas at the last second and get it turned in that I actually write in a mindful thoughtful creative way how about projects that I approached projects at the last minute and avoid them that I put a lot of energy in a did I put too much energy into the artistic part of the project that really doesn’t get me any points and not enough on the research how to do in Project. How about advocacy did I advocate for myself and say hey teacher what’s up? I need some help. This is sat there and I’m struggling with this. I need some help or did I say all the teacher doesn’t want to hear from me. They don’t like to hear from me. I don’t want to bother them. I’ll do it tomorrow. I promise. I’ll talk to them tomorrow. I swear. I’ll talk to them later this week. I know I’ll go to office. Like did we actually advik? In a positive way. The next thing is what I forthcoming with my parents I say hey parents, what’s up? I need to be honest and open with you upfront. Here’s what’s going on. Where did I wait until they figured something out before we talked about it if that did I avoid talking about it and then I things all together. So what is a forthcoming was a honest with me was I honest to say Seth I’m totally unrealistic about how long it’s going to take to do something I hear is true story to be honest with myself. I can be forgetful about bizarre things and I’m not going to shave myself or just happen this video that I’m making right now. I just made it before I spent 20 minutes making it and I didn’t hit record and I spoke to the computer just like I am right now with no recording. Let’s make sure it’s recording right now. Yes it is. Thank goodness. So I’m human right but I need to be honest with myself about my strength and my weaknesses were you honest with yourself or were you blaming others? It’s their fault. The teacher hates me my parents bug me too much. I don’t have enough time for this. I don’t have nothing in me. Not looking at yourself and not taking responsibility. So are you being honest with you? What about procrastination and distractions? Did you last message? You want to reflect on how distracted you wear what men be honest with yourself? What distracted with the you how sorry I’m getting tongue-tied. How were you procrastinating? How did that affect you want to reflect on that and see what you can do better for yourself? How was your mindset? Did you have a negative mindset? Did you blame? Did you blame everybody else or did you have a mindset that hey I can figure stuff out. I can do this. It’s okay. I don’t have to be perfect or were you like really hard on your you know, how was your mind that what about your resistance last semester where you really resistant? I don’t feel like at this is stupid. This is Dom. I’ll do it later. I’ll do it tomorrow. I’ll resist I’m procrastinating. I don’t feel like doing it right the second leave me alone. Stop bugging me while you’re expecting me. How come you don’t trust me where you resisting doing? What needed to be done with your own excuses. How is that last semester? What could you do better? Master again, this is for you. This is not your parents. Not for school. This is for your life to have a better future for you in a better present for you. How was your fun last semester? Did you take time to really think about what matters to me? How do I want to have fun? And did you take the time to have the fun that you want to have in a really positive way? I’m talking I’m not talking about playing video games till 3 in the morning. I’m talking about doing things that are fun and enriching and healthy and good for your life. But that are fun for you spending time with people that really matter to that are good people to have in your life that you really think about. What about your social life? Did you bring a lot to the people around you? Did you bring a lot of good where you like? Did you have great friendships great relationships with people or in your social life. Was there some people who you shouldn’t be hanging around with their people. You didn’t treat though in a way that felt like Integrity for you. Like, how is your social life? Was it what you wanted it to be? How is your emotional life? Did you feel at peace? Did you feel not anxious? Did you feel not stress? There was a remote. My wife happy joyous or was your emotional I feel with anxiety and depression and frustration and anger or was it a mix? And what would you change about your emotional life? What about your physical life sleep nutrition exercise. Did you really get restful sleep and wake up rested. Did you really take care of your body and exercise and move your body. Did you really give yourself a nutritious food that really helps you and stay away from things that really are not good for you. What about self-care brushing your teeth and things like that. Did you actually take care of yourself and do the things that you need to do to treat yourself with good South care now after that reflected on all those things you’re done. You can do the temperature check on each of those things and now you’re ready to do a reset now the reset you don’t have to do right away. You can wait till the end of the semester on the reset. But the reset is really take your backpack. Throw it in the laundry machine clean it up. Get out all the crumbs get out all the change full out all the folders throw away old folder throw away old papers. I’ll get brand new folders. If you need them get all the folders emptied out ready for the new semester clean up your inbox reset your planner get it up to date. You want to reset everything. So when you walk into school in that first day back, you are ready to rock and roll don’t have a bunch of old clutter. You’re ready to start with a fresh start for having a great spring. So you do want to do a reset over the break before you go back to school doesn’t have to be right now. But before you go back to school you really want to get trapped in a good way. Finally, what you want to do is you want to set an intention for spring. How do you envision that your spring is going to look? So you want to set an intention for spring? Hey, I’m going to be laughing while I’m going to have a lot of good friends going to have some study parties. I’m going to get my homework done more proactively. I’m going to use my planner more effect. Play I’m going to be more forthcoming with my parents. I’m going to be less stress. I’m going to more free time. I’m going to be more focused on me. Stop. I’m going to eat all this stuff is going to magically happened. Just cuz you think about it. That’s not realistic. But you still do want to set the goal in the intention for what you want your spring semester to be like realistically this stuff works. When you envision stuff. It helps you achieve your goals. So you want to take your attention for spring. Now, you’ve done all the stuff you’ve done the reflection. You set an intention. You can do your reset later now relax. It’s a break. Enjoy yourself. Do stuff that’s fun for you over the break go snowboarding. If you live in a place that has snowboards play your instruments hang out with people do things that are fun for you. Like enjoy your break. You should relax you should not be stressing about school and all of that stuff. So again, my name is stuff for 11 the executive function coach in Boulder, Colorado. I’m really glad that it is break for me to I work very hard and what I do and now if you like what I’m doing in this helps you Please do all the things right now share this video. Subscribe subscribe on YouTube subscribe to my blog leave a comment do all the things and have a fantastic wreck.

FOR STUDENTS: Hail Mary – End of the semester STRATEGIES

I made this one ESPECIALLY for middle, high school and college students to BECAUSE this is the time of the semester when things can completely f a l l a p a r t !!!!!!!!!!!
Parents, you’ll want to view it first and then share it with your child if you think they’ll like it.
We cover these 10 tips:
  1. clarity, portal
  2. plan
  3. PEPR
  4. honesty
  5. advocacy
  6. accountability
  7. don’t motivate
  8. baby steps
  9. persistence
  10. more persistence
AND, we need you to develop your best self.
Love my work and want to give? Click here! To support me, please CLICK at the bottom to share. Click here to visit my official YouTube Channel & subscribe if you want! Thank you — Seth

Video transcript:

Hey, what’s up? This is Seth from SethPerler.com, I’m an executive function coach out of Boulder Colorado. Today I’m going to talk about the “Hail Mary” time at the end of the semester. Middle school, high school, college students, I’m making a video for you. You’re probably getting this because a parent or teacher has forwarded it to you (you probably don’t follow my blog). But I am making this for you. Right now it’s December 9th, Sunday. I send my blog out every Sunday, most of the students that I work with are students who struggle with what’s called “executive function.” Students who have a lot of missing assignments, incompletes, late work, and zeros. They wait until the last minute on things, their grades are suffering, and they’re really smart students whose grades do not reflect how smart they are. And so I work with people who are going through that, that’s what I do it day in and day out. It is December 9th and most of my students have two weeks left. So we got Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday of this week, and then also next week before winter break. Now students here’s the deal. This is Hail Mary time. And that means that this is a particularly interesting time because a lot of students either pull it together and do fine at the end of the semester, or don’t and then get a bunch of D’s and F’s at the end of the semester. So they’re kind of teetering between those two sides. I’m going to tell you how to get through. I’m going to give you 10 tips to get through this Hail Mary time so that you can end the semester on a high note. Using less energy so that you have more freedom, more free time, more time for yourself, and that you’re wasting less time spinning your wheels trying to get your schoolwork done so you can get it done more efficiently and more effectively. So again, you got two weeks left. You got this week and next week, and that final Friday usually is a wash, the day before break. Usually, nothing happens. So really you have nine actual school days, meaningful school days, that you have to get this stuff done. So let me go through this. Number 1: Plan. If you want to be successful during the Hail Mary time when usually you’re doing a bunch of makeup work, a lot of late work, and you’re also dealing with your current work, but you also have upcoming work during this time. If you have a bunch of zeros, incompletes, makeup work, and stuff like that, you want to make a plan. So planning. You have to plan it out. You have to get it out in front of you. Okay, so that’s number one: be good at planning during this time. Number 2: Clarity.  In order to plan well, you have to get clarity. You have to be clear on what’s going on. How do you get clarity? You look at the portal and you examine it. If you have an online portal, you look at it really clearly, print off the pages with all your zeros, missings, incompletes, low scores, test corrections, whatever. Print up those sheets or make your own specialized list or just take a notecard to make a list of everything that you got to be worrying about, or make multiple notecards for multiple classes. I don’t care how you do it. But you have to get clear on what’s going on. Part of what my students struggle with is that they’re not even clear on what’s going on. They don’t even know what to do. They don’t even know when it’s due, and when they do know, they don’t even know the expectations. Don’t worry. There’s no shame in this. I went through that myself, but I ended up almost failing out of high school and then actually failing out of college, and then dropping out of a second college not doing well. I eventually went back to school and did well, but I really struggle with this stuff. So this is what happens to my students when they don’t figure this out. So you need clarity. My students don’t know what’s going on. They don’t have clarity. You need it. You get it 1) from the portal 2) you get it from your planner 3) you get from scouring through your folders 4) you get up by going up to your teacher (honestly and be like, “Dude. Hey, what do we got to do? I’m not doing real well,  I need some clarity.”).  So number two is clarity. Number one was planning. Number two is clarity. They go hand-in-hand. Number 3: PEPR. I want you to understand this concept of PEPR. At the end of the semester, again, not only are you dealing with your late working and missing work, not only are you dealing with current work, but you’re also dealing with very large long-term projects that come at the end of the semester. Long-term projects come in four ways. PEPR. Papers, exams, projects, and readings. You have long-term papers; papers that take a long time to write. You have final exams that are long-term because they take a lot of studying (not just the night before or the morning of). You have long-term projects that need to be done not the night before. And then you have long-term reading assignments. Very large reading assignments – books or chapters that take a long time. The problem with PEPR with long-term stuff is that a student’s wait until the last minute. Students who struggle with this stuff wait until the last minute. They are not proactive. They did not plan. They do not have clarity. They tend to be very unrealistic about the amount of time and energy that’s required to do these PEPR things, these papers need to be written. They think, “oh, I’ll do it in an hour.” It takes 6 to 10 hours typically to write a paper. The exams – you need to study for hours for them. They think they can do it in 30 minutes the night before. And then projects that need to be done take hours. They rushed through them the night before if they do them at all. And then reading takes a long time to really read it in a scholarly, intentional, and mindful way. You need to actually read and think while you’re reading. There’s PEPR. So planning, clarity, PEPR. Number 4: Honesty. So you got to be honest with yourself, your parents, and your teachers. Honest with yourself to be like, “Yeah, I keep thinking that I can do this and I keep procrastinating, and honestly, I procrastinate. Honestly, I’m not very motivated to do this. Honestly, this is not fun for me. Honestly, I want to do well but I don’t want to do the work that it takes to do well.” And in being honest with your parents to, say, “Hey, you know what I’m I’m struggling with some stuff. I need a little help. Can you give me a tutor for this, can help me with that? Can you hold me accountable?” And in being honest with your teachers, “Hey, I’m not doing great in your class and I know that and I do want to do well. What tips you have?” Honesty, honesty, honesty. There’s a lot of integrity behind that. Number 5: Advocacy. And that means asking for help. This is one of the hardest things for humans to do. But, people who are successful in any area of life, i.e. look at the best performers in any area, whether you’re a sports fan, art, music, etc. The people that you respect, the people that you like, they have learned to ask for help and have advocated for themselves. They’ve said, “Hey, I’m struggling with this. I want this kind of result. Will you please help me.” How do you do this? 1) You ask your teachers for help, you advocate for yourself with them. “Hey, I’m struggling with this not working for me. I need your help.” 2) your parents 3) tutors 4) school counselor 5) friends who are good at the stuff you’re not good at. You’re good at certain things, and you want to be able to help people with that because you’re better and you can excel at certain things. But you want to find people who are better at school than you are and ask them for help. Whatever the case may be, advocate for yourself. Number 6: Accountability. A lot of times we have good intentions. We think “Yeah, I’ll get it done. I’ll get it done tomorrow. I’ll get it done later tonight. I’ll get it done next week.” Okay, so we think we’re going to get something done. We have a goal. We want to get it done we intend to, but it doesn’t end up happening, over, and over, and over. If we’re honest with ourselves, we see that pattern. If we aren’t honest with ourselves we deny it. We lie about it. We make excuses all the time. So what you want is, you want accountability. That means you go up to somebody who’s a good friend, who’s a mentor, the teacher you say, “Hey, I got to get this done. Will you get on me and help bug me until it’s done. Will you remind me of this? Will you send me a text to this? Will you please sit with me while I do this? Maybe we’ll both work together the same time on different things” (that’s call co-working). Whatever you need for accountability. Accountability is when you tell someone, “Hey, this what you can expect for me. I’m going to work hard on this. Will you help hold me to that. Will you help push me.” People don’t have accountability partners in some way, shape, or form, and who are not self-motivated really struggle with a lot of things in life. So you want accountability.  Number 7: Motivation. Don’t worry about it. A lot of people (society, teachers, parents) will tell you you need to be more motivated. I will tell you that with the students I work with, I do not talk about motivation. I do not care if you’re motivated or not. I do not care if I’m motivated or not. If I’m not motivated to pay my bills I get kicked out, I get evicted. If I’m not motivated to pay my car payment, my car gets taken away. If I’m not motivated to pay my electricity it gets shut off. If I’m not motivated to work, I can’t buy food. I can’t buy the things that I need. It doesn’t matter if I’m motivated to do those things. They need to be done. So when people wait for motivation, you’re not going to have it. It may come. It may come because you suffer and you got in trouble and you have consequences. But is that really good motivation that helps you? It may come because someone promises you a reward, but is that really motivating you? So don’t worry about motivation. Forget about the word motivation. What I do instead, I’m moving on to the next one. So I’ve gone over planning, clarity, PEPR, honesty, advocacy, accountability, and now motivation. Number 8: Baby steps. Don’t worry about being motivated, worry about taking a micro-step. A baby step. Taking a millimeter step forward, worrying about taking some action. I don’t care what it is. Reorganize your backpack for one minute. You’ll probably do it for more. Do one problem on your math, don’t worry about the whole math sheet. Do one sentence in the paper you’re supposed to write. I’m not saying don’t do the whole thing. But what I’m saying is, is when we think about “Oh my gosh, I have this paper to write or the test to study for or reorganizing my backpack,” it feels overwhelming. When we feel overwhelmed we feel resistant. When we feel resistant, we procrastinate and we don’t do it. So what I’m suggesting is don’t worry about motivation, worry about baby steps. Do something. Take some tiny micro action. Move a millimeter. Do a little bit. People who are successful have learned the art of taking small steps and they just keep taking small steps in the steps add up. So don’t get overwhelmed by the magnitude of the school work that you have to do. That’s overwhelming and that’s going to hold you back. Worry about taking baby steps. Just take a baby step tonight, right? The second this video is over to do something small for yourself for your own good. Do a tiny little step and then another, and then another, another. Number 9: Persistency. Keep taking baby steps. Persist, persist, persist. Never ever ever give up. Trust me. I have struggled with so much stuff with ADD and executive function issues my whole life, okay. But I am a successful human being right now living the lifestyle I want beautiful Colorado, which I love. I get to travel, I get to have this awesome life, I have great friends, I have great people. I have a really good life. But I almost failed out of high school. I did fill out of college. I almost out of a second college. I was a failure. I felt like a lazy loser failure who couldn’t do anything. How did I change that? I persisted. I started turning my life around and I took tiny tiny steps. Number 10: More persistence. Do not give up. Continue persisting. Persist, persist, persist. Then you’re going to get off track. Then things are going to fall apart. It doesn’t matter. Get back on track as soon as you’re ready to improve and persist some more. Take more baby steps, persist with baby steps. So that is it. That’s the secret to it. There’s no magic. It’s just taking baby steps, and you will be able to accomplish your goals. Whether it’s with school, whether there with what you want to do in your future, whether it has to do with your hobbies or your interest or your passions. Whatever. You just keep taking little steps and you will get there. Okay, that’s where it’s at. There’s no magic. Trust me. I do this. I’m in the business of helping students change their educational life. It’s not like we’re going to have some giant magical epiphany. Worry about the micro-steps. So to recap: 1) you got to make a plan and you got to keep making plans. 2) you need clarity. You got to know what the expectations are, what has to be done. You have to be concrete in what you need to do in the next two weeks. 3) you got to be aware of PEPR, your long-term project that people wait till the last minute to do. 4) you got to be honest with yourself, and then be honest with the other people in your life. 5) you got to advocate for yourself. Say, “Hey, will you please help me.” Be humble and ask for help. 6) accountability. You got to tell people, “Hey, will you hold me to it and make sure I do that and help push me.” 7) don’t worry about motivation. Forget about it because the next one is the power of baby steps. 8) Baby steps. 9) persist. Keep taking baby steps. 10) more persistence. Just keep persisting. Keep on keeping on. Every time you get off track, get back on track. Finally, I’m going to wrap up this video with this. This is no joke, the world needs you. Literally you, the person I’m speaking to on this video right now. You, the person that’s listening to this. We need you to develop your strengths, your talent, your passions, your interests, your gifts. We need you to develop you to be the best you that you can be. Why? Because the world has problems. You’re growing up in a world that has problems and you are the future. You get to be somebody who participates in the world and communities in a way where you do something awesome for the world (or not). Okay, but the choice is yours. We do need you, and even if your ‘struggling in school and your grades aren’t great,’ we need you to figure out who you are and do the awesome things that you were born to do. So the way that you’re going to do anything is by this persistence, by learning how to persist and have some grit and resilience. Keep trying and pushing yourself, and don’t worry about perfection. That’s not what it’s about. But we need you to do your best. I mean look at me — this is my studio. It’s posters, it’s things that represent me. It’s not perfect. It’s the best I can do. But I try to share my message with the world. I’m doing my best. I’m trying to play my part and you play yours. So we need you. When I say, we, I’m really saying the adults in your life that care about you. We want you to have a great future, not a mediocre future. I don’t want you to have an average future. I want you to have a great future and an awesome life. A life filled with possibilities, a life filled with opportunities. A life filled with choice is not a limited life that’s stuck in a little box where you’re struggling through everything all the time. I want you to be free. I want you to have freedom and joy and bring your awesomeness to the world. So anyhow with that, you can watch this video a couple of times if you want. My name is Seth Perler, SethPerler.com. Go ahead and subscribe on YouTube. Click the thumbs up. Leave a comment if you want. And have a fantastic next two weeks. Persist, persist, persist. Get these 2 weeks over with, get onto your winter break, and have an awesome time when you’re free. And you know, you’re done with the past semester and you’ve done all right.

STUDENTS: Do THIS to save your semester (video)

Shakespeare Quote It’s crunch time again and you want to pass all your classes. Here’s how:
  1. Be honest with yourself and others. Own it. Excuses.
  2. Print your grades (the pages WITH the details)
  3. Email your teachers with honesty and integrity
  4. Go to office hours
  5. Overhaul your materials
  6. Update your planner
  7. Make a SANE master plan
  8. Get accountability
  9. Start (sss, timers, plans)
  10. Start again
  11. Umm, now start again
  12. Repeat each weekend
  13. Be proactive with finals, projects, readings and papers
Do it NOW! Good luck, Seth
đź’š Give: Love my work and want to donate? 🎦 YouTube: Visit my official YouTube channel here. Please subscribe, like & comment to support my work. 👉 Share: To support me, please *CLICK* at the bottom to share on FB or Pinterest. ✏️ EF101: Here’s my jumpstart course for parents and teachers. 🙏 Thanks! — Seth

Video transcript:

Hey students. Listen, listen, listen, listen. Look, if you want to get your F’s to A’s, if you want to raise your grades, if you want to finish the semester on a strong note, if you’re a middle school or a high school or a college student and you got a bunch of F’s, listen. Today is November 12th, and you got a bunch of F’s and you want to get A’s, chances are you’re not going to get A’s. But you can get these D’s or C’s or B’s and sometimes you actually can pull it off and get it A’s. So I’m going to tell you 13 things to do to turn it around right now, the end of the semester is right around the corner. Okay. Basically, it’s November in a couple of weeks. You have Thanksgiving break, so you’re not even going to be in school, and in two weeks in December you’re done with the semester and it’s over. What tends to happen is that a lot of students who struggle with Executive Function things, they get very unrealistic like, “Oh I got this, I’ll figure it out,” and they procrastinate, procrastinate, procrastinate. The next thing, you know, you got a few F’s, you have to retake classes, you have to do something annoying because you put yourself in a position where you got F’s and you think that you’re going to be able to pull it off but you’re not actually taking the actions. So if you are one of those people and you’re being honest with yourself and you’re like, “You know what, I really do kind of struggle with this stuff. I really am kind of disorganized. I forget stuff. I lie to my parents. I lie to myself. You know, I just really don’t put a lot of time into studying and it’s really not working,” and if you actually want to change that, listen to this video. I’m going to tell you 13 things. Here we go right now. Number 1: Be honest with yourself. Just be honest with yourself and own it. It’s okay. Stop making excuses. Just say to your parents, “Hey guys. Guess what? I’m failing four classes,” or whatever the case, is just like “I’m sorry, but I’m working on it and I need some help and I know that I pushed you away and I tell you to leave me alone and trust me. I’ve got this and stuff, but I don’t. I need help. So, can you help me like this? Can you help me like that? Can you hold me accountable,” whatever. So the number one step is to be honest with yourself. Look, there’s no shame in this. Stop lying to yourself. What we do is we get stressed out and we do not like being stressed out. So what happens is we become what’s called avoidant. If you’re a middle school, high school, or college student who’s getting all these bad grades, what happens is that you tend to become avoidant, which means that when the stress starts coming most of you push it away. You say “I don’t even think about it. I’m going to procrastinate I’ll get to it later. Let’s go play some more video games. Let’s go hang out with my friends. Let’s go this that do this that or the other, but let’s not address the problem. I’ll get to it later.” Okay. So be honest with yourself. When your parents are bugging you and they’re like, “Why didn’t you do this? And when are you going to do that?” and just be honest with them. You can say, “I don’t know,” or you can say, “Well I intend to do it later today, but I may not because,” whatever it is doesn’t matter, just be honest with yourself and with them. Don’t get defensive. Don’t be like, “oh leave me alone.” Be like, “you’re right. You’re right. Okay, I’m working on it.” Maybe you can let your parents help you and stuff like that. So number one, be honest about the situation. Number 2: Now what I want you to do is go to your computer, open up your grade program, go to the part of the grade program where it shows the details of the class. I don’t care about the grade in your class. I don’t care if you have a 47%, a 67%, or 99%. Go to the pages that show the details of the classes that show each individual assignment. Click print, print it up. And then I want you to take your handy-dandy highlighter and highlight all the things that you want to address. Usually, they’re missings, incompletes, or scores that are really low where you’re able to do corrections or do something to raise the score. I don’t care about anything else. Highlight only the things that may possibly be actionable items. Number two, print your grades and start to deal with those. Number 3: Email your teachers with honesty and integrity. What that means is you write a very short email, don’t get overwhelmed because I’m telling you to do this. Don’t be like, “oh I don’t feel like writing an email,” just write the stupid email. Okay, trust me, please. I’ve done this a lot with a lot of students because it works. A little short email to your teacher: “Hey, Miss Smith. What’s up? I hope you having a good weekend. Look, I’m failing your class and I need some help, do any suggestions for me?” Boom. Click send. The reason you want to email your teachers, there are a few reasons and a few benefits, and all of who are watching this video right now are probably resistant like, “Oh, I don’t need to email them. I’m going to go see him tomorrow and office hours. I’ll see him Thursday. I’ll talk to them, I promise I’m going to talk to him. I’ll go to them at the beginning of class, I’ll go to them at the end of the class,” you know what, you’re lying to yourself. Why am I saying that and I don’t even know you? Because I work with hundreds of students that say the same thing, and the fact is that when they don’t create a system for holding themselves accountable, they forget but they don’t mean to forget. They fully intend to go see the teacher but they forget. So you want to hold yourself accountable, you want to hold yourself to a higher standard. You want to make sure you cover your bases and get your butt in to see that teacher. So you’re going to say “Hey, what’s up. I’m failing class and need a little bit of help. Can you give me any suggestions,” and you want to ask, “Can I come into office hours?” and you want to be specific, “Can I come see you tomorrow at 3 pm for a couple of minutes and make a plan,” or whatever. Ask them for something specific, okay. Next, after you email them with honesty and integrity and you’re just like honest with them and you’re like, “This where I’m at. Sorry, but I need help,” and don’t be ashamed of it. Number 4: After you email them, you do want to now go in to see them during office hours or the beginning class or the end of class, or whatever. You want to be present in-person with them. Writing that email and going to see them shows them through your actions, not your intentions, but through your actions that you care about your grade. When you go to them and you quote ‘ask for help,’ and you are humble and you go with integrity and you’re honest teachers respond positively. Of course, I know a lot of you were here saying, “Yeah, but you don’t understand! My teacher hates me,” or whatever. You know what, I don’t care if you feel that way or not. Honestly just go in and do it anyway because this is not about your teacher. This is about you and your life and your results. I don’t want you to be repeating a class. I don’t want you to be the one dealing with the consequences of the F. The teacher goes on with their life, they’re not getting the F. So this is about you, even if you feel like they don’t like you or they won’t listen to you, or whatever. Just trust me and do it. Anyway, what’s the worst that can happen? So you’ve done the first steps. Number 5: Now, you’re going to overhaul your materials. I want you to take every single thing that has to do with school, put it on the middle of the floor in the living room, spread it all out, and go through it. Every paper, every book, every sticky note, every gum wrapper, every everything. Bring everything over from your locker or your desk, bring everything from your desk in your bedroom. Put it all out in one place and make sense of it. Ask your parents or brother or sister or friend or a relative or somebody to hang out with you for a little bit and make sense of it. Get someone who’s really organized because they’re good at that stuff. Okay, and what you want to do if you want to start making piles. One pile is probably your favorite pile, it’s the recycle pile. Get a pile of everything you never need to look at again. Then, make a pile for things that need to be addressed and things that need to be dealt with. Make a pile for things that you need to put back in the folders, and so on and so forth,  just get everything organized. So that’s the next thing is to overhaul everything. Now when you overhaul everything, the most important aspect of your overhauling all your papers and stuff is to make a pile of the things that must be dealt with that are called ‘urgent.’ Your most urgent items should be in a very accessible, visible place. So the things that are urgent, put them in an inbox put them in your planner on the front page your planner, put them in a queue folder if you watch my queue folder videos, whatever it is. Okay, I want you to get the most urgent things in your face so that you have to see them and you have to deal with them. Number 6: Next, update your planner thoroughly. I like to get students rip out every page from the past, okay. Today is November 12th, get rid of everything from the earlier in the school year. Get rid of all of it. Your planner will become a lot lighter in a lot more manageable. And for this week, you only have to worry about through December 15th, roughly for all of you. Write every detail you can that you need to do this week. Get everything in that planner. Look at your grade sheets, the ones that you just printed. Write those things in your planner when you’re going to do them, write reminders on when to turn them in, make sticky notes, I don’t care what you do, but get details in your planner. Get very granular. Very very very very very detailed with your planner, ask an organized person to help you get the things into your planner. Be humble and honest about it. I know you’re going to resist and be like, “I don’t feel like it. I’ll do it tomorrow. I’ll do it Wednesday blah blah.” Look just do it. Today, Sunday, spend a couple of hours tonight. Tell your friends not to bug you. Turn off your technology, any distractions, put the dog outside, whatever. You need to do this to make your life easier. Okay, so get started tonight. Number 7: Make a sane master plan. The master plan is different than the planner. The master plan is kind of like where you’re going to take something like this (a sheet of lined paper), and just list out all of the things that need to be done. And then you’re going to put a number by them in the order that you want to do them. So maybe number one is down here, and number two is right here, number three here, and number four up here. You want to get everything on one master plan and then start crossing it out as you finish them. Then you need to decide what order you’re going to do the things in the master plan. What I usually say to people is, ‘do you want to start with the easiest first, the hardest first, the shortest first, the longest first, or the most important first,’ and then you can kind of decide your style. People have different styles and you know, your parents might say, “Oh you should do the most important first,” well that might not be your style, or that might be your style. Or your parents might say they always used to do the easiest first because it’ll get the ball rolling. Your friends might say, oh you should do the hardest first. People have different opinions. Look for your style and do what works for you, but you do want to have some coating for the biggest priorities for sure. So, make your master plan that is sane. So meaning, you’re not going to do everything on the master plan also, you need to know this. You need to be honest with yourself. Let’s say if you have 30 assignments that you need to get turned in before the end of the semester. If you do 10, that might be a success. If you do 23, that might be a success. It’s not likely because I would work with students all the time, it’s not likely that you’re actually going to do all of them. So just be careful how you prioritize and do what you need to do so that you’re passing. Don’t worry about the beginning of the video when I was talking about F’s to A’s. Don’t worry about the A’s, just worried about getting yourself out of the hole. You got to be realistic with yourself at this point. Number 8: Get accountability. That means to get a friend or family member or a parent, get somebody to hold you accountable. In other words, if you say, “I will do these three assignments today,” you tell somebody and you say, “if I don’t do these three assignments today, I’m going to give you a hundred bucks.” No, you don’t have to do any of that. But you do want to say “Hey, will you help me stay accountable. I’m making a commitment that I’m going to do these three things today. Will you check on me and see that?” You’re asking for support. That’s what accountability is. Say to your parents, “look I’m going to finish these homework assignments by 5 pm. Will you help make sure I do that and help me stay accountable?” Why do you want accountability? Because we often can’t depend on ourselves to hold ourselves accountable, so we ask others to help us with that. So get someone to help us be accountable for that. I’m going to help you be kind of bowl anybody. Number 9: Get started on the master plan. Now in order to start on your master plan, you have to have a concrete idea of what you’re going to do. If you have an abstract idea of what you’re going to do, you’re stressed out, you’re going to be avoidant, and you’re going to procrastinate. Give a concrete idea of what you’re going to do, meaning if you have a good plan and if you use a digital timer to help you get started are two things that help make it concrete and help you get started. So our next thing is to get started. Getting started is the hardest part. That’s half the battle. That’s 90% of the battle is just getting started. Now, you also have to have in order to get started is a SSS, a sacred study space, a good place to focus that is free of distraction and maximized for focus. If you don’t have a good place to study you better do that first thing. So you need a sacred study space, a great place to study and focus on your stuff that’s free of distractions. I recommend using timers and you need a concrete plan of what you’re going to do. Number 10: Next thing, after number 10, after you start. The next thing to do is start again. People, start again. Why? Because you will get sidetracked. You will get distracted. You will forget what you were doing. You will daydream, you will go into la-la land. Well guess what, get started again. Number 11: After you get started again, get started again because you’re going to get off track again. And I’m going to keep saying this. Get started again, get started again, get started again. Don’t imagine that you’re going to sit there for 3 hours and crank out 5 Math assignments. It’s not going to happen. It never happens. Okay, be honest with yourself. Go back to number one. Be honest with yourself. So not if, but when, you get sidetracked and distracted and procrastinate-y, start again. Then start again. Then start again. What happens is a lot of people don’t start again, and then they go further and further and further behind. Number 12: Repeat this exact process next weekend and the next weekend and the next weekend. Repeat the process every weekend. Go through this video, watch it again, hit pause every time I tell you to do something and do it and go through it every weekend. If you do this, you will be passing your classes, I guarantee it. Step 13: The final step. Be proactive with what’s coming on in the last week of school. The last week before winter break, you’re going to have exams, papers, projects, and reading assignments that must be done. Those are four things. You do not want to wait until the night before to study for your finals, to do massive reading assignments, to finish your projects, or to write papers. So a lot of people, myself included, really struggled with being proactive and they wait until the last minute and then they dig a huge hole for themselves. And one of two things happens, either they who they work really hard and they pull it off, and sometimes even pulled off and do well. Most of the time they pull it off and get a C or D or whatever, and it’s just not high-quality work and it doesn’t represent what you’re capable of and you lost the opportunity to learn something and to grow from it, or they avoid it altogether. The pressure is too high. They say, “I’ll do it. I’ll do it. I promise I’ll do it. I promise I’ll do it.” They avoid avoid avoid avoid and all of a sudden, the last day of the semester comes, those things weren’t done and end up failing. So those are the two things that happen. You want to be proactive, meaning when you get these assignments with these study guides or these rubrics or whatever, you want to get started on it early. Okay, and get it in your planner. So those are 13 things going to go over those real quick.
  1. Be honest with yourselves and with others. Get rid of the excuses, own it. Say, “Hey, here’s where I’m at. I’m struggling and need some help. Honestly, this is where I’m at.
  2. Print your grades.
  3. Email your teachers with honesty and integrity.
  4. Go to their office hours and talk to the human being and say, “Hey, I need help. I want to pass your class.
  5. Overhaul your materials. Your backpacks, your paper, your folders and all that.
  6. Update your planner completely.
  7. Make a sane master plan with all the details, knowing that you’re not going to get through all of them, but put them all there anyway and just organize them in such a way that it’s saying that you’re prioritizing them.
  8. Get accountability from somebody.
  9. Get started
  10. Start again.
  11. Start again.
  12. Repeat this process each weekend.
  13. When the last week comes, don’t get started on your things then. Be proactive for the papers, projects, exams, and reading assignments that come up. On the last week be proactive about them and start them early.
That’s it. Now, do it. You can re-watch this video. You can click pause and get these steps done, but get started now. Do this. I am telling you this, so I work with this to all these different students, and I’m telling you this because this is your life. What you do here today in your life is going to help set you up for a great future, or a struggling future. And I want, your parents want, your teachers want, people who really care about you want, your real friends want for you to have a fantastic future, not a mediocre future. Not an okay future. Not an okay life. We want you to have choices and freedom, your parents when you have a better life than they had. Even if they make mistake their human, blah blah blah. Don’t worry about it. We want you to be happy, that’s the point of all this. Education should be providing you with this, of course, there are problems with it, but I want you to finish the semester strong. So let’s do this now. Good luck to you. If you like this video share it with a friend right now. clicks Send it off to someone that you care about, a friend of yours who could use this if you know anybody who could benefit from it, but either way, go get started, do it. Do it. Go do this, get started, do it now. Good luck to you. Have a great November and December so you can set yourself up for an incredible winter break. I’ll see you soon. Please CLICK below to share.