Habit is a regular practice that we do and is difficult to give up. Scholarship seekers may adopt some habits to accomplish their dreams and ultimately do well in their lives. Over the time, I have identified some habits that helped me to win several scholarships throughout my career i.e. bachelors, masters, and Ph.D.
Make a habit of getting new skills. Many skills out there help you to get scholarships. Identify them, get them, and balance between already existing skills. Your skill-set is what makes you, you. For example, there would be many people who know better than you or have better CGPA but they can’t talk with a stranger. Then, there are many confident freaks, know nothing about their field.
If you could balance between only these two skills, you would be a rare person. Now combine them with other skills and you would have a personality that is not easy to find. One habit that you need to quit from today is blaming others. Probably it is one of the most important habits to be happy and successful in life.
Don’t cry over things you can’t control.
The government did nothing, the education system of Pakistan is the worst, I didn’t have enough opportunities, etc. If this is what you think, you may need to re-think it and consider what you did wrong or maybe what you can do in the existing system/problems. Be patient. A study showed that if you can wait for more, you can be more successful.
Always make a Plan B.
Plan B doesn’t mean leaving your dreams. It means taking a longer/different path to accomplish the same goals. For example, you are rejected from a Bachelors’s scholarship, take admission in Pakistan, work harder, and apply for a Masters’s scholarship. Read and write more than others. The culture of reading and writing is becoming rare day by day, thanks to Facebook and modern technology
Reading would give you new ideas and writing would help you to write motivational letters/SOP, CV etc.
Identify something that you like and start doing it. For example, I love traveling so I combined it with conferences, workshops, and other events. It helped me to learn more, improve my profile and I had fun doing it. Somebody rightly said that 1 hour of the conference is better than 1 week of lectures. Be creative. Recently a survey by World Economic Forum concluded that critical thinking would be the most important skill in the future. Questioning everything is a habit that can makes you a critical thinker. Something is not right just because you think it’s right to learn to question yourself. Be open to criticism and learn how can you improve yourself. Only humans can observe what they are thinking and even have the ability to change it so do it if you are human.
A learning attitude should also be your habit.
It is said that a mind not willing to learn is not alive. Question everything and open our minds. Take everything as a learning experience. If you fail, you learn. If you win, you learn. Maybe computer science is not your field but learning about software development wont go waste and would benefit you one day. Make preferences in your life. I know you guys are quite busy so decide as soon as possible what is more important and cut the less important things from your schedule. Try to calculate how much do you spend texting and is it really important. Do it with everything that takes your time and invest it wisely.
Do exercise.
Pakistan has one of the least physically active people according to a recent report. Doing physical work increases your mental growth. Not to mention other health benefits that come by exercising. 15 minutes a day is not that much time so being busy is not an excuse. Do something just for fun, have some hobbies. We think that its wastage of time but science proved that it helps our brain to work efficiently and makes us happier.
