50 Life Lessons Every Parent Should Teach Their Children

Updated on December 17, 2020 By Daniel Wong 13 Comments

Ever feel like parenting is the toughest job in the world?

Parenting involves plenty of hard work. What’s more, there are no guarantees.

No matter how much you love your children, no matter how much time you spend with them, no matter how “perfect” of a parent you are … you can’t guarantee that your children will become successful and happy.

Nonetheless, there are many valuable life lessons you can impart to your children.

As your children learn these lessons, they’re more likely to grow up to be confident, well-adjusted, contributing members of society.

I’ve come up with this list of 50 life lessons that every parent should teach their children.

It’s taken me my whole life to learn these lessons. So I’m passionate about sharing them with my son (and future children), as well as the students I work with.

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1. Success is more about contribution than it is about achievement.

2. Don’t worry too much about what other people think of you. They think about you a lot less than you imagine.

3. Focus on progress, not perfection.

4. Run your own race, not the race that other people expect you to run.

5. You cannot always choose your circumstances, but you can always choose your attitude. [Read more…]

40 Productive Things to Do During the School Holidays

Updated on May 27, 2025 By Daniel Wong 85 Comments

Exams are over and school’s out.

And students around the world are thinking to themselves, “Now what am I going to do with all of this free time?”

Sure, there are games to play, movies to watch, and friends to hang out with.

But there are also plenty of productive things to do during the school holidays.

So I’ve come up with this list of 40 meaningful things to do.

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1. Reflect on the semester gone by.

Take out a sheet of paper and answer these three questions:

What did I do well in the past semester?
What did I not do so well in the past semester?
What will I do differently in the coming semester?

2. Set process goals for the coming semester.

This is a follow-up to Point #1.

Set process goals for the coming semester instead of performance goals, because process goals are far more effective.

What’s the difference between the two types of goals?

Process goals are what you intend to do, while performance goals are what you intend to achieve.

Here’s an example.

Performance goal: Get an A for math next semester.

Process goal: Do three extra math questions every day after dinner.

By setting process goals, you’re more likely to take action than if you only set performance goals.

So take some time and set 5 to 10 process goals for the coming semester. [Read more…]

40 Motivational Quotes for Students: Get Inspired to Study Hard

Updated on February 12, 2025 By Daniel Wong 160 Comments

Reading motivational quotes for students can give you a quick boost of inspiration to study.

Let me ask you a question…

Do you ever struggle with a lack of motivation?

You’re supposed to be studying for next week’s test. But instead you end up texting your friends, watching videos, or playing games.

After procrastinating for an hour, you finally get down to work.

But you just don’t feel that motivated.

Sound familiar?

Developing long-term motivation is a complicated issue.

But you can become more motivated to study in the short term by reading inspirational and encouraging quotes.

So I’ve compiled this list of 40 motivational quotes for students to help you study hard.

The quotes are listed below according to the following categories:

Believing in yourself
Cultivating a success mindset
Overcoming procrastination
Hard work
Not making excuses
Perseverance

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Quotes about believing in yourself

1. Believe you can and you’re halfway there.

2. You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.

3. It always seems impossible until it’s done.

4. Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. – John Wooden

Quotes about cultivating a success mindset

5. Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. – Arthur Ashe

6. Successful and unsuccessful people do not vary greatly in their abilities. They vary in their desires to reach their potential. – John Maxwell

7. The secret of success is to do the common things uncommonly well. – John D. Rockefeller

8. Good things come to people who wait, but better things come to those who go out and get them.

9. Strive for progress, not perfection.

10. I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. – Thomas Jefferson

11. Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out. – Robert Collier

12. Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better. – Jim Rohn

13. I don’t regret the things I’ve done. I regret the things I didn’t do when I had the chance.

14. There are two kinds of people in this world: those who want to get things done and those who don’t want to make mistakes. – John Maxwell

Quotes about overcoming procrastination when it comes to studying

15. The secret to getting ahead is getting started.

16. You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.

17. The expert in everything was once a beginner.

Quotes about hard work

18. There are no shortcuts to any place worth going. – Beverly Sills

19. Push yourself, because no one else is going to do it for you.

20. Some people dream of accomplishing great things. Others stay awake and make it happen.

21. There is no substitute for hard work. – Thomas Edison

22. The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little “extra.”

23. You don’t always get what you wish for; you get what you work for.

24. It’s not about how bad you want it. It’s about how hard you’re willing to work for it.

25. The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. – Vidal Sassoon

26. There are no traffic jams on the extra mile. – Zig Ziglar

27. If people only knew how hard I’ve worked to gain my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all. – Michelangelo

Quotes about not making excuses

28. If it’s important to you, you’ll find a way. If not, you’ll find an excuse. – Ryan Blair

29. Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresea, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. – H. Jackson Brown Jr.

Quotes about developing perseverance as a student

30. Challenges are what make life interesting. Overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. – Joshua J. Marine

31. Life has two rules: 1) Never quit. 2) Always remember Rule #1.

32. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. – Michael Jordan

33. I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs, but how high he bounces when he hits the bottom. – George S. Patton

34. If you’re going through hell, keep going. – Winston Churchill

35. Don’t let your victories go to your head, or your failures go to your heart.

36. Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. – Henry Ford

37. You don’t drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there. – Ed Cole

38. The difference between a stumbling block and a stepping-stone is how high you raise your foot.

39. The pain you feel today is the strength you will feel tomorrow. For every challenge encountered there is opportunity for growth.

40. It’s not going to be easy, but it’s going to be worth it.

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4 Words of Advice for Students Who Want to Succeed in Life

Updated on June 18, 2022 By Daniel Wong 6 Comments

Success.

Everyone wants it. And some who have already achieved it hunger for even more.

But what does success mean? How do you ensure that your success is enduring, not just temporary?

These are hard questions, and I don’t claim to have all the answers.

But since completing my formal education and entering the “real world,” I’ve learned a lot about what it takes to find long-term success.

My mission is to empower students to become both happy and successful. So these are my four words of advice to students who want to succeed in life:

1. Focus on contribution, not achievement.

Society tends to emphasize achievement rather than contribution.

But real success isn’t determined by how much you’ve achieved. It’s determined by how much you’ve contributed.

And the size of your contribution isn’t limited by your job title. As Harry Beckwith once said, “There is no such thing as an ordinary job. There are only people who choose to perform them in ordinary ways.”

Your contributions have less to do with your career, and more to do with how committed you are and how much you care.

If you’re committed to a cause you care about deeply, you’ll go the extra mile to serve others and make a difference. No “unimpressive” job title will be able to stand in your way. [Read more…]

How to Study Smart: 20 Scientific Ways to Learn Faster

Updated on September 30, 2025 By Daniel Wong 304 Comments

To improve your grades, you can either spend more time studying, or you can learn to study smart.

168.

That’s how many hours there are in a week.

If you’re a student, you probably feel like this isn’t enough.

After all, you have so many assignments to do, projects to work on, and tests to study for.

Plus, you have other activities and commitments.

And you want to have a social life too.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could study smarter (not harder), get good grades, and lead a balanced life?

Of course it would. That’s why I wrote this article.

The main aim of education isn’t to get straight A’s. But learning how to learn is a crucial life skill.

So I spent hours scouring scientific articles and research journals to find the best ways to learn more effectively.

I’m a lifelong top student myself, and I’ve since completed my formal education. Over the course of my academic career, I’ve used almost all the smart studying tips outlined in this article, so I can verify that they work.

Let’s get started. Here are 20 scientific ways to learn faster.

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How to study smarter and more efficiently

Studying smart essentially means learning how to learn.

This includes how to learn faster and more efficiently, while retaining information for longer.

1. Learn the same information in a variety of ways.

The research (Willis, J. 2008) shows that different media stimulate different parts of the brain. The more areas of the brain that are activated, the more likely it is that you’ll understand and retain the information.^[1]

So to learn a specific topic, you could do the following:

Read the class notes
Read the textbook
Watch a Khan Academy video
Look up other online resources
Create a mind map
Teach someone what you’ve learned
Do practice problems from a variety of sources

Of course, you won’t be able to do all of these things in one sitting. But each time you review the topic, use a different resource or method – you’ll learn faster this way.

2. Study multiple subjects each day, rather than focusing on just one or two subjects.

It’s more effective to study multiple subjects each day to help you stay focused, than to deep-dive into one or two subjects (Rohrer, D. 2012).^[2]

For example, if you’re preparing for exams in math, history, physics, and chemistry, it’s better to study a bit of each subject every day. This approach will help you to learn faster than by focusing on just math on Monday, history on Tuesday, physics on Wednesday, chemistry on Thursday, and so on.

Why?

Because you’re likely to confuse similar information if you study a lot of the same subject in one day.

So as a tip to learn faster, spread out your study time for each subject. In so doing, your brain will have more time to consolidate your learning. [Read more…]

15 Ways to Overcome Smartphone Addiction

Updated on July 2, 2024 By Daniel Wong 43 Comments

Nomophobia is short for “no-mobile-phone phobia.”

It’s the fear of being away from your smartphone.

As you might expect, it’s on the rise.

87% of young adults say their smartphone never leaves their side, while 80% of smartphone users check their phone within 15 minutes of waking up.

Smartphone addiction is becoming a big problem. Here are some signs of addiction:

You frequently use your phone at mealtimes.
You spend more time on your phone than interacting with others in person.
You frequently use your phone when you know you should be doing something else more productive.
You frequently use your phone while performing tasks that require focus, such as completing an assignment, writing a report, or driving.
You feel uncomfortable when your phone isn’t with you.
You sometimes check your phone in the middle of the night.

Are you an addict, or do you know someone who is?

No matter how mild or severe the addiction is, here are 15 ways to help you overcome it.

If you implement the tips, I guarantee that you’ll break this habit.

Here are the 15 tips:

1. Turn off notifications.

Many people get distracted by the endless notifications they receive from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Spotify, and other apps.

You don’t need to know right away if someone “likes” your status update, follows you on Instagram, or sends you an email.

The more often you check your phone, the more it becomes an ingrained habit. So turn off your notifications and you’ll feel less compelled to use your phone.

The only apps for which you don’t turn off notifications might be your text messaging app and your calendar app. This is because sometimes you’re urgently waiting for a text, or your calendar app notifications keep you on schedule. [Read more…]

Want To Be a Successful Student? Say These 10 Things Every Day

Updated on December 5, 2022 By Daniel Wong 62 Comments

Do you want to be a successful student?

Or if you’re a parent, do you want that for your children?

There’s no way to avoid the hard work that’s involved.

But becoming a successful student isn’t only about doing more. It’s also about saying the right things.

Here’s why.

By being intentional about the things you say to yourself and others, you’ll cultivate a success mindset. Only then will you find the intrinsic motivation to take consistent action.

And that’s what leads to success.

So, to be a successful student, say these 10 things every day:

1. “My goal is progress, not perfection.”

Nobody’s perfect.

It’s impossible to get perfect grades, to have the perfect body, or to have the perfect social life. If your goal is perfection, you’ll become disappointed and disillusioned.

I’ve worked with students who are perfectionists. Several of them cut their wrists, suffer from eating disorders, or have suicidal thoughts.

That’s scary, I know.

Not all perfectionists have such serious psychological problems, but perfectionism is dangerous. In addition, perfectionists often experience performance anxiety, which affects their grades.

The better alternative is to focus on progress, not perfection. Progress is about developing and improving, just a little bit each day.

To become a successful student, concentrate on the process and try to forget about the outcome. As the research shows, you’ll actually achieve a better outcome using this strategy. [Read more…]