Academic Success For All: Three Secrets to Academic Success by Elana Peled - HTML preview

Chapter Four

Moving Forward

with EFT

When I began to contemplate writing a book about using EFT for academic success, I came across an alarming statistic: 40% of people who enroll in college degree programs drop out before completing their degrees. As a four-time college dropout who later returned to school—and who has since successfully completed four college degrees—I realized for whom I wanted to write this book. I knew I wanted to write a book for people who had dropped out of college but who, like me, had held onto the conviction that college was right for them. I wanted to help them go back to college and experience the kind of success there that I eventually found.

Reviewers of early drafts of this book believed that my ideas would have a wider appeal and suggested that I revise the book to reflect a much broader audience. Because I agree that the ideas in this book should apply to everyone seeking an education, I removed most of the early references to college success.

However, I recognize a problem in writing a book about academic success for students who are not yet adults. That problem lies in the way that academic success is defined. As a dedicated educator who has devoted many years of my life to the study of education, I define academic success in ways that perhaps differ from the definition that is widely held as the standard for measuring academic success in contemporary American society. For me, academic success has little to do with test scores or grades. People who have achieved academic success are people who, as a result of their education, have deeper understandings of themselves and confidence that they will find fulfillment in their adult lives. This, ultimately, should be the goal of any educational endeavor. It is certainly the goal I have in mind for anyone who uses the tools in this book to achieve their own academic success. But it may not be the primary goal of many of our public institutions of learning. That may be due to the fact that measuring academic success by this definition is difficult, perhaps even impossible, to do.

But, because so much public money is spent on education, measuring academic success is an enormous industry. As a society, we want evidence that our schools are performing, that our teachers are working hard, that our students are learning. So we have created academic standards for achievement, designed curriculum for teachers to deliver those standards, and developed tests that are used to measure how well our schools, teachers, and students are meeting those standards. Sadly, our over-zealous efforts to measure these things have in many ways left us blind to the reality of what students are actually learning in school.

My experience has shown me that students who trust that the educational environment is structured to provide them with an experience that nurtures their confidence and sense of well-being will naturally perform better. They will take risks, ask questions, and become engaged with educational materials in ways that satisfy their innate desires and abilities to learn.

If you have worked through the exercises in this book, you may be realizing that your educational experience did not do these things. You may also be starting to realize that the subconscious beliefs you formed about yourself in school—beliefs that evoke uncomfortable emotional responses to learning and creativity—have far more power over your life than anything else you may have learned about reading, writing, and arithmetic.

People whose educational experiences have primarily taught them to fear failure and to take whatever steps are necessary to avoid it may initially have difficulty shifting their focus away from common external measures of their academic success such as test scores and grades and toward more internal evaluations of their academic success. They may have trouble paying attention to how their education is making them feel about themselves and their opportunities in life. If you are one of these people, you may find the following piece of advice helpful. A veterinarian I took my cats to before I headed off to Harvard to attend doctoral school shared it with me when I told him about the changes I was about to make in my life. He asked me, “Do you know what they called the person with the lowest grade point average in my graduating class?” When I said “No” he answered, “Doctor.”

Our happiness in life should not be dependent on a test score or a grade even though testing and grades will probably always play a role in education. Here then is another place where EFT can help. If we use EFT to address any difficult emotions that arise in response to someone else’s evaluation of our academic success, we may find we have the capacity to view our disappointing grades in more constructive ways. Perhaps they are indicators of where our talents and interests lie. Or maybe they are nothing more than indicators that we are working too hard, taking to many classes, trying to accomplish too much at once.

If your educational experience has not instilled in you the hope of a fulfilling life, you may be reluctant to pursue your education any further, even if the dream of advancing your education is one you cannot quite give up. The good news is that colleges are becoming more responsive to their students. If you cannot grasp the link between the courses you are taking or the assignments you are asked to complete and your goal for becoming educated, ask someone—your professor, the academic dean—to explain this link to you. Keep asking until you find an answer that suffices. If you are afraid to ask, tap on that fear until it no longer exists.

And if you are a high school student who feels enormous pressure to succeed in a school where the criteria for success differ from those that form the foundation of this book, I encourage you to give the strategies I present here a try anyway. The strategies that I share for achieving academic success are strategies that are known to rapidly reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol. They have also effectively been used to treat anxiety. We know that people who suffer from elevated levels of stress and anxiety in their lives are at increased risk for a range of life-threatening medical problems as they age, and that this is especially true for children who are raised in stressful environments. Reducing the stress and anxiety you feel about your academic performance will provide greater benefit to your life than anything else you can do.

As you grow your awareness of the emotions you experience throughout a given day, you may discover you have a long list of difficult emotions, past experiences, and self-limiting beliefs that you would like to clear by using EFT. Do not let the length of that list deter you. By simply deciding to devote a few minutes to tapping every day for a month, you will make tremendous progress. Soon you will realize that you are in the extremely powerful position of choosing how you wish to respond to the events that transpire in your life. You will no longer be a slave to the emotions that arise seemingly out of nowhere on their own. From this perspective, you will have more power to choose the life experiences you desire. The power to achieve the life of your dreams really is right in your fingertips!

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I sincerely hope that you have benefitted from the information I have presented in this book. The tools I have shared with you here—the journal exercises, the weekly planner, and EFT—are tools I have used to find peace, joy, and satisfaction in my life. I feel confident that they can help anyone who seeks these things as well.

If you are at all hesitant about using any of these tools, or about your ability to use them successfully, consider getting help. Information about using EFT on your own is available at www.AcademicSuccessForAll.com. If you find you resist taking the actions suggested in this book, consider contacting me as your next step in your journey towards achieving the goals you desire.

As a young adult, I frequently found it hard to believe that life could ever be anything more than an ongoing series of disappointments. As I explored my past, I found I had good reason to have to this belief, and numerous others that prevented me from achieving my dreams. Now I know different. EFT can help you too. I urge you to try it on everything.

Here’s to your lasting success!

Sample Weekly Planner