Some students love school, but the majority despise it.
If you could wave a magic wand, wouldn’t you choose to enjoy school?
I’ll show you how to do exactly that.
Dr. Jubbal, MedSchoolInsiders.com.
In life, we usually have a binary system of describing activities: work or pleasure, study
or fun, as if they were mutually exclusive.
We implicitly describe studying or working as inherently not pleasurable and not fun.
Chances are, you’re nodding your head in agreement right now.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Surely, there are some things that you find great pleasure in, that other people don’t
seem to understand.
Maybe you love running, which most people despise.
Or perhaps you actually enjoy math, even when others cry “blasphemy!”
This raises two questions: 1) why do some people enjoy activities that most deem unenjoyable,
and 2) how can we create a reproducible and repeatable system to get students to enjoy
school?
I was inspired to create this video after watching “How to Enjoy School” by John
Fish.
He suggests flow states as the path through which students should find enjoyment in school.
I think there's some truth there, and it's definitely a good video, but I think it's
an incomplete picture.
Being in flow is a magical thing.
You’re completely absorbed in what you are doing, and you lose your sense of space and
time.
It’s a very positive experience, but I feel it’s often overused in our vernacular.
People often describe being in flow when, in reality, they’re just watering down the
word.
With school work, I have felt it occasionally while doing chemistry or physics practice
problems, or while taking tests, but flow in schoolwork is not a common occurrence,
and I’d argue that striving to make it a common occurrence isn’t a worthwhile pursuit.
Activities where I have experienced flow at much higher frequencies include racing my
car and doing plastic surgery in the operating room.
These two activities are much more readily applicable to the five elements that facilitate
flow:
Clearly Defined Goals
Measuring Progress & Immediate Feedback
Full Concentration
Challenge & Skill Development Balance
And Control
Let’s break these down one by one.
One of the beautiful things in surgery is that you have a clearly defined goal before
you ever enter the operating room.
As a surgeon, you know what the diagnosis is, what procedure you’ll be doing, and
the ideal anticipated outcome.
As a race car driver, you’re either trying to shave seconds off your lap times during
practice, or beat other racers on the track.
With school, it’s more nebulous.
Is your goal to learn the information, or to get a good grade in the class?
Measuring progress in the operating room occurs in a stepwise manner.
As your skills progress, error rate decreases, and consistency improves, you’re allowed
to do more.
First you retract during cases as a medical student, then you’re allowed to tie knots,
then you suture and do closures, and then you’re able to open, meaning do the first
incision, etc.
On the race track, you can similarly measure your progress with segment times and see if
your skills are trending in the right direction.
In both instances, progress is easily measured and feedback is immediate.
With school, you may spend weeks studying for a large test or the MCAT, but the feedback,
meaning your score, is delayed by days to weeks at minimum.
Part of the excitement of both operating and racing a car is that both demand your full
attention.
Failure to do so would be disastrous for the patient or could result in a dangerous crash
on the race track.
With school, full concentration isn’t as strongly incentivized.
How many times has your mind wandered while studying or taking a test?
My point exactly.
When learning to operate, you’re constantly being pushed slightly outside of your comfort
zone, in that sweet spot balancing challenge with skill.
With racing a car, there is similarly a stepwise progression.
In both instances, practicing your skills outside the operating room or off the race
track allow you to take on larger challenges the next time you’re up to perform.
You’re able to constantly and progressively increase the stakes to keep you fully engaged.
But with school, sometimes classes feel far too easy, and at other times, far too difficult.
When operating or racing, you’re entirely in control.
Proper preparation is rewarded handsomely, but the flip side is that with this level
of control, a failure on your part can be disastrous to your patient or to other people
on the race track.
With school, you have control over objective tests, like math and science.
With others, such as history or English, a high level of subjective interpretation comes
into play, and you better hope you’re on the teacher’s good side.
Regardless, the stakes aren’t nearly as elevated in school, which works against entering
a flow state.
If flow isn’t the answer, are we doomed to be miserable in school?
I’d say no.
If you currently don’t enjoy school but want to, mash that like button.
Mashing the like button on this video helps to reduce your stress while simultaneously helping this channel
grow.
Talk about a win win.
We manage what we measure, and as humans we enjoy seeing progress.
Have you ever tried losing fat or building muscle?
In both instances, regularly measuring your progress, whether with pictures, a scale,
or body fat calipers, is a key component of providing feedback and helping you stay motivated.
It’s much more empowering to see the scale moving in the direction you want.
With school, you can measure your progress too.
Some jump to the score they received on a test.
However, no two tests are the same, and rather than measuring an absolute score, looking
at your percentile would be more worthwhile.
Let’s say you’re an average student, scoring around the 50th percentile.
After watching Med School Insiders videos and implementing the study strategies I teach,
you see your performance improving.
On your next quiz or exam, maybe you’re hitting the 70th or 80th percentile, and it
keeps moving up from there.
That sort of progress is incredibly motivating and empowering to almost all the students
I tutor.
Going back to our earlier example of the runner that loves running or the student that loves
math.
Have you noticed that in both instances, they’re generally good runners or good at math?
It’s no coincidence.
We often enjoy what we’re good at.
If you think you’re doomed because you’re not good at school, think again.
Being good at school isn’t just dependent on factors outside of your control.
It’s much more dependent on the strategies and tactics that you use.
At Med School Insiders, we believe that any student can be exceptional with the right
guidance and effort.
Don’t believe me?
Check out my Study Less, Study Smart video, viewed by over 1.3 million students, and peep
the comments.
I’m confident that if you follow the advice in that video, you’ll see immediate and
drastic improvements in your own school performance.
In today’s candy-ass climate where every kid gets a blue ribbon and a trophy for just
participating, competition is vilified.
But competition is a beautiful thing, and it’s incredibly important in helping you
achieve your peak potential.
The value in competition isn’t about the focus of comparing yourself to others, but
rather that it drives you to accomplish more than you thought possible.
Have you ever tried racing someone on foot?
You’ll go faster and farther than you thought possible, especially if it’s a close race,
compared to if you were running on your own.
That being said, do not be a gunner and bring people down.
The point of competition isn’t for you to do better than others, but for you to bring
out the best in yourself.
Being the stereotypical pre-med gunner and bringing down those around you to make yourself
seem better is despicable, never excusable, and does the opposite of bringing out the
best in yourself.
Take pride in doing things the right way, and never take shortcuts or cut others down
in the process.
If you find a particular class boring or intolerable, consider this: it’s not the subject that’s
the problem, but your perspective.
One of the most powerful ways to motivate a student to become more interested in a subject
is making it more applicable to something they care deeply about.
If you hate physics, apply physics to something you love.
Maybe that’s soccer, or racing cars, or airplanes.
Guess what, physics is fundamental to how any of those function.
If you hate history, extract the historical significance of something relatable to your
daily life, like the architecture of buildings you regularly see on campus.
Rather than just memorizing the facts, try to understand the perspectives and stories
of the historical figures.
If you’re struggling with biology, understand that the fundamentals are the basic building
blocks from which you will build your medical knowledge that will allow you to be a future
physician.
Ultimately, if you can make school autotelic, you’ll be incredibly successful academically.
An autotelic activity is one that isn’t a means to an end, but rather an end in and
of itself.
In other words, you enjoy the activity just for the sake of doing the activity.
When school becomes autotelic, you’ll become a weirdo, just like me.
I studied for the MCAT with my two roommates during a summer in college.
After taking the test, both lamented how they hated the experience, they were glad it’s
over, and they never wanted to do that again.
I almost felt embarrassed to say that I kind of enjoyed studying for the MCAT.
The amount of information we learned in such a short period of time was exhilarating.
And it was somewhat, even tangentially, related to my future career as a physician.
Here’s the kicker: I scored quite well on my MCAT, better than both of my roommates.
Was that because I enjoyed the process, or did I enjoy it because I scored well?
Possibly a bit of both, but I’d argue those students who enjoy what they’re studying
are going to outperform those who don’t, all else being equal.
It’s simple — you try much harder at an activity when you actually enjoy said activity.
Once you make school autotelic, you’ve won the game.
At that point, it’s a positive feedback loop.
Because you enjoy the process of school, you work harder, which makes you better at it,
which makes you enjoy it more.
And so on and so forth.
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What are some strategies you’ve used to make school more enjoyable?
If you don’t find school enjoyable, tell me one new strategy you’re going to implement
to make it more fun.
I love hearing from you guys, so let me know with a comment down below.
Thank you all so much for watching.
Much love to you all, and I will see you guys in that next one.