Excellence is a quality of being outstanding; it is not a trait, hence it cannot be inherited.  There is no one way of achieving excellence academically; it is how you apply the principles governing it that determines the outcome.  Excellence comes with a price, only those who understand its worth can pay for it.  I will like to share with you some tips that can help you in your quest for success; they are relative but I am sure you will find them interesting. 

• Put God first

God Himself is a God of excellence, no wonder he made all things perfect and endows His children with an excellent spirit.  He has given you all that it takes to succeed at whatever you do, it is just for you to believe and tap into His abundant resources. Do not allow your studies to compete with God’s time in your life because you need Him to sustain and see you through. I understand the place of prayer in your academics but it is not enough; remember that faith without work is dead, play your own part and do your best; pray as if you will never read and read as if you will never pray. 

• Prioritize

Many people have problems of misplaced priorities because they find it very difficult to order things according to their importance.  You have to understand that your primary reason for being in school is to study in order to come out with good grades that will give you an edge in this highly competitive world; every other thing is secondary such as clubs, associations, parties etc.  How you channel your resources and apportion your time is a function of what your scale of preference is like. If your academics is important to you, you will invest your time, money and energy; you will do anything to get the right materials and textbooks to upgrade you and make you a better student, but if you pay more attention to trivial things; you might soon be on your way to failure. 

• Set a target

Don’t start your semester without having a sense of direction; if you do not set an achievable target for yourself, you will discover very late that you are studying aimlessly.  Be ambitious and always aspire to be the best because you deserve it; don’t settle for less, believe in yourself, set out plans and develop strategies to accomplish them.  Setting targets ignite your passion and that is the driving force that will propel you towards excellence.  For example, when I got into college, I was determined to make a First class; even when it seemed difficult, I kept assuring myself I could do it and kept pressing on until I achieved it and today I am sharing my success story.

Discipline is a very essential principle of excellence that is lacking in the lives of so many youths hiding under the shadow of freedom to do anything.  Self discipline is a conscious control over your lifestyle and you need to nurture it because it is one of an achiever’s greatest weapon.  Some students have worn indolence as a robe, nonchalance as a footwear and procrastination as a hat getting dressed to travel the road of shambles; they look into the mirror of stupidity with so much satisfaction and bid their studies goodbye.  They get to the end of the road only to see an ocean of failure; they skilfully dive into it and continue to swim in confusion until they are being swept away by a tide of destruction.  You should be disciplined enough to have a study timetable that guides you like a map in a journey; be punctual for all lectures and complete your assignments without waiting for deadlines; be committed to your study time and you can be sure of remarkable results.

I’m not talking about a gaze, I mean conditioning your mind to one important goal you must achieve.  Know what you want and go for it with all determination, enthusiasm and optimism.  Distraction can come in any form such as businesses, relationships, friends, families and so on; note that not so many things can travel with you on the way to success; a lot of unwanted baggages have to be dropped because they might slow you down.  There are things that can wait because they will always be there; however if you cannot make sacrifices for your academics, then don’t think about excellence. Excellence is not plucked from a tree or picked on the road; it takes a lot of commitment and discipline to achieve it.  When your eyes are fixed on something, you can hardly miss any detail and even when there are times when you are tempted to shift grounds, return as soon as you acknowledge it because the farther you move away from your goals, the lesser the chances of achieving them.

As endless as TIME is, you cannot hold onto it; as the clock ticks and seconds count, you’re getting closer to your end no matter how old you live.  Time management is the act of controlling and organizing events as they are being influenced by time; this has become a skill because many people are guilty of mismanagement.  Even if 24 hours were increased to 48 hours in a day, many will still complain it’s not enough.  There is time for everything; time to admitted and time to graduate, time to study and time to write exams.  Procrastination has eaten deep into the minds of some students such that everything is always for a later date, they start their day without proper planning on how to apportion their time and instead of controlling the events, they end up being controlled by them, they slump into their beds at the end of each wasted day, wake up the next day worthlessly and remain the same.  At the start of each semester, many busy about with frivolities and when exams draw close; they start expecting miracles, rush and muddle up things, write exams ill-prepared and expect fantastic results.  Instead, make a deliberate effort to plan your day, make a list of events and appointments and make sure you are disciplined enough to meet up. Time is a free but non-renewable resource, so spend each moment wisely.

You are who you move with, there are different kinds of companies you can keep in an academic environment but the choice of those that can make or mar you is entirely yours to make.  Students form cliques for different reasons; to some, it gives them a feeling of importance while for others; it’s a way of being a part of something. 

For good companies, it has to do with mingling with people of similar interests and goals, people of like minds, passion and vision who have excellence as their watch word, people who believe in your dreams and are ready to push you through.  It can be a study group where you exchange ideas, learn and also impart others.  Although you must develop yourself independently, you cannot be an island because the more you share your knowledge, the more you know; don’t be scared of making mistakes, you stand to be corrected but remember that your clique can only help you outside the examination hall, so maximize the moments you share with them. If you ever develop any form of academic apathy, the best thing to do is to talk about it; let people with positive thinking advise you and deliver you from misery.

For bad companies on the other hand, your circle of friends are like viruses that corrupt your mind, becloud your thinking and cause you to lose yourself and your purpose for living.  They lure you into all forms of vices such as drugs, gambling, prostitution, cultism, internet fraud, examination malpractices and so on.  If they determine the kind of life that you lead, so mighty will be your fall and guess what - you will be falling alone; some are in complete jeopardy and are looking for partners in failure.  Quickly identify bad friends and dissociate yourself before you become entangled. Evil and Excellence both start with the letter ‘E’ but they are two separate roads you cannot travel at the same time.

Carve out your own niche; know what you are capable of doing and the extent you can go.  Be yourself and never try to study like someone else; understand your pattern of learning and develop your style of studying.  Never compare yourself with anyone because people apply principles of success differently; this is what I mean, for example, students in the same class receiving the same lecture under the same condition cannot assimilate at the same rate.  Know your pace, never give up, try to catch up and you will soon be up.  Recognize your time of maximum assimilation, day or night and fix up your study timetable; never follow friends to study when it is very inconvenient for you, you might just be the greatest loser, so be wise.

Examination is a test designed to measure the academic aptitude of students to ascertain their level of understanding of a particular subject.  Knowing fully that you have to pass it to be promoted to the next level, why won’t you give it your best shot.  Don’t start studying too close to exams, you will only be tasking your brain too hard, denying yourself of enough rest and putting your entire body system in a state of higgledy-piggledy. Information is being stored over time and not spontaneously, no magic will magnetize answers to your brain, so why don’t you make sacrifices, burn the mid night oil, go the extra mile and do your best, stay healthy with a good diet and be punctual for all your exams . You don’t have to cheat if you have played your role well because you will be destroying your image and peradventure you get caught, the consequences are very severe, so beware!