On Tuesday 25 February the entire Year 9 cohort participated in a workshop with Andrew Jobling, a former St Kilda football player and successful author. Part of the trial for the new Year 9 Compass program commencing in 2021, as well as connecting to the commitment to ‘be your best’, the 90-minute session covered organisation, self-talk, motivation, resilience and problem solving. A particular focus was helping students self-identify goals to work on over the coming months.
Commencing with some biographical material, Andrew outlined the challenges he has faced over the course of his career as an unlikely success. He introduced to the students the idea of T.E.A.R.S. of Joy — his formula for framing challenges in a way that success ensues. He presented to the students that every journey to success starts with a thought (the T). It is from this thought that we decide whether we are going to react with positive or negative emotions (the E). Naturally, positive self-talk is more likely to lead to success. However, the hope for success can’t be vague and the A of T.E.A.R.S. stands for ‘action’ — the thought must be accompanied by achievable actions. Once the action is identified, it is necessary to get into a routine (the R) in order to achieve success (the S) somewhere down the track.
Andrew shared with the students that research has shown that to get into a routine, it takes 63 days of commitment to an achievable action. You don’t have to achieve your goal immediately, you just have to, in his words, “win the day” often enough that positive goal-setting and achievement of daily targets become a habit. This is how ordinary people become successful in the ways they want.
The session resonated well with the students, as was evidenced by the focus the group demonstrated when writing out their own goals to focus on over the next 63 days. Andrew will be returning to the College in Term 2 to work one-on-one with homerooms on their progress, as well as to present in the evening to parents on ways to support their child’s success. Stay tuned!
