By the time you graduate, you should be ready to move on. You should be independent.
Use your time in higher education to gradually prepare for that step into independence.
Independence means that:
- You take the initiative: you don’t wait for others
- You make your own decisions
- You don’t rely on instructions: you rely on your ability to understand.
- You solve your own problems
- You think for yourself
Independence sits alongside trust and confidence. If I have enough self-confidence to trust myself, then I will feel empowered to be independent.
Self-confidence is a deep-seated thing.
Someone else may look super confident, but that is just an appearance.
Think back to stupid brains and smart minds. The smart mind is always imagining possible futures. These are beyond the stupid brain’s experience, so all it can go on is a vague sense about whether the mind works. And it gets that sense from seeing the mind work: as long as we keep stretching ourselves, the stupid brain will learn that the smart mind is OK. This is nicely captured with the idea of a “comfort zone”. The comfort zone is what the stupid brain is accustomed to and sees no uncertainty about. Beyond the comfort zone is where past experience is no guide: the smart mind must be left to take control.