9 Steps to Forming an SAT Prep Habit: Step 1
Accept that tenacity and attrition are the most important factors in life.
Step 1: Use your downtime for SAT prep: create a habit that will pay off!
With students have downtime, Alyssa the SAT Expert’s best piece of advice is to take this time to create an SAT habit. The fundament of improvement is sustained practice; habits allow you to incorporate that into your life.
To help you maximize your time, Alyssa will post each of the nine steps to create a positive SAT habit.
Accept that tenacity and attrition are the most important factors in life.
Over 13 years as a professional opera singer, and now in my second career as an educator and leader, I’ve come to realize that it wasn’t always the person who was the best who made it to the finish line, but the one who worked the longest and hung on, despite setbacks. Attrition is hanging on longer than everyone else, simply outlasting. Outlasting means being tenacious, despite being pushed down and told no. It’s being gritty, being resilient. All those buzz words we hear all the time - hanging on and steady effort, when the going gets tough, makes the difference.
Although I’ve always wanted to be the best in my career, with natural talent, after a while I started to find it reassuring that I didn’t have to be better than everyone else to succeed. I just had to outlast and outwork. And realistically, there’s always someone better than you: I couldn’t control where I started, but I could control how hard I worked from that point.
Working at the SAT is no different. Whatever natural talent you have is just a starting point - building it over time is the important part. Almost no one starts at a 1600 - the vast majority of people who get to a 1500+ work for it. So know that it’s tenacity and attrition that makes the difference between succeeding and failing, and just assume that all you have to do is keep grinding for as long as it takes - and eventually you’ll get what you want.