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[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Studying much? You might be using the classic moves. You know—rewriting all your notes into a newer, bigger note; highlighting as the new underlining; and my personal favorite, cramming everything into your brain in any way possible. Sometimes those moves work just fine. But what if you’re looking for more than “just fine”? And what if you could get there with a little less stress and a little more purpose?

Researchers at Stanford University in California discovered that using some simple tricks made a big difference in how students performed. The research is based on a classic learning theory that seems pretty obvious when you break it down. It’s called metacognition, and it involves something we could all benefit from: thinking about how we think.

Intrigued? Let’s take a closer look at how metacognition can get you to a better spot with your study habits. Once you’ve got the basics down, we’ll show you how to use it with real-life tips that’ll help you reap the brain-boosting benefits. Bonus points if you drop the word “metacognition” with your friends when talking about your new secret to study success.

What to know about how to think

Metacognition is thinking about thinking, says Dr. Veronica Yan, an assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. OK, but what does that actually mean? It’s taking the time to consider how you think and why the process of reflecting on your thinking can give you some key insights into what you’re learning and what you’re missing. It means thinking through the methods, tools, and resources available to you and deciding which ones can best get you where you want to go.

Still with us? Think about it like this: Textbooks, tutors, academic advisors, past exam questions, and homework assignments are all resources that you can use to study—but what’s the purpose of each of them? How can they help you? And which ones will help the most? Now you’re thinking like someone who thinks about their thinking.

“We are constantly making decisions, but we aren’t always intentional about these decisions,” Dr. Yan says. So how exactly can doing this help?

Why thinking things through can get you better results

This is where it gets interesting. Researchers at Stanford University wondered if applying some of the principles of metacognition—setting goals, thinking about resources, and crafting a plan—would make a difference in students’ test results. They split students into two groups and reminded both about an upcoming exam.

One group just got a reminder. The other received a reminder and were also asked questions about how they wanted to do on the exam and how they were going to prep. The students received questions about their study resources—which ones they would choose, how they would use them, and why they felt these resources would be helpful—essentially having them create a study plan. The students who thought through their study plan, or used metacognition like pros, did better on their exams than those who did not map out a plan, according to the 2017 study in Psychological Science. They also reported feeling less stressed during the prep process.

“Learners should take the time to explicitly think through why they want to use each resource for learning,” says Dr. Patricia Chen, a postdoctoral research fellow at Stanford and one of the authors of the study. Bottom line: It’s about thinking carefully about your resources—how to choose them and how you’ll use them.

How to put it into practice

The best part about the Stanford research, and about metacognition in general, is that it’s simple—you can do it yourself by making a plan and setting some goals. And who knows? You may even see the same boost in results. Here’s how to go about it:

Step 1: Think about (and list out) your options before you study

This means ditching your autopilot plan and taking some time to make one that works. Start by jotting down the resources you have access to: books, notes, PowerPoints or class presentations, audio recordings, essay prompts, past quizzes or exams, the syllabus, tutors, classmates, online forums, review sessions, immediate access to the entirety of your professor’s brain, etc. Then list out how those resources could help you craft your plan.

Exam or quiz questions from earlier in the semester

Your prof probably has a particular way of creating test questions, so if you’re looking at an exam from earlier in the semester, it’s likely the upcoming one will follow a similar format or ask questions in a similar way. Use that to your advantage. Practice your responses to the question type and exam format. Just be sure your prof is OK with you using past assessments for study, and steer clear of using materials from past semesters or sections of the class.

“This allows students to identify in advance which topics they need to spend more time on and which they are already very familiar with,” Dr. Chen says.

Step 2: Make your plan

Now that you know which resources will work best, it’s time to make it work for you. And that involves making a specific plan. Participants in the Stanford study were asked to do just that—plan when, where, and how they would use the study resources they identified. We know that worked for them. It can work for you too.

Make a chart that lists out the resources you’re using along with all the dirty details—when, where, how, and why.[/vc_column_text][vc_cta h2=”” shape=”square”]Resource

Exam questions from earlier in the semester

Why this can work

Familiarize myself with the potential exam format and way prof asks questions

How I’m going to use it

• Identify patterns in types of questions
• Identify stuff I know from past exams and stuff I still need to work on
• Think like a prof: How would new material be put into similar exam format or question type? Make a sample exam and test myself, or grab a classmate and create some sample questions for each other; test them out, see how we do, keep working at it

When and where

• Monday 4–6 p.m.: Campus café
• Wednesday 10–11 a.m.: Remote corner of the library

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“Planning is crucial because it helps learners translate their strategies into action,” Dr. Chen says.

Step 3: Set and get those goals

It comes back to goal setting. Knowing what you’re looking to get out of your studying can help you get there. Think beyond pure performance here; what’s the long-term goal of knowing the material? A foot in the door at your first post-grad job? Feeling confident in applying your newfound knowledge? Grad school goals? Keep those in mind too. Write them down, add them to your chart, Sharpie them on your forehead—whatever makes them stick.

“I realized that when I had goals, I did better and got more done. Working at things aimlessly, without goals, has led to poor results, in my experience. The more I reached my goals and saw how they were benefiting me, the better I performed and the more motivated I was.”
—Blair C., fourth-year student, Indiana University Southeast

“Goal setting helps learners clarify exactly what they want to achieve and focuses them on their goal as they plan out their studying,” Dr. Chen says.

Step 4: Know that you can

Yup, we’re asking you to have a little faith in yourself, and not just because you’re awesome (you definitely are), but because it actually affects how well you do.

Self-efficacy, or simply believing that you’re capable of planning and carrying out the tasks necessary for your performance, was the greatest predictor of college students’ achievement and performance, according to a large review of research (Perspectives on Medical Education, 2012).

As you’re working through your study plan, keep track of what you’re getting done. Hit your study session goal for the day? That’s a win. Mastered material you didn’t quite get last time? That counts too. Come up with a system for tracking them. We like unicorn stickers, but checking things off your to-do list will do in a pinch.

Those small successes are part of your bigger goals, and the more you see yourself moving in the right direction, the more likely you are to believe that you can keep going. The wins you rack up in the process are still there cheering for you when you slip up. So remind yourself of them early and often.

Steps 5 through infinity

Identifying resources, making plans, setting goals, and knowing you can hit them is an awesome plan of attack, but don’t be too hard on yourself if some of the steps are a struggle. You might have to do some finagling to figure out what works best for you. “It is the responsibility of the learner to experiment and identify what is most effective for themselves and when,” says Dr. Chen. So keep trying, keep track, and let us know how you do.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] [school_resource sh101resources=’no’ category=’mobileapp,studentservices, studentsucess, helpdesk’] Get help or find out more

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Being a person can be complicated. Being a perfectionistic person can be even more complicated. Those standards of yours? They’re so high you can’t see the top of them. It’s either perfect or it’s a problem. It sounds like a surefire way to succeed—as an honors student, in your top-of-the-industry internship, or at being the best in pretty much everything, right? Not really—because there’s a catch. Seeking unattainable perfection, and striving to avoid mistakes, equals serious stress—and that can cause problems with your health and academic performance.

We’re here to help—and so are our experts. We’ll break down the perfectionist basics and give you actionable, evidence-based tips for setting more realistic standards for yourself. Because self-imposed pressure can get in the way of a happy life. And that’s not OK. You ready?

What perfectionism is…and isn’t

Most of us are looking to do our best and are willing to put in the work to get there. So how can you tell when you’re being conscientious and when your drive to succeed is getting in your way? Wanting to be perfect is only part of it. The defining characteristic is a fear of making mistakes—and how you feel about yourself along the way, according to research by Dr. Thomas Greenspon published in Psychology in the Schools (2014).

“Hallmarks of perfectionism include an exaggerated concern over mistakes, lofty and unrealistic self-expectations, harsh and intense self-criticism, feeling other people need you to be perfect, and nagging doubts about performance abilities,” says Dr. Simon Sherry, a registered psychologist, researcher, and associate professor at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada.

To make it more complicated, perfectionism looks different for everyone. But it comes from the same place, says Dr. Greenspon, and it often accompanies some less-than-great feelings about yourself and a troubling sense of hopelessness.

Here’s what perfectionism might look (and feel) like

Feeling less than Those who struggle with perfectionism often feel that they’re not good enough, according to Greenspon’s research, even if they never say it out loud. If they do happen to make some mistakes, perfectionistic people are likely to take that personally. Their slip-ups become reflections of themselves as people, not just of their performance or achievement. Every mistake feels like a character flaw, which increases the pressure to be exceptional and the despair when they mess up. “Anytime I am trying something new, I put a lot of pressure on myself, causing me to feel extremely inadequate with any sort of mistake I make in the process,” says Erin S.*, a first-year student at Wake Technical Community College in North Carolina.

Setting rigid rules Look, we all have to set some structure for ourselves, or else we’d end up in Netflix-land permanently. But perfectionistic people take that rule-setting to an extreme, one that can get in the way of daily functioning. This intense structure can lead to other stressful and time-consuming habits, such as over-checking work to excess or missing deadlines, according to research published in 2016 in JMIR Research Protocols.

Being inflexible Say your roommate wants to take a spontaneous hiking trip or your go-to spot in the library is taken. Those curveballs can be a problem for someone who’s dealing with perfectionism—they struggle to go with the flow. Their tried-and-true problem-solving method works for them, but only under certain circumstances. This inflexibility can be limiting and may also be a sign that something is off. Flexibility is an indicator of positive mental health, says Dr. Sarah Vinson, a child and adolescent psychiatrist in Georgia.

Procrastinating on assignments People struggling with perfectionism are often totally consumed with making sure that every last detail is perfect. While some may be horrified by the idea of missing a deadline, others might finish tests late, hand in assignments past deadline, or never finish them at all, according to the 2014 study published in Psychology in the Schools. Seem counterintuitive? Only at first glance. If you’re striving for a standard that you can’t hit, you’ll never fully be finished with a task. For some, this might mean spending too much time double-, triple-, and quadruple-checking work until deadlines have long passed. For others, the idea of handing in something that is “imperfect” is worse than handing in nothing at all. “It might feel easier to say you ran out of time than to admit that you couldn’t do it as perfectly as you wanted,” explains Dr. Keith Anderson, staff psychologist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York.

How perfectionism can get in the way

Perfectionism is no joke, and neither are the feelings, thoughts, and behaviors that go along with it. It’s linked with burnout, which can zap your motivation, wipe you out, and keep you from doing your best. A meta-analysis of 43 studies found that those who struggled with “perfectionist concerns,” or being worried about making mistakes, feeling like there’s a big difference between their standards and their performance, or being concerned about looking imperfect in front of others, experienced increased feelings of burnout (Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2016).

Some people who struggle with perfectionism may also struggle with mental health conditions, according to the American Psychological Association. And those can be serious. Some potential effects of the pressure to be perfect include:[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Anxiety” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:20|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Roboto%20Condensed%3A300%2C300italic%2Cregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal”][vc_column_text]Being perfectionistic makes you more vulnerable to anxiety, says Dr. Sherry. And the research backs this up. Feeling that mistakes make you inadequate can result in anxiety and shame, according to Greenspon’s research.

[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Increased suicide risk” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:20|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Roboto%20Condensed%3A300%2C300italic%2Cregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal”][vc_column_text]Perfectionism is linked to an increased risk of suicide, according to a 2014 article in the Review of General Psychology.

[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Body image issues” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:20|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Roboto%20Condensed%3A300%2C300italic%2Cregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal”][vc_column_text]Perfectionism, and the behaviors that go along with it, is associated with increased body dissatisfaction, which, for some, can lead to the development of disordered eating, according to a 2012 study in the Journal of Eating Disorders.

What you can do about it

It’s OK if you see yourself or your habits in some of this. In fact, the first step to challenging perfectionistic tendencies is to recognize that they’re there, so high five for self-awareness. If you’re ready to push back against your fear of making mistakes, here are four things you can try.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”1. Think process, not results” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:20|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Roboto%20Condensed%3A300%2C300italic%2Cregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal”][vc_column_text]You’re in college to learn, not churn out flawless papers and perfect scores, and that means being an active part of the analytical process. Rather than focusing on how you’re doing (i.e., your performance), try focusing more on what you’re learning and stay engaged with the material, knowing that making mistakes is often critical in deepening your understanding. “Part of the college experience is learning to think independently and see things on a conceptual basis, and that’s hard to do if you’re so focused on getting every detail right all the time,” Dr. Vinson says.

[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”2. Change the conversation” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:20|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Roboto%20Condensed%3A300%2C300italic%2Cregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal”][vc_column_text]“In high-pressure academic environments, there’s this culture of [competition around] who works the hardest. People brag about doing really well,” Dr. Vinson says. This can lead to an intense atmosphere that fuels perfectionistic traits and keeps you quiet when your experience differs from the stories you’re hearing. So tell a different story.

Try it: Talk openly with friends about the work you’re putting in, where you’re struggling, and the mistakes you’re making. Feeling anxious about an assignment that you didn’t do well on? Your roommate probably has similar stories. The more of those you hear, the more you realize that we’re all making mistakes, and that doesn’t make us less worthy.

To prevent people from attributing their shortcomings to personal flaws, and to draw attention to how much failure it takes to get where you want to go, a Princeton professor created a nontraditional résumé.

[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”3. Make a mistake on purpose” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:20|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Roboto%20Condensed%3A300%2C300italic%2Cregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal”][vc_column_text]Yup, we went there. So much of perfectionism is about this fear of making a wrong move. And one way to deal with fear is to face it head-on—by making a few intentional and noncritical errors here and there, according to a guide to perfectionism created by Dr. Glenn Hirsch, director of student counseling services at the University of Minnesota. Psychologists call this exposure therapy. (The rest of us call it courageously superhuman.)

Try it: Keep your intentional slip-ups small: Wear your t-shirt with the bleach stain on it to grab pizza with friends. Be a few minutes late to a club meeting. Send an email with an intentional grammatical error. Once you see that making mistakes doesn’t mean instant catastrophe, you might be able to ease up on the pressure you put on yourself. And that can be liberating.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”4. Commit to cutting back—just a little” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:20|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Roboto%20Condensed%3A300%2C300italic%2Cregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal”][vc_column_text]When you’re deep in perfectionistic territory, you’re triple-checking your triple-checks, rereading a two-line email for two hours, or putting in a crushing amount of study time for a five-question quiz. One way to work against this is to cut back in tiny ways over time rather than trying to stop your perfectionistic patterns all at once, suggests Dr. Hirsch. This is a behavior change staple because it works.

Try it: Take your eight-hour window of quiz-studying to six—and then stick to it. Maybe next time, knock it down to five. Pay attention to how you feel as you’re making the adjustments and see how that changes over time. The point isn’t to lower your standards, but instead to get them to a point that feels less soul-crushing and more realistic.

If you’re still struggling, that’s OK

If you’re feeling bogged down by perfectionism, reach out to a counselor or therapist at your school or in your community. Because perfectionistic people have a hard time admitting when they’re not feeling perfect, this may not feel easy. But it’s so worth a try. Dr. Greenspon describes moving past perfectionism as a recovery process, one that involves adjusting your worldview and sense of reality. Let’s be real: This is a big shift. It takes some work and time to rebuild your sense of yourself independent from pure achievement. Here are some treatment options to talk through with a professional.

Radically open-dialectical behavioral therapy (RO-DBT): RO-DBT is a therapy for people who struggle with “emotional over-control” that teaches strategies to increase flexibility, openness, and communication in social situations, according to research published in 2015 in the American Journal of Psychotherapy.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): CBT is a therapy that teaches you how to transform unhealthy, negative thoughts into positive thoughts and behaviors.

Visit or call your counseling center to chat with a therapist, or use this tool from Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) for help finding one in your area.

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Grades not what you expected? You’re not alone. I see countless students each semester who have that shocked look on their faces when they get their first midterm back. (In some cases, they’d thought they aced it.) Many students tell me stories of little work and decent grades in high school; they sincerely want to pick up their performance in college but don’t know how. I have whittled down my advice to the four “Ps” (and “party” is not one of them).

Priority

Problem: If you’re always putting something else before your classes and schoolwork, that’s a major red flag. In a recent survey by Student Health 101, one in three students who responded said that prioritizing their studies is often or sometimes a struggle.

Solution: Your academic life and tasks need to be very high priority. Paid jobs and downtime are important too, and call for careful, ongoing time management. If hanging out with your friends routinely trumps your studies, you need to make a change. Much of what you do each day should have to do with class work.

Place

Problem: You won’t be able to focus if you don’t have a place to do it. Roommates, group meetings, and social media will destroy your time management strategy. In our survey, one in three students said finding a place to study is sometimes or often a challenge.

Solution: Find a quiet place where you can think and do. It may be the library. It may be the coffee shop. It may be an empty classroom. It needs to be a place that you associate with getting down to business—the business of doing the work.

Product

Problem: If your study habits aren’t effective, you won’t retain what you’re learning. In our survey, nearly half of respondents said this is sometimes or often a struggle.

Solution: It is not enough to passively read a chapter for sociology. You also need active learning strategies, like taking notes, creating flashcards, and sketching diagrams. If you don’t have a product, whether it’s a completed assignment or a summary of a reading, you haven’t done the work necessary to build the knowledge base you need.

Person

Problem: Other people can work with or against us. In our survey, three in five students said they are sometimes or often distracted from their studies by others.

Solution: Ask at your tutoring center about academic coaching, and/or find an “accountability partner” to check in or study with each week. This person should be at least as responsible as you are, if not more so. These students seem to know what is going on in class and they’re making good grades, which means they often have good habits you can learn from. Also, don’t be a distraction to anyone else.

Amy Baldwin, MA, is co-author of The College Experience (Prentice Hall, 2015) featuring realistic student scenarios and strategies.

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