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You: The Student You Want to Be!

Do you have the habits of a successful student? Download the Student Habit-Builder Checklist and use it to build better habits starting now!

Student Habit-Builder Checklist

Grounding before a massage can improve body mechanics, enhance professional boundaries, and support your mental and emotional state. Watch now for some tips!

Get Grounded Before Massage

These study snacks can improve brain function and encourage focus and clarity. Instead of reaching for that sugary snack—Take 5!

Healthy Study Snacks

You: The Student You Want to Be!

Past educational experiences can influence your current academic performance in both positive and negative ways. Maybe you found it difficult to pay attention in high school and you wonder about your ability to focus now. Perhaps you took a difficult college science course and now feel concerned about passing anatomy and physiology. Maybe school has always come easily to you and you get impatient when classmates ask questions about concepts you view as simple. All of these factors could influence your experiences in massage school.

When you reflect on your past educational experiences and contemplate the future, you can develop a vision for the type of student you want to be today. Every student can make positive choices and develop constructive habits to improve their experiences and enjoy school more while achieving career goals. Explore the following questions in a journal, with a classmate, or in a small discussion group. Then, download the Student Habit-Builder Checklist in the Picked Fresh section and use it to build better habits to be the student you want to be.

  • Describe yourself as a massage student and explain how your vision of yourself as a student makes you feel.
  • Discuss three teachers who affected your education the most (positively or negatively). How did your relationship to these teachers influence your interest or lack of interest in learning?
  • Overall, was your last educational experience positive or negative? Why? What could someone else have done to improve your experience? What could you have done to improve your experience?
  • What portion of yourself have you brought to your education so far? How has this contributed to your educational experiences and your success or lack thereof?
  • When you think about bringing more of yourself to your education, what do you feel? If you feel resistance, where is it coming from? What is getting in the way of giving school more focus?
  • Describe one past educational experience that influences who you are as a massage student today.
  • Describe the perfect massage school experience. If school and classes could go exactly according to your ideals, what would it be like?
  • What do you need from teachers, administrators, and classmates to achieve your ideal educational experience? What behaviors, attitudes, or beliefs do you need to change personally in order to achieve the vision you described above?
  • When you think about your future as a professional massage therapist, what do you want it to be like? Where do you want to work? What types of clients do you want to work with? What makes your vision appealing—so appealing that it will pull you through rough times at school?

Create a Vision

It can be helpful to have a visual representation of your vision for the future. Take a large piece of poster board and draw shapes or images that have meaning, state meaningful words or quotes in bold letters, paste pictures from the past, and paste pictures from magazines that represent your future. Situate this poster where you can see it regularly. This will help you stay connected to your powerful, positive vision of your ideal massage school experience.