Catherine Miller Strengths

Seek opportunities to apply several of the ideas and concepts you have learned. Address groups and conduct demonstrations so others can benefit from what you know.

List everything you must do to prepare for a test, complete a project, conduct research, or finish an assignment. Prioritize activities. Set a deadline for each one. Then methodically carry out your plan.

Intentionally nurture friendships with people who are as driven as you are.

Realize that you cannot work in just anywhere. Affiliate yourself with organizations that a known for their serious, results-oriented workers.

Choose work environments that challenge you. Opt for situations where your success is measured each day.

Make your education even more effective by following your intellectual curiosity. As you allow yourself to ask the questions that naturally come to you, you will refine your approach to learning and studying.

Study to understand and learn, not just to memorize.

Surround yourself with intellectually stimulating people, and confidently converse with them. You can contribute to their lives as well as they can to yours.

Choose a work environment that matches your most productive thinking environment. If you think best when it’s quiet, choose a quiet work environment. If working with others stimulates your thinking, choose to work in a team environment.

Choose work that will challenge you intellectually.

Start a filing system for interesting and potentially useful articles you have read.

Select classes that help you increase your general knowledge base. That would include classes in which research is valued.

Be aware that the more you know, the more likely it is that others will seek you out for information and see you as highly credible.

Choose jobs that will encourage you to conduct or delve into research.

An ideal career would be one in which you have an opportunity to share what you have learned and are expected to be continuously learning and making new discoveries.

Heighten your awareness of how much time you require to complete each assignment. Honor the ways you study best rather than mimicking those of successful classmates.

Volunteer to maintain the records of an organization. Ensure that accepted procedures are followed in meetings, and reports are properly submitted.

Identify similarities and differences in your professors’ teaching styles. Choose classes taught by instructors whose approach matches your learning style.

Work in environments that have regulations, policies, procedures, and guidelines firmly established. Realize that you are more effective and efficient when everyone, regardless of status, must follow the same rules.

Choose workplaces where standard operating procedures are emphasize in orientation, training development, and manuals.

Lead study groups. Participate in the life of the mind. Urge members to share their best ideas. Give timid individuals permission to explore topics, raise questions, and work on projects.

Draw quiet individuals into conversations, debates, planning, and discussions. Call on them by name. Probe when they respond to questions with one- or two-word answers.

Take charge of small-group conversations, projects, presentations, and experiments. Distinguish yourself by transforming plans into tangible results.

Choose a career in which “actions speak louder than words” even though your words can propel people into action. Thoroughly research professions, organizations, and companies to identify the ones that are truly results-oriented.

Define what kind of leader you are. A thought leader? A giver of orders? A leader who gives the go-ahead signal? Large group leader?