Category Archives: energy for success

Addressing The Challenges Of Going Back To University

The Australasian Survey of Student Engagement identified that 27% – 34% of university students intend to drop out of university prior to completing their degrees.

Reasons for dropping out include:

  • Stress
  • Workload difficulties
  • Preference for current employment over study
  • Boredom

I know what it is like to have the strong desire to drop out. I took 7.5 years to complete my first degree which was supposed to take 4 years. The last 3 years of my program seemed to drag on forever. Every semester I would seriously consider quitting. My partner (now wife) kept urging me to stay course. “You won’t regret it!” she urged.

Truth be known I wasn’t the greatest student back in those days!  ‘P for pass’ was my mantra. Hardly a mantra for success!

When I finally graduated I did two things:

  1. I swore I would never go back to university; and
  2. Got a job in a field related to my studies because there weren’t any jobs available and unemployment had reached 11%.

The fact that I had completed my degree definitely mattered when it came to getting my first job because I was competing with other folk who also had degrees. My part-time work experience in the fitness industry also mattered.

It was this experience that taught me that my partner was right. Completing my degree did matter even if I didn’t get a job as a teacher. I learned that, to a large degree, my qualification was like a bus ticket. There are certain buses that you just can’t get on if you don’t have the ticket.

For a number of years I continued to swear that I would never go back to university. However as they say, you should never say, “Never!”.

Toward the late 1990s my career had taken off and I had reached the senior levels of the organisation for whom I worked. But I had hit the glass ceiling. Unless I continued my education and gathered some more tickets then my career options would be limited. At the end of 1999 I decided to enrol into my first post-graduate program and commenced that program in July 2000. As a Distant Education student who was working full time it was a real challenge. Balancing work, play and study was difficult. To add to my challenges I had become a first time father in January 2000. I had bitten off a lot! Maybe this story resonates with you?

However between graduating from my teaching degree and commencing my first postgraduate studies I had become a student of leadership. I had been doing a lot of reading about leadership and success and had discovered that I had far more control over my success than I had realised. And I put what I had learned into practice throughout my postgraduate studies. After graduating from my Graduate Diploma in Human Resource Management I immediately enrolled into a Master of Management program. My grades averaged a High Distinction and I loved the learning experience. All the while I was working full time and by the time I completed my Masters program we were about to have our third child (I now have five children!).

I understand what it takes to complete a degree when working full time and having significant family commitments. I also understand how managing your energy contributes to your ability to ‘manage’ when you have competing demands on your time. Which is why I want to share my ebook “Energy For Success – Seven Steps For Generating The Energy You Need For Success.” with you.

My complimentary ebook walks you through a simple seven step process where you will be able to quickly identify the key elements that generate energy for you, and which elements in your life drain your energy. You will then be able to create a re-enforcing cycle for energy that will enable you to have the energy to be a success throughout your postgraduate program.

One of those steps involves identifying the times in your life when you have felt full of energy and been able to perform at your best. What factors were present when you felt like that? What was it about those factors that seemed to really matter?

For me, I know that feeling fit and healthy gives me the sense of being able to tackle any task, no matter how big or small it is. When I don’t feel fit and healthy it is amazing how challenging even the smallest task can seem. So, it would seem that being fit and healthy is a key factor for my energy. And it is. What are your examples?

Once identified these factor often relate to each and provide you with amazing insights about what you should and shouldn’t do to ensure that you have the energy to complete your program.

If you’d like to learn more and be able to create your own cycle for generating your Energy For Success simply click this link and follow the prompts.

Gary Ryan helps individuals, teams and organisations move Beyond Being Good.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com

Two strategies for personal success

The following is a exerpt from a transcript of one of my OTM Plan for Personal Success Workshops which have now been delivered to over 5,700 people. This one was provided to an audience at RMIT University in Melbourne Australia. You can find out about the live program here.

In this section I offer two clear strategies for helping to create personal success. The first involves the power of questions, and the second involves gaining experience, even if you have to go into a poor company culture.

…Others among you have expressed concerns that, You know I’ve already had a fair degree of success in my life but what if that stops? What if my success doesn’t continue?

Now your plan can help address this; the plan can help you continue your journey of success. Some of you expressed the issue: ‘I’m just not sure: what do I want?’ even with things like career, even when you’re graduating after you’ve done your degree, something like up to 90% of students still aren’t sure if this is the right path for them – you know, that’s okay!

About 10% of people are really, really clear: ‘Yes! This is what I’m going to do’ or ‘this is the career path I’m going down to’ – the other 90% is still not sure.

The thing with your plan is that it’s okay to explore questions because guess what – if you’ve got questions, there is one thing you know therefore that you want: you want to know the answer to your own questions – yeah – if you think about your future!

So your question gives you focus. Some people think that because they don’t have the answers, they won’t even bother doing anything. I say: ‘let’s focus on the questions and let’s go exploring.’

And humans are amazing explorers right? When you’re exploring and you go down a dead-end – you go along this path and then when you turn, it’s a dead end! Is that bad? What do you reckon – is it bad?


It’s not, is it? Because you’re exploring; if you’re looking for the one right answer and you go down a path and it’s a dead end, how is that for you? It’s like the end of the world, isn’t it?

An exploring mindset through exploring questions is really, really powerful for your plans. Some of you are concerned: ‘Will I be in an organisation that’s worthy of my commitment?’

The work and research I’ve done over time is that the more clear you are for yourself with your own vision, the better a position you’re in to choose a company – and I use those words deliberately – for you to choose a company or organisation or even your own part with your own company that’s worthy of your commitment because you’re better off when you see the signs and the consistency between how they interact with you.

You have more power than you realise in this process; it’s not just them picking you.

It’s also about you choosing them.

Now I’ll talk about strategies later on – sometimes you might deliberately choose to go into a culture that’s not right for you because at the end of the day, you just need to get some experience – you might put some specific timeframes on how long you’ll stay there so that that culture that does not negatively infect you.

That might be a deliberate strategy because you might say to yourself, “Okay in this industry I just need experience and the only way I’m going to get to work in the culture that I desire is to gain enough experience over time so that I progress far enough to influence it (the culture) – that’s when I’m going to be able to make real change for cultures in this particular industry but I’ve got to start off and get experience.

So you might consciously choose to work for an organisation that isn’t worthy of your commitment – but only for a period of time. All the while you are looking for opportunities to move to another culture while also being a high performer for the organisation that is currently employing you – even though it might have a poor culture.

This might be an example of a strategy that you’ll consider – your personal plan can help you by providing clarity and focus that your personal vision provides. By the way, Australian government research in hand with the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry collectively which represent 95% of Australia’s employers says that employers want people who are clear about their personal vision.

So even doing this plan today helps set yourself up to be able to convey to an employer, “I know where I’m going and I want to go with you because I want to help you go where you’re going because we’re going to help each other!” – that’s what the research says.
The launch of the Yes For Success Online Course is just a few weeks away…register your interest below.

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Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com