#Maya angelou success quote how to#

Can you be successful in life without doing what you love? So, here’s an essential question to provide closure to the conversation. It’s not love, but something else that is equally meaningful.Īnd, it’s equally powerful when it comes to achieving success. It gives you a different type of satisfaction. It’s a different feeling when you’ve done something that you didn’t necessarily want to do but you stuck with it.

It’s a different definition of accomplishment. If a student spends all of her time studying for a test and does well on the test, she gets a sense of accomplishment even though it’s not something she loves doing. I was thinking of another example of when you’re studying for an exam. That pushes back against what Maya Angelou said. It was something else yet, there was accomplishment. It’s almost like you did it out of obligation to others. You didn’t love going to school every day, but you sure love these adults complimenting you on your determination and your perseverance to make sure you got to school.

For example, when you attend school 200 days in a row and win a perfect attendance award. You don’t really love doing them, but after a while you appreciate them. The first thing that comes to mind for me are all those things in life that you have to do that aren’t really fun. Once you have the kids talking, they’re sharing some stories about things that they love and are passionate about, then push back. You can go through an entire year and never know what your students are really passionate about, but you can get that with this conversation. How does it make you feel when you love something? Do you feel like you’re better at it because you love it, or do you just know you love it and it makes you not really care about whether you’re good or bad at it? That ’ll get into what makes them passionate about something.įive minutes into this conversation you can learn a lot about what students are really passionate about. Then, you can ask why they love doing it. Every kid is going to have something to say. That they are passionate about and also feel a sense of accomplishment with. To push this conversation along, the simplest way is to have the kids write down on a piece of paper a few things that they absolutely love to do. You may not be successful with everything you love, but if you want success you have to love it. That’s good, and one thing I would add to that is if you want to have success you better love it. Along with that comes this sense of accomplishment. Therefore, you should only pursue the things in life that you absolutely love. If you can do something that you love, then you’re automatically going to be successful and accomplished at it. It seems like what she’s saying is that success and love go hand in hand. What claim do you think Maya Angelou is making with this quote? They’re ready to really consider a quote like this. Students don’t have a good self-awareness of what it actually means to be successful.īut, they have a very strong opinion about what it means to love something.Īnd to be passionate. It means different things to different people.

#Maya angelou success quote how to#

I was going to add that they’re told at all times to be successful, that they need to be successful in life, but rarely are they given a road map for how to get there.Īnd what success really means. They’re familiar with grades, which are constant reminders of whether they’re succeeding or failing. They want to see if they’re good at something or not, and they’re not exactly sure what their true passion is. They’re having different degrees of success at this age, in school, on sports teams, and with new pursuits. “You can only become truly accomplished at something you love.” Now, success is a word students are very familiar with. We’re talking with Maya Angelou, American poet and civil rights activist, this week with a quote about success.