High 5: 12 January 2018 by Mr Sathis Kumar

12 JAN 2018

Good morning Mdm Tan, Mrs Selva, fellow colleagues and Gessians:

This week has indeed been an interesting week for all of us I believe, especially with the Internal Lockdown Drill Exercise. All of us had to Swiftly, Stealthily & Safely get into the classrooms and follow the protocol to hide. For some it would have been a moderate task but for others, it would have been a real challenge to persist and stay absolutely quiet despite the discomforts of an enclosed classroom environment.

We also had the Sec 1 CCA Orientation this week to allow you, the Sec 1 students to have a better understanding of the CCAs offered in GESS before making an informed decision. Dear Sec 1s, there is a sayings that goes like this, “A smooth sea never made a skilful sailor”. This means that even if you are given the CCA of your choice, it doesn’t mean that your CCA journey in GESS will be a smooth sailing one. To become a skilful sailor, there will bound to be challenges that you will have to face and overcome and grow stronger from at your journey at GESS.

In life, all of us continually face challenges – how we view them defines us! Do we choose to see the challenges in front of us as opportunities to persist or to just give up after a couple of attempts?

If we choose to see any challenges as obstacles, then the challenges we face will be viewed as problems – problems that need to be overcome along with all the negative connotations associated with it.  A great deal of time and energy will be wasted focusing on negative self-talk such as “I can’t”, “I won’t”, “I don’t want to”, “I shouldn’t have too” and “why must this only happen to me”.

So, what do we do? We need to encourage ourselves to persist when things get tough. Sometimes you maybe unsure of the right things to think about with regards to the kind of positive self-talk that needs to go through your mind. When this situation arises, you can try these 3 simple self-talk strategies to encourage yourself:

  1. Use past experiences to guide you in new situations or dare to try something new.

  2. Remember that it is okay to fail and try again

  3. “I Can, I Will, I Must”

Before I end my Hi-5, I would like to leave you with these 2 Chinese quotes to overcome the challenges in your life:

Quote 1: “Shui Di Shi Chuan”, which means even dripping water cuts through a stone not because of its power but its persistence.

Quote 2: “Bai Zhe Bu Nao”, which means persistence pays off in the end.

ONWARD !