The Not-so-Secret Sauce for Success

Time at INSEAD travels on its own continuum – moving with immense slowness through a Friday 5pm class yet flashing through a P1 break.

As we celebrated the last of our period one exams four days ago, I was filled with overwhelming emotions that my INSEAD journey is one fifth over and one period closer to saying goodbye to classmates at graduation.

How do I consolidate the key insights from class when they all seem to blur together? How do I build and maintain the relationships that form the foundation of INSEAD, while committing enough time to recruitment? Unfortunately, I don’t have an epiphany here of what will work, but I do have a hypothesis which I am working on - that is staying goal-oriented and present.

To be goal-oriented isn’t necessarily writing a list of ‘SMART’ goals – I admittedly don't list in great detail everything I hope to achieve.

However, the process of defining your goals will naturally eliminate options, which is equally, if not more, valuable if you are prone to chronic indecisiveness like me.

Before arriving at INSEAD, you’ll already have heard about the triple constraint of sleep, social, study OR career, academics and parties. The constraint being, you can only choose two and let me tell you, the Fonty flu is real so having a healthy body is underrated. By investing a little time ahead of INSEAD and throughout reflecting on what you want, the hope is that if you are honest with yourself then not only will you have realistic expectations of your experience but also, you’ll have defined your criteria to make decisions that reduce or eliminate FOMO. Knowing where to spend your time though is only half of the equation – next is to give it your 100% focus.

If you’re someone who can run on five hours or less of sleep – I applaud you. Alas, I am not one of those.

I began INSEAD after almost a year of building my own schedule as a partner and freelance English teacher, so one of my concerns was how will I shut out the commitments and pressure for a good night’s rest. Meditating and the practice of staying present has worked better for me than any essential oil or lullaby. I’m more focused on the people I speak with at each point in time and am more productive by shutting out the next five things on my list while I work on one. I also go to sleep with the intention that this is my rest time, and whatever is left will be tackled in priority the next day.

With that in mind…P2 bring it on!