Disengagement

•  80% of students ‘don’t see how school contributes to their learning and growth’
•  60% of students ‘don’t rank learning as a reason they go to school’

Lack of Fulfillment

•  80% of dropouts would stay in school if learning were project-based rather than drill and kill

Motivation

•  50% of dropouts leave school because they’re bored
•  50% of students spend ‘an hour or less on their schoolwork each week’

More than 1 million American kids drop out of high school every year… that’s a run rate of 25%. How can that be possible? And more importantly, what can we do about it?

The folks at The Future Project conducted an experiment to improve high school students’ levels of engagement last year, and the results are pretty interesting. The program experienced a retention rate of 86%, which exceeded principals’ expectations by 5x. If you’re interested in the program, check out their site to learn more. If you want to try something at home to pique your kids’ curiosity and raise their levels of engagement, you might want to download The Future Project Playbook. It has some interesting exercises that I’m thinking would be good for most everyone to try… regardless of age. The framework provides a step-by-step guide for tapping into your potential.

I know a bunch of procrastinators that seem to live by Burr’s words. And yet, why would anyone want to delay leading a happy, fulfilling life? It turns out we don’t put off achieving happiness intentionally, but it is a by-product of the all too common ‘I’ll be happy when’  mindset. You know, when people think that they’ll achieve a greater level of satisfaction when they:

1. Get married
2. Find a boyfriend/girlfriend
3. Receive a much anticipated promotion
4. Lose weight…

The list goes on.

Also known as the arrival fallacy, this mindset actually produces much less satisfaction than expected because people have primed themselves for the achievement and it is already factored into their general state of happiness. When a person hits the longed-for target, they realize there’s something else they really want to achieve. And then the cycle begins again because they believe that achieving the next goal will make them happy. In this scenario, happiness becomes the illusive acorn Scrat chases in Ice Age.

As importantly, the I’ll be happy when mindset produces at least two additional by-products. You:

1. Seek happiness from without rather than within (a surefire way to fail at improving your well-being), and;
2. Forget to appreciate the wonderful things (big and little) that happen day-by-day

And now for an admission. Like most people, I have taken Burr’s quote out of context.

“Never do today what you can put off ’til tomorrow. Delay may give a clearer light as to what is best to be done.” —Aaron Burr, Jr.

Burr’s suggesting that we should not make decisions too hastily. And that’s another discussion about when (and when not to) use the rational brain vs. the emotional brain.