Habits of Success

Habits of Success and Definition

Attachment: A deep and enduring emotional bond that connects one person to another across time and space.

Stress management: Constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person.

Self-regulation: Regulation of attention, emotion and executive functions for the purposes of goal-directed actions.

Self-awareness: The ability to accurately recognize one’s emotions and thoughts and their influence on behavior. This includes accurately assessing one’s strengths and limitations and possessing a well-grounded sense of confidence and optimism.

Social Awareness/Relationship Skills: The ability to take the perspective of, and empathize with, others from diverse backgrounds and cultures, to understand social and ethical norms for behavior, and to recognize family, school and community resources and supports; the ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with diverse individuals and groups. This includes communicating clearly, listening actively, cooperating, resisting inappropriate social pressure, negotiating conflict constructively and seeking and offering help when needed.

Executive Functions: The cognitive control functions needed when one has to concentrate and think, when acting on one’s initial impulse would be ill-advised. Core executive functions include cognitive flexibility, inhibition (self-control, self-regulation) and working memory. More complex executive functions include problem-solving, reasoning and planning.

Growth Mindset: Wherein students ascribe to the belief: my ability and competence grow with my effort.

Self-efficacy: The perception that one can do something successfully.

Sense of belonging: A sense that one has a rightful place in a given academic setting and can claim full membership in a classroom community.

Relevance of school: A student’s sense that the subject matter he or she is studying is interesting and holds value.

Resilience: Positive adaptation during or following exposure to adversities that have the potential to harm development: (a) developing well in the context of high cumulative risk for developmental problems (beating the odds, better than predicted development), (b) functioning well under currently-adverse conditions (stress- resistance, coping) and (c) recovery to normal functioning after catastrophic adversity (bouncing back, self-righting) or severe deprivation (normalization).

Agency: A student’s individual decision-making and autonomous actions.

Academic tenacity: The beliefs and skills that allow students to look beyond short-term concerns to longer-term or higher-order goals, and withstand challenges and setbacks to persevere toward these goals.

Self-direction: A process in which learners take the initiative in planning, implementing and evaluating their own learning needs and outcomes, with or without the help of others.

Curiosity: The desire to engage and understand the world, interest in a wide variety of things and preference for a complete understanding of a complex topic or problem.

Civic identity: A multifaceted and dynamic notion of the self as belonging to and responsible for a community or communities.