From D to DUX: My Story of How I Scored a 97+ ATAR

Table of Contents

• 🚀My Journey

• ✍️ 3 Powerful lessons from my story

• ✅Action Steps for this week

C’s and D’s…

These were my grades from year 7 till 10. In fact, these were my grades all my schooling life.

I never studied.

I never cared.

The only things I cared about was playing video games and hanging out with the boys.

While everyone else would stress out that our yearly exam worth 50% of the grade was due tomorrow…I would be relaxing and watching Netflix.

I used to tell myself and believe that:

‘If I read the slides right before I enter the exam room, I’ll have all the information I need to do well’

Spoiler Alert: I was wrong.

Every year of high school passed by, and not once did I even bare to worry about my future.

I was called stupid.

I was called dumb.

I was laughed at.

I was the student that the school wanted to drop out…

I disappointed my parents and those around me.

I simply didn’t care. School wasn’t for me. I hated it.

However, on one strange evening while I was on a family trip, this had all changed…

While sitting alone in the hotel room, gazing out the window at the beautiful view…something hit me hard.

I had suddenly realised that I’d literally wasted 4 years of schooling…and year 11 was only 2 weeks away.

I had barely passed year 7 till 10, and yet year 11 was right around the corner…

I realised that this was my final chance…

My chance to change the course of my entire life and career.

I began to comprehend that if I wanted to get into a good university and study any course that I had desired, I must pull my socks up.

If I wanted to transition from being a student who wasted their time, played video games all day and had no discipline…I need to actually put in the work.

And so, with worry and excitement buzzing throughout my body, I set the most ambitious goal of my entire life…

I set the goal of scoring a 95 ATAR.

And I wrote this:

These were the thoughts that echoed in my head constantly.

But they didn’t stop me.

I knew that I could do more. I knew that deep within me I had the potential to achieve anything I wanted to…I just needed to put in the work.

And I did just that - my year 11 and 12 journey began.

From the start of year 11 and onwards, I began to reflect upon my previous mistakes and extract lessons from them.

I had read, watched, and listened to 100's of books and videos on self-improvement and on how to succeed.

I studied the science behind success and what it takes to excel in whatever you do in life, no matter the obstacles that are in front of you.

And so, with my final two years of schooling left, I decided to put in my all…​

Every day, I woke up in the early morning and studied...not just hard, but smart.

Everyday, irrespective of whether it was my birthday, a celebration or a holiday, I put in blood, sweat and tears towards achieving my ambitious ATAR goals.

And after many lessons,

After many setbacks,

After many failures along the way…

I had defied all odds...I had made it.

Not only did I achieve my goal ATAR of 95…I achieved much more.

At a 300+ ranked public school, from being a D-student who was laughed at and with lower scaling subjects, I achieved:

Absolutely shocking everyone around me, and proving everyone who doubted me, wrong.

I do not show you these achievements of mine to impress you, not at all.

I show you these achievements to express to what’s possible if you put your mind to it.

And now, in a pursuit to help, guide and inspire other year 11 and 12 students that are in a similar to position to what I was in, I share my proven strategies to boost their productivity and improve their study skills, so that they too can achieve their ambitious ATAR goals.

My personal message to you, my reader, is this:

No matter what school you go to,

No matter what subjects you’ve chosen,

No matter how bad your previous grades have been…

You CAN succeed. You WILL succeed.

If I can do it, you can too 🙂

You just need to use the right strategies and techniques to do so…and that’s why I’m here.

I’m here to guide you along every step of your ATAR journey,

To teach you the skills that your school hasn’t taught you…

And to ultimately take you from being a D student to an A student, to a mystery mark student to a 95+ ATAR student.

P.S. For all upcoming issues, they will be 5 minutes long 😆 

✍️ 3 Powerful lessons from my story

1. It’s never too late.

2. Mindset is everything.

3. There is no light without dark. No success without failure.

✅ Action Steps for this week

1. Let go of your past, and focus on the present and future. I don’t give a sh*t what anyone says, you can still succeed no matter where you are!

2. Set Ambitious goals, and don’t let anyone or anything think you’re unable to achieve them — more on this in the upcoming issue.

3. Reflect and Learn from Mistakes — reflect on your past mistakes and failures, and use them as valuable learning experiences. Identify what went wrong, why it went wrong and what you can do differently in the future to improve.