Everyone wants the secret formula for success but what is success? Is winning the contests considered success? Not necessarily! It's a milestone but it's not success. Sounds confusing? It was confusing to me as well until I realized that wins gave temporary satisfaction but success has a much deeper meaning.

What is success? It is all about completing and hopefully exceeding goals set for the roles a person is playing. Different roles have different goals so success criteria differs as well e.g. success criteria for your mom as a mother could be to ensure that her kids are healthy and getting the best possible education.

What is the goal for a student? Key objective for the students is to learn. A student's success is defined by his ability to learn and apply learning on a constant basis. Doing well in contests just provides a validation that you are on the right track. When you are competing, your main goal continues to be an amazing learner. A student should always aim to compete with themselves. Improving your own score is the best way to track your success.

Allow yourself to be a beginner. No one starts off being excellent. Winston Churchill said that the Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential. It is not the hours of practice that matter. it’s what you put into the hours that counts. Don't let your past hinder learning and future success. One doesn't need to be a winner to succeed.

What is the formula of success? For a student, success is defined by quality of efforts and ability to continuously improve. How do you know that you are improving continuously? You will know when your scores are getting better. It needs patience and repetitions to see the results. You can't expect success overnight. Magic happens when we practice with right intent. In a nutshell, we can summarize it as a qualitative formula mentioned below:

Quality of Effort x Continuous Improvement = Success

It’s not about winning a competition, but about keeping the positive spirit of continuously improving yourself up. Let's hear how you define success and your plans to achieve it? You can email your thoughts to us. We may include those in our future newsletter.

Elementary School Mathletes​

Hard to make 7 friends?

“CKSTEM has 25 students in a class, and each student is friends with exactly seven classmates.” Why can’t that statement be true?

Email your solutions to info@competitivekids.org. The best solution(s) will be published in the next newsletter.

Middle School Mathletes​

Can you prove it?

A straight bar of length 2 m is cut into five pieces with each piece at least 17 cm long. Prove that there are three of these pieces that can be put together to form a triangle.

Email your solutions to info@competitivekids.org. The best solution(s) will be published.

Contest Referral Program​

You can help your friends by asking them to join CKSTEM contests. If they enter your name while signing up then you will be eligible for a lucky draw. You will have one entry for each referral. You will not only help your friends to be a part of the most amazing contests, you may also win some cool prizes.

CKSTEM is a volunteer-run, nonprofit organization engaged in enhancing kids' education and enabling them to achieve excellence. We focus on teaching problem solving and enabling critical thinking by 'connecting the dots' as well as developing mental dexterity for the students.

We believe that in order to grow, students need to develop beyond their comfort zone, so we ensure they are consistently and appropriately challenged. We not only coach them to understand and problem solve but also train them to compete, nurturing their competitive spirit and mental fitness, similar to competitive sports. ​

We are 3 amazing contests this summer. You are welcome to join all three of these for free.