Success Plan

Successfully completing your career program requires a plan.  This outline will demonstrate that achieving your goal is simple. 

Remember, you can achieve your goal as quickly as you want.  The Foley-Belsaw Institute has helped thousands of students achieve success at their own pace. 

Regardless of your pace, here are a few tips that our successful students have used to achieve their goals: 1. Schedule Your Time Successful students make regular and systematic study a habit.  It is not as hard as you might think.  The trick is not in how long you study, but in how regularly you study.  Setting aside a short period each day or even each week for study will help you finish much faster than studying long hours on a haphazard basis.

2. Take Frequent Breaks

If you prefer to study longer periods each session, be sure to take a break at regular intervals.  Get up, stretch your muscles, walk around and forget about your studies for a bit.

This will keep you fresh and alert, allowing you to gain the most from your effort.  Remember, the knowledge you gain will be worth money when you put what you learn to use for your customers.  The more you learn, the more you will earn!

3. Give Yourself Room to Work

Try to find an area where you can be by yourself – your own room, the basement, workshop, garage, den, corner… You get the idea.

The space you select should have proper ventilation, good lighting, adequate power for tools, and enough room to work.  If possible, the place you choose should be a quiet place where you can concentrate.

Arrange your work area so that your course program materials are organized and within easy reach.  For proper lighting, we recommend using a lamp with at least a 100-watt bulb placed no more than 6 feet from your work surface.  For furniture, you will need a chair or a stool and a flat workbench, desk or table.  Remember, your chair should be comfortable – but not too comfortable!

4. Take One Step at a Time

Combine your efforts to do good work.  First study the lesson, and then work through the lesson.  Each lesson will consist of a work project with complete physical operation.  After you complete each lesson, read it again to make sure that you absorbed each special term and concept that might have puzzled you initially.

Take your time.  Learn every skill well.  As you progress, speed and skill will come.  Do not expect to become an expert upholsterer tomorrow.  The speed at which you work depends on your individual ability.  The time you spend now to learn the skills will pay off handsomely later.  Work at a steady pace that is right for you, and avoid long lapses of time between sessions.

Learning by doing is one of the fastest methods of increasing your knowledge.  Though you may understand something by simply reading about it, your will truly understand something and retain it in your memory when you actually see, feel, and do the job yourself.

5. Always Expect to Learn Something New

There are thousands of variations of the styles of funiture and upholstery techniques you will study, and each variation must be treated individually.  By mastering the fundamentals as taught by the Foley-Belsaw Institute, you will be able to do so quickly and easily. There will be very few days in your upholstery career that you will not learn something new.  It is a continual and fascinating education that you will enjoy everyday.