In this section

"These are the best years of your life!" This saying implies that life is going to spiral downwards into pain and misery. But if you're doing things right, surely things are likely to get better not worse.

"If you want something enough, you can get it." This is quite simply not true. All you can do is try your best. You might want to win the lottery but even once you've bought a ticket the odds are 16 million to one against winning.

"Just be yourself." This assumes at least two things: first, that you have one particular self that you regard as the real you; and secondly, that the real you is going to be the best approach for every situation - whereas what the situation might demand is that you push back your frontiers and experiment with new ways of behaving.

"No pain, no gain." Our report found no evidence that learning has to be painful, nor that pain guarantees you are learning anything.

"Realise your potential!" is the most annoyingly misleading phrase, because your potential evolves with each new experience and each new skill that you acquire. We simply expand our potential, widen our horizons.

"Practice makes perfect." Only if you're practising doing it perfectly right, which isn't half as easy as you think. Good-quality practise is one of the hardest things to achieve.

"Work hard, play hard, that's my motto!" Why is this always said by people with crippling hangovers? "Take care!" Much of this report argues that the best way to learn and to achieve is to be prepared to take well-considered risks: the risk of being embarrassed, the risk of being wrong, the risk of making mistakes. The benefits of 'taking care' need to be balanced along side the benefits of 'taking calculated risks', otherwise we learn and achieve at a painfully slow rate.

"Work hard!" Unfortunately, hard work is only one of the ingredients of achieving your goals, but on its own it's never enough. Work also needs to be well-planned and enjoyable, and a clever strategy or an original approach can often make hard work ten times more effective in achieving your ultimate goals.

"Why don't you take a jacket and scarf just in case?" said by mothers even though it's so hot outside that the tar is melting off the road.