Preparing For GCSE Exam Results

With GCSE exam results being revealed tomorrow, Mental Health Counsellor and CEO of Mind Management for You Sheila McMahon reflects on how we can prepare for the results – whatever they may be!

Exam results are coming up which can bring up a lot of mixed feelings for people.

Fear of failure

Many people are afraid of failure – but what is failure? Failure is learning. Failure is trial and error. Failure is giving something a go that might have highlighted that it wasn’t for you. We can choose how we see failure. Personally, I see it as being useful – as its only by trial and error that I find out what I am naturally good at, or want to do.

When we are in school, we often feel forced to do subjects that we might have no interest in – that we might not even like! So, how do we get past this?

Focus on the overall goal

You may not like some subjects, that is natural, but you may want to pass them for what that can mean and achieve for you. Passing your GCSEs, or achieving certain grades, or passing exams, may mean you can go on to do other things that you want to do.

Plan a reward!

Whether you pass your exams or not, I encourage you, that if you decide to give the exam or exams a go, to plan a reward after giving it a go. Think about something to look forward too, something that when you think about it, it fills you up with excitement. I would encourage you to plan this event before you find out your results.

Your exams results do not define you

We often hear stories of entrepreneurs who didn’t pass their exams and went on to be high successful people. If you want to be highly successful, then passing exams is only one way of achieving this. If you don’t want to be highly successful, then that is fine too. I often counsel highly successful businesspeople who now wish they had a much easier job – without responsibility, without the pressure of success and just had a simpler life!

Learning styles

Working as a counsellor, I often hear stories of how confusing and frustrating learning can be. It can be important to be aware of your learning styles. I am a visual learner, so if I look at a book that has only words in it, it will take me ages to read it! If this book has pictures, I will read that book in half the time and retain a lot more of the information. People who are kinaesthetic learners may need to get their hands stuck in to experience the learning. Some people are auditory which means they may learn well by hearing instructions and sounds. I have often heard adults blame themselves for not doing well in school, when sometimes the way things were taught to them did not engage them, or the style of teaching didn’t suit them. I talk about learning styles as part of communication styles in my current ‘Tip of the Week’ videos on my You Tube Channel. You can watch my current video by clicking on the link https://youtu.be/NqW8Mv6wQ6Q

You can do it again!

There are so many opportunities now to relearn and do subjects that interest you at another time. This time may not be the right time for you. Some people can repeat a year again. If that is what is needed, then so be it.

For many the last couple of years have been an emotional rollercoaster, so to expect everyone to do well in exams can be unrealistic.

Each individual person will have their own separate story and so it’s important not to make comparisons. Only you know what you have been through.

Affirmations

You can use affirmations. Affirmations are positive statements. You can decide to say positive statements to yourself like ‘I am doing my best and that is good enough’ or ‘The exams do not define who I am’. You are still a worthy, beautiful human being regardless of whatever results you get.

Keeping calm

If you want to keep calm, then you can focus on your breathing. You can try rectangular breathing where you breathe in for 4, pause for 2 seconds, breathe out for 5 and repeat. You can see a video of me doing this on my YouTube Channel here: https://youtu.be/p-hFe992Ixw

If this doesn’t work, then you can find a breathing exercise that might work for you. You may even want to give my 5 minutes guided relaxation a go. You can check it out by clicking on this link: https://youtu.be/H0rrfprbcGg

So, for all of you collect exam results on Thursday, I wish you well, and remember ‘You can only do your best and that is good enough’.

For more please visit Sheila’s YouTube channel, Sheila’s website or follow Sheila on any of her social media platforms, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn.