Personal Development for Smart People Forums - View Single Post - Failed to achieve my goals, need serious help.

astra · 11-09-2007, 02:25 AM

Hi there,

First of all I want to tell you that you're not alone in this feeling. I've been at Uni 6 years to get a qualification that should have taken me 1 1/2 because i'd get halfway through a semester and then feel like I had crashed against a brick wall. But I struggled on, and next week, I'm sitting my final exams. If I can do it, anyone can!!!

It sounds to me like you're having a mild panic/anxiety attack when you're faced with an exam - assignments are ok because you can pace them, but exams are a lot of pressure on 2-3 short hours of your life. I always find it helpful to understand what's behind things, so I hope that explaining what happens to you in exams might be helpful to you in dealing with this (i'm not the best at the technical terms etc, so anyone feel free to correct me if they know better, it was explained to me a long time ago).

We have an IQ, which determines how smart we are, and an EQ (ie Emotional Intelligence) which determines how smart our emotions are. If your current emotional state is higher than your EQ can handle, it borrows from your IQ, meaning that the higher your emotions get, the less intelligent you are at that point in time. This means that the more stressed out you are before an exam, the less likely you'll be able to deal with it intelligently. In your case, you're feeling under pressure to perform, and you feel like your future's threatened, stimulating your 'flight or fight' response, increasing the adrenaline which lifts your EQ. You need to de-stress, and burn off this adrenaline, for the side-effects to pass. I'd recommend some light exercise before the exam, but probably best for you to look up what i've mentioned (as i don't think i've explained it the best) and try some things to find out what work best for you.

From another angle, visualising/thinking about what will happen if you fail isn't the best thing either. If you've heard of the law of attraction, visualising failure only bring you failure because you expect it (not to mention that it increases your stress levels). Every time you have a negative thought, consciously replace it with a positive thought about what will happen if you pass, and visualise yourself sitting for the exam and confidently answering questions. This can help your stress levels, and on the law of attraction side of things, will help bring positive things to you. Apparently positive thoughts/vibrations are 1000 times stronger than negative ones, so by consciously replacing negative with positive, even if you have negative thoughts the positive will still outweigh them.

Don't give up, you can do it! That sense of acheivement of obtaining something you struggled for is so worth it! Good luck.

11-09-2007, 02:25 AM	#20 (permalink)
astra Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 94	Stress Relief Hi there, First of all I want to tell you that you're not alone in this feeling. I've been at Uni 6 years to get a qualification that should have taken me 1 1/2 because i'd get halfway through a semester and then feel like I had crashed against a brick wall. But I struggled on, and next week, I'm sitting my final exams. If I can do it, anyone can!!! It sounds to me like you're having a mild panic/anxiety attack when you're faced with an exam - assignments are ok because you can pace them, but exams are a lot of pressure on 2-3 short hours of your life. I always find it helpful to understand what's behind things, so I hope that explaining what happens to you in exams might be helpful to you in dealing with this (i'm not the best at the technical terms etc, so anyone feel free to correct me if they know better, it was explained to me a long time ago). We have an IQ, which determines how smart we are, and an EQ (ie Emotional Intelligence) which determines how smart our emotions are. If your current emotional state is higher than your EQ can handle, it borrows from your IQ, meaning that the higher your emotions get, the less intelligent you are at that point in time. This means that the more stressed out you are before an exam, the less likely you'll be able to deal with it intelligently. In your case, you're feeling under pressure to perform, and you feel like your future's threatened, stimulating your 'flight or fight' response, increasing the adrenaline which lifts your EQ. You need to de-stress, and burn off this adrenaline, for the side-effects to pass. I'd recommend some light exercise before the exam, but probably best for you to look up what i've mentioned (as i don't think i've explained it the best) and try some things to find out what work best for you. From another angle, visualising/thinking about what will happen if you fail isn't the best thing either. If you've heard of the law of attraction, visualising failure only bring you failure because you expect it (not to mention that it increases your stress levels). Every time you have a negative thought, consciously replace it with a positive thought about what will happen if you pass, and visualise yourself sitting for the exam and confidently answering questions. This can help your stress levels, and on the law of attraction side of things, will help bring positive things to you. Apparently positive thoughts/vibrations are 1000 times stronger than negative ones, so by consciously replacing negative with positive, even if you have negative thoughts the positive will still outweigh them. Don't give up, you can do it! That sense of acheivement of obtaining something you struggled for is so worth it! Good luck.