So, let’s talk about nerves, confidence and mindset.
I know, you’re probably thinking, what’s this got to do with getting the score I need, and this isn’t on the marking criteria….Just tell me some strategies, and you are right, it’s not in the marking criteria, (and you know how much I love to talk about the marking criteria!) but that doesn’t mean it’s not important and it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t affect your scores.
It most definitely does. I have talked about this briefly in an earlier podcast and I wanted to talk to you about it in a lot more detail because it is such an important topic and issue for students.
Nerves, lack of confidence/self-belief and the wrong mindset can affect everything. It can have a huge impact on your preparation, your attitude, the way you feel, your performance and even the score you get….all without you even noticing it, it can silently sabotage all your efforts.
Now, as medical professionals you might also be thinking that, No, that’s not me, I don’t lack confidence and I can understand that you may feel like that and it’s because you have been trained to exude confidence, so this may be hard to digest so just keep an open mind and hear me out.
I have seen the most competent doctors and nurses, highly trained in their fields, with a high level of English, people who were consistently scoring Bs and above for OET and 7.5 and above in IELTS, crumble in the actual test, just completely fall apart and not get the score they needed.
It happens. And it can happen to anyone.
Recently a student of mine who is a doctor, was really struggling with a lot of personal family issues along with getting very very sick with corona virus, he had a number of failed attempts at the test. Now this doctor has a really good level of English and is already in the UK and working, so he already knows how to communicate at a high level already. Recently, he decided, without telling me, to take the test just as a practice, like a mock test. He had been very ill with Covid and his preparation had been at a standstill. So, he thought, let me see where my level is before beginning my preparation again. So, he took the test with this frame of mind……it’s just a mock test, it’s not the real thing. He missed his score by just 1 mark! He has obviously sent it for remarking and we are still waiting to hear back from OET, but he and I discussed the fact that because he treated the test as a practice run, he took all the pressure off himself. There were no nerves, pressure, overwhelm or any negative thoughts and although he didn’t get the score, it was the closest he came.
It just goes to show what an impact it can make on us.
The important thing is to know why it’s happening and then knowing what to do about it so that this doesn’t happen to you.
So, let’s take a look at why this happens.
1. The sheer pressure of passing and what it will allow you to do, the doors it will open, not just for you and your career but also for your family and their future. The pressure of this can be crippling for some students, to the point they can’t even speak properly in the speaking test.
2. Peer pressure, pressure from your colleagues, maybe not directly, but perhaps they have passed their IELTS/OET and are moving or already moved and are living the life you dream of and maybe you have a case of comparitonitis, where you compare your life with theirs. Perhaps you have taken the test a few times and you’re just not getting the score you need and that if making you nervous, fuelling your lack of confidence and affecting your mindset and beliefs and whether you can actually get the score you need. Maybe you are taking the test for the first time and for the same reasons you are lacking confidence and maybe it’s even stopping you from starting your preparation.
3. Sometimes you can feel overwhelmed with the amount of preparation that you need to do, or try, somehow to fit it into your busy schedule. This is very common too, and can lead to procrastination, where you don’t even get started, you just keep putting your preparation off or you just do the easy stuff and avoid the hard bits of your preparation, the areas of the test that you find difficult.
4. Listening to other people’s experiences and how easy or hard they found the test and how they achieved, or didn’t achieve their scores. So sometimes colleagues or friends talk about how easily they were able to get their scores without much preparation and this can make you feel inadequate and deflate your confidence, especially if you are struggling with some parts of the test or if you’ve failed a few times.
The same is true for people who say that they did so much preparation, dedicated so much time but they were still not able to get the score they needed. This can make you feel completely hopeless as you begin to think, well if this person put in so much effort and was still unable to get the score then what chance do I have? Or if someone is telling you that after putting so much effort, time money into their preparation they got the score they needed, this can also lead to lack confidence and overwhelm because maybe you don’t have that amount of time and money to devote to your preparation, so you feel like you have no chance of passing.
So, what should you do about all of these factors? How can you stop all of this effecting you and your scores?
So, the pressure of passing and peer pressure. This is quite overwhelming as passing IELTS/OET is the first step for most people in their journey to moving to the UK etc. All eyes are on you, your families’, your colleagues and your own expectations. This can weigh quite heavily. This can not only effect nerves, but your confidence and your mindset and that’s why this is such a big issue. The only way to stop this from being a big issue for you, is to simply BLOCK OUT THE NOISE. Just stop listening to people and their experiences when it comes to the test. If you can don’t even tell people that you are doing the test and just quietly prepare for it. Obviously, you will need to tell few people who you need help from, but try to keep it to a minimum.
Remember, everyone is different, their skills are different, their strengths and weaknesses are different and therefore their journey to pass IELTS/OET will be different. You need to be clear on your skills, strengths and weaknesses and what you need to focus on in order to get the score you need.
When it comes to the amount of preparation you need to do then I urge you to go through my free training which you can find in the show notes. This training is divided into 5 modules and the first module goes into these issues in a lot more depth and I actually share my method of how you should organise and manage your time and how to prepare for all aspects of the test, every single day up until test day.
This training is so important, not only does it eliminate the overwhelm and stress but also ensures that you are doing meaningful preparation and moving forward everyday. It takes you through a process whereby you are identifying your weaknesses and focussing on just those weaknesses. So essentially you are doing YOUR preparation, not someone else’s preparation, what someone else did or didn’t do in their preparation ….just your preparation.
Most importantly, the training will eliminate nerves, self-doubt, lack of confidence, overwhelm and help you adopt a positive, “I can do this attitude” by making you create a plan! Not just any plan, YOUR plan to achieving your score. You see when you have a plan you know what you need to do and how to do it and when you are going to do it. A map of how you want to reach your goal, your end destination.
Once you know all these things, you reduce the stress, nerves etc because you now know how and what you need to do. There’s simply no room or time for all of these negative things to enter and sabotage your preparation and performance. You will slowly identify the areas you need to improve and work to improve them and you’ll walk into the exam with confidence because you know you have prepared in the best way and know exactly how to answer the questions.
Now, I’m not saying that you won’t feel any nerves at all walking into the test, of course you will. But the nerves will be under control and not overtake your performance because you will be in a much stronger, more confident, more positive state of mind.
So if you haven’t accessed my free training yet, you can find the link in the show notes. You can watch the training videos in your own time and on the go too. But make sure you actually implement what I say.
Just a quick note to IELTS students listening to this. Although the training is related to OET, there is a lot you can benefit from in the training so please take a look and I will be doing something similar for you guys too very soon.
Also, my group OET training programme is opening up very soon so if you would like to know more about that or how you can work with me 1:1 then you can book a free 15-minute call with me and we can talk through the options and the best way I can help you get the score you need. The link to book the call is also in the show notes.