Dealing with Tough Times and Poor Grades

Going through a tough time? Not getting the grades you want, or need? Then this episode is likely to have something within to support you on your transition or change journey. Using the concepts found in the area of "psychosynthesis", which is the psychology of hope and understanding the 'self',  we unpack how to handle certain moments in our lives that yield less-than-desirable results for our efforts. In this episode we explore human experiences that include matters of a physical and emotional dispositions, thoughts and mental processes to deal with transition periods and failure.  Listen to the end as I provide 'six tips' for dealing with poor grades, scores or marks, possibly due to the tough times you might be going through. Use the tips and tricks to support your education and life journey and I hope they are useful to you. 

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Transcript

 Welcome to the Psychology Podcast with Dr. Paul. Edgy by name and by nature. The Psychology Podcast will provide you with a competitive edge from education through to registration. Dr. Paul supports your transformation into becoming a psychologist, counsellor or allied mental health practitioner. Now here's Dr. Paul. 

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world today. Welcome to the Psychology Podcast. My name is Dr. Paul. And today we're talking about managing anxiety. That is, that time in your life where you're going through some difficult rough patches, or you may be transitioning between lifestyles, careers, in relationships or simply through an education progress pathway that doesn't necessarily meet your criteria. So we're going to have a chat today about how you manage anxiety during periods of transition. So I hope you enjoy the episode. Please sit back, relax and get a cup of coffee or tea or other drink that you find suitable for listening to podcasts and let's get into it. We might find ourselves going through a transition period when we're traveling or moving homes, in between jobs or careers, in between relationships, or just simply trying to find greater meaning and purpose in our lives. And no more special a place than there is in the education setting when you have anxiety around exams coming up, you're going between different year levels or you're trying to achieve marks in your school academic pursuits and sometimes you just miss the mark. So here's some tips on how you'll be able to resolve that. 

During the space that you have this extreme discomfort, this sense of chaos and disharmony and intense emotions such as fear and anxiety, it's really important to understand that the structures in your environment, your usual routines etc and you feel grounded are really important aspects of your makeup in trying to avoid the expansive space of the unknown. And within these voids, fear and not knowing what is going to happen next means it's more likely you want to be quickly grounded and have a sense of security or comfort. However, the research says we may not want to rush into that next relationship and try and fix what we feel at the moment in this space of turmoil. It is important not to rush into the next stage and trying to work out how can you learn something from the fear and the anxiety that comes from what we call a liminal transition or a liminal period which means a period of change and what might that give us in terms of learning if we are able to face it. 

So we experience change every day, nothing in life is static, it never is as they say, the only constant is change and nothing ever stays the way that we want it forever. However, life transitions and the process that goes beyond the usual sense of day to they changes, can really drive an internal psychological and sometimes spiritual or philosophical approach which may cause shifts in our external environment and that they may trigger then these intuitive needs to transform our entire way of being. Sometimes when people are let go of a job they might say something like "let's go and move to the country, do something completely different". These are these separations or pathways away. But psychosynthesis, which is a very interesting concept, and it stems from the psychology of hope, not only with the hope of the history and the purposeful future for people, but its psychosynthesis has been described as the psychology of understanding ourselves, in the realm of human experience, including matters such as the soul, spirit, alongside physical and emotional experiences, thoughts and mental processes. 

So remember the name psychosynthesis. And so the world of psychosynthesis can give us some tips and here are some tips for you. First of all, make sure you take care of your own needs during transitions of change. Make sure you spend enough time alone to process and reflect on the transition you're going through and the changes that are happening to you. And in any case, make sure that you've got space enough that you don't force yourself to say, "I'm going to be okay." It is okay not to be okay. You probably need a more gentle self-approach than usual during these times and you need to consider the acts of self-care such as going for walks in nature, going and doing something that's a physical nature such as yoga exercises or exercising in general and having you know household hobbies and activities that will note that you know will fulfil you. If you can find ways to structure these around yourself that ground you, and you are seeking a connection rather than being alone, then reach out to friends or make connection with people that you have a sense of belonging with and form a routine to find activities or events that will nourish you. It may seem rather counterintuitive, but it makes sense to sit with this fear and anxiety and not try and force it away. Make Take time each day to try and meditate and sit with your emotions and try and understand what they mean to you. 

A mindfulness exercise might be really helpful in locating fear in your body and the physical sensation of fear may communicate why it's there and why it's present. So be compassionate towards yourself and welcome it into your body. Every emotion you're experiencing and trying to support you in some way, there's also a case with fear and anxiety might be trying to help you experience something and learn something from it in its own unique way. When you're going through transition periods in life, it might seem like everything's coming to an end, and that there's even a tendency to question every sense of yourself. Remember that although these things may be shifting in your life, there are still many constants running throughout your life, family, friends, the core self that you have been supported through your entire life and through this particular time, and looking deeper for meaning behind your experience, even if you can't make sense of what it says right now, remember that every period of transition is a catalyst for growth and healing. Perhaps your transition is giving you the space to sit, rest and heal, it might even feel like you need to rush forward, but if you're going to give yourself the best opportunity, time out and then make the most of that time and know that it's okay to stop and rest for a moment. 

Here are my top tips for handling times when you do not get the grades or the marks or the scores that you require at university or in other education settings and I hope that they're useful for you on your journey. Number one is first off give yourself time to process. We've just spoken a lot about that, people often tell you that they dismiss bad grades and they'll try harder next time, they say don't dwell on it, please let the past go, letting your mind wander over the mistakes all the time, but as a student it feels like allowing yourself to wallow in that grief and despondence can sometimes help you gain a perspective that you need to face the next challenge, so channel your emotions in the best way possible for you, But do allow yourself time, extra time, including extra extra time, to think about what happened, you deserve to have a little bit of time for yourself to vent your frustrations when you are upset and let other people support you. Then you can start to look at what you need to do to practice and move forward. The second one is calculate and evaluate. So in this one, once you've received your marks, you should think over your performance in that particular subject for the past few exams. 

Trying to estimate or analyze the impact of a bad grade or a poor grade or a poor mark might put things into perspective in that the weighting of certain assessments doesn't always have significant impact on your grades or your overall grade point average. And so understanding how these fit into the wider scheme of your units that you're studying and how to recover from it can provide you with a sensibility about what you need to do moving forward. So think about what is the minimum amount you need to do based on where you want to go with your marks performance or grade from your subjects and work harder to put your best foot forward in that area knowing that you've had a setback and there's always a silver lining from having missed grades that do not meet the mark. Sometimes it actually pushes you forward to do better the next time. I really like this next tip, it's keep calm and carry on. 

Once you've had a chance to vent your frustrations, once you understand exactly what's happening with your grades, your scores, your marks, now it's time to put the most crucial stage of dealing with the bad mark and getting it sorted out into practice. So forgive and forget so you don't let one grade have power over you. It's really important. Your response to what happens next will impact your performance for the next time. So the only way to successfully get over the problem is to move ahead and not continually keep looking back. Looking back into the past is a sure way of reducing your capacity for success moving forward. So don't let the stress beat you, don't beat yourself up too much, keep calm and carry forward. Identifying your weaknesses number four, so making sure that you understand and discern what has happened in the mistake. Know exactly where your gaps are. So for me personally, I was really really good at research assignments and essays. I was not so good at the tests, didn't like exams, didn't like tests. 

You need to make sure that you put your best foot forward and identify your weaknesses. And specifically it's the things that you don't necessarily do well. For example, semantic knowledge goes into your memory a lot better than say phonetic learning. So if you are really good at making meaning of the content in your classes, you're likely going to have a capacity to do exams to a greater extent. So sit down with your tutor, your classmate, your lecturer, your teacher, your friend, a parent. Ask them for advice. What are you good at? What do you need help with? and then work out how you can leverage your gaps in your strengths and weaknesses and push the strengths forward and pick up the slack in the weaknesses and being able to use the best tactics that help you to improve your future. 

Number 5. As I said, working on the gaps, make sure that you put in place specific strategies that best address the problems that you have. strategies will be targeted specifically towards your needs. For example, if you ran out of time during a test, practice exam or something like that, you might need to have a strategy that allows you to allocate your time appropriately. So make sure that you sit down and work out how to allocate your time appropriately. That can also be in concert with leading up to assessments. you map out your time before an assessment was due. Number 6. Tackle it next time. If you are working in a subject and sure you keep your calm and maintain your cool, keep your mind in the frame of vision that you are going to need to improve moving forward. Be confident about your efforts but do not overestimate the complexity in the exam or a subject or an assessment. So before you attempt questions in an essay format, in a research proposal or in an exam sitting, collect your thoughts and try not to be too impulsive when you begin. Make sure that you understand the anxiety you are feeling now, don't get stressed and overwhelmed. Turn around, take a deep breath, tell yourself you know this, you got this and then get the grade that you deserve based on the effort you've put in. 

Regardless of what type of learning you're doing in the mental health domain, we all get bad grades at one time or not. We can all share a story of a grade that just happened to be I deleted that file, I had to resubmit my work, that is a personal one for me, I actually did do that at university, you completely misunderstood the five short answer exam questions and failed that test and you need to keep moving forward to get another pass mark in a reset. Take these tips, really important tips, make sure that you give yourself time to process what's happened. 

Calculate and evaluate what does the impact of that poor mark or grade say about your overall standing in the program or course you're in. Keep calm and carry on, identify your weaknesses, work on the gaps, tackle it next time that it comes around so that you know that you've got the best chance to be able to get the grades you do want. So there you go folks, they're my top tips for when you have a bad grade or mark or score that you didn't want and also how to deal with tough transition periods in your life, including in education setting. I hope you've got something out of this. Good morning, good afternoon or good evening. This is Dr Paul signing off. (upbeat music)