Failure stings a bit. But it’s a normal and necessary part of life and learning.
Failure makes us wiser and smarter. How? Because it teaches us valuable lessons. These lessons allow us to recalibrate our lives.
After my biggest failures I’ve always thought, “I don’t want to experience that ever again!”, so I take a good hard look at my life. And I course correct.
Here’s what I’ve learnt over the years …
We learn the most from failure and errors, not big successes.
Below are two examples of two big life fails I’ve experienced:
Failure: I got 1 out of 20 on my first test at law school
Realisation: “I have no idea how to study effectively!”
Course correction: I learnt how to study effectively (I read books, did courses, etc.)
Lesson learnt: Once you learn how to learn, you can learn information quickly and efficiently.
Failure: When I was 8 years old, I kept failing multiplication tests
Realisation: “I don’t know my times tables. I need help!”
Course correction: I learnt my times tables with my dad’s help
Lesson learnt: Never ever give up. You can get better at anything if you’re willing to put in the time and effort.
Failure doesn’t mean you’re dumb. Failure actually means you’re putting yourself out there and having a go. Without failure we have no mistakes. Without mistakes, how can you possibly learn anything new?
The only way to avoid failure is to never put yourself out there. Say nothing. Do nothing. Be nothing. How comfortable do you feel with that kind of existence?
So why are we so afraid of failure?
One word: perfectionism.
Our culture promotes perfectionism. Watch a selection of Walt Disney films and you’ll quickly see a pattern begin to emerge: perfect prince meets perfect princess and they end up living happily ever after.
Log onto social media and scroll through your feed. You’ll see a range of highly curated images of what looks like people living perfect lives.
Pick up any woman’s magazine. You’ll see page after page of perfect (photoshopped) women.
We begin to think that this is how life works: if I act perfect and look perfect, then life will be blissfully perfect. But it doesn’t work like this. Life is a lot messier than a Walt Disney film. Look behind the perfect selfie and I guarantee things aren’t as perfect as they seem.
Where do we go wrong with failure?
We think because we fail a test or an exam that it means we are failures. It actually just means you don’t know the information very well. Instead of beating yourself up, go do some extra study. Yes, it will feel uncomfortable. But this is the only way you’re going to get better.
Strategies for dealing with failure
Instead of feeling sorry for yourself when you experience failure or make a mistake, test out these strategies instead:
1. Cultivate a growth mindset with a Growth Mindset Journal
Think about what you can learn from this experience. Tell yourself, “I’m not there yet, but with practice I’ll get there”.
To support the development of your growth mindset it’s a good idea to start a Growth Mindset Journal.
Here’s how it works:
Every time you don’t achieve what you set out to do, write it down.
You want to jot down some thoughts on how you can view the ‘failure’ from the perspective of a growth mindset.
A Growth Mindset Journal can help to fast track the formation of your growth mindset. But not only that, it desensitises you to the sting and pain that failure can bring!
2. Be gentle on yourself
You wouldn’t yell at a baby who was learning to walk, “You’re useless! You keep falling over. What’s wrong with you?”.
So what makes it okay for you to torture yourself over making mistakes when you’re learning something new?
Remind yourself that you’re still learning. Look at yourself in the mirror and say out loud “Mistakes are a normal and necessary part of learning”. Do this everyday until this idea sinks deeply into your psyche.
3. The reality show technique
Take a step back from the situation and replay the events as if you were watching a scene from a reality TV show. With a bit of emotional distance and objectivity, what lessons can you learn from this? What would a home viewer make of what just happened?
To sum up
Remember, you’re a work in process. The reality is you’re going to make a lot of mistakes between now and the day you die. So you might as well get comfortable with this process. Don’t fight it. Welcome failure in for a warm cup of tea or hot chocolate. Get cosy with it. If you’re up for living large, failure is here to stay.
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Procrastination feels heavy.
But what if we could turn combating procrastination into a fun game?
Lately, when I catch myself avoiding a task, I’ll play a little game to see if I can get myself to move in the right direction.
I’ve discovered that it’s best to approach any task with a curious and playful mindset. If you take yourself too seriously, all the joy and fun can get stripped from the process.
Often, when I play this game, I surprise myself because the strategy works! I’ll be off and running with a task I procrastinated on for days.
But sometimes a strategy won’t work. That’s okay. When this happens, I usually take a little break before trying another approach.
I don’t claim to be a grandmaster at playing the game of combating procrastination. But these days, I can catch myself when procrastinating, notice the warning signs, and get moving in the right direction.
In this blog, I share how you can combat procrastination in a fun and playful way to fulfil your intentions and accomplish your goals.
Are you ready to play?
Let’s begin!
If you want to play this game of combating procrastination, you first need to understand what procrastination is and the rules of the game.
I recommend you play this game on your own so you’re not competing against anyone else. There’s no first or second place, no runners-up, and no one wins a trophy.
You can play with others, but it’s a collaborative game where you cheer each other on and gently coach each other into action.
It’s also a game that never ends because the work never ends. You are constantly learning and growing.
In her book ‘Procrastination: What it is, why it’s a problem and what you can do about it’ Dr Fuschia Sirois defines procrastination as:
“ . . . a common self regulation problem involving the unnecessary and voluntary delay in the start or completion of important intended tasks despite the recognition that this delay may have negative consequences.”
In other words, procrastination is:
Delaying a task + you know you are causing your Future Self pain and suffering.
There are some simple rules you need to understand to combat procrastination. Once you cement these rules in your brain, life becomes easier. Instead of experiencing constant resistance, you discover ease and flow.
Difficult work tends to bring up unpleasant emotions, such as boredom, stress, anxiety, fear, and frustration.
Most of us don’t like experiencing these feelings, so to repair our mood, we procrastinate. We avoid work and engage in easier, more fun tasks (e.g., scrolling through social media).
At the heart of combating procrastination is allowing yourself to sit with unpleasant feelings and push past them. Resist the urge to run to your devices. If you can do this, that’s 80% of the battle.
Pushing through the discomfort and making a start is a significant milestone worth celebrating.
Often, we wait for the perfect time to start a task. But it’s an illusion that there is a perfect time.
The perfect time is right now, amid the messiness and chaos of life.
“But I’m not feeling motivated!” I hear you say.
That’s okay. Make a start regardless of how you feel because here’s the part most people don’t understand:
Motivation follows action
In other words, you have to get moving for motivation to show up.
There are many great strategies and tools that can help you get started with a task, even when your motivation levels are low.
Once you have a selection of strategies and tools and you’ve practised using them a few times, you will feel more confident in your ability to combat procrastination.
Here are a few of my favourite strategies and tools for getting started with my work:
Fear is a significant driver of procrastination: fear that you won’t be able to do it, fear of failure, and fear of the unknown.
When you move your body, you decrease fear and anxiety. Movement can also help to calm and focus your mind and boost positive emotions.
This is why I start my day with a 20-30 minute run on my treadmill. It bathes my brain in feel-good chemicals, makes me feel stronger, and prepares me for the challenging work I’m about to face.
When a task feels big and overwhelming, it’s easy to procrastinate. But can you do 10 minutes on the task?
When I set a timer for 10 minutes, my brain thinks, “I can do 10 minutes. Easy!”
My brain then knows the task (and the unpleasant feelings) won’t last forever. The worst-case scenario is I experience 10 minutes of mild to moderate discomfort. When the timer goes off, I have a way out. I can do something else.
But what usually happens is after 10 minutes, I realise the task isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The motivation has kicked in, and I’m on a roll.
When struggling to write my PhD, I attended a workshop led by an academic coach. She encouraged me to “Write crap” (her words, not mine).
This helped me to get over the perfection hump and make a start.
Most (if not all) great works started as rough drafts. The problem is we don’t see those rough early versions. We only see the polished final product. This messes with our minds and can lead to perfectionist tendencies kicking in.
Embrace the first messy draft. Celebrate it! You have to do it to get to the good stuff.
In the book ‘Everything in its Place’, Dan Charnas recommends the ‘Slow-but-don’t-stop’ technique for doing things you don’t want to do.
Here’s how it works:
If you’re feeling resistance towards a task, start doing it, but move very slowly. Breathe into the discomfort. Take your time.
Charnas writes that as you use this technique:
“You’ll still hate it [the task] but your task has become a moving meditation or like a game.”
For example, I used this strategy on the weekend to sort my laundry. The first step was to pick up the basket full of clothes and place it on my bed. Then, I picked up one item at a time and put them into piles (e.g., socks, activewear, and undies). I then selected a pile of items (socks) and dealt with one item at a time.
I’d usually rush to fold my clothes and feel slightly annoyed by the whole process (“Ugh, what a chore!”), but this time, it felt different. It felt like a meditation. I felt calm and grounded as I folded my socks.
The beauty of this technique is that the work will still get done, but as Charnas points out, you don’t give up control. You still have forward momentum.
As the Mexican proverb goes:
“An ant on the move does more than a dozing ox.”
Are there things in your workspace that distract you? Is there anything that reminds you of more fun stuff you could be doing (e.g., a video game console or your phone)?
Please get rid of those things or make them harder to access.
My phone is my biggest distraction. This is why I keep it away from my body in another room whenever I need to do focused work.
I’m currently experimenting with Mel Robbin’s 5-Second Rule. The 5-Second Rule is simple:
The moment you have the instinct to do a task before your brain can come up with an excuse not to do it, you count backwards ‘5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1!’ and you do it.
In her book ‘The 5 Second Rule’ Robbins explains the psychology underpinning the strategy. She writes:
“The counting distracts you from your excuses and focuses your mind on moving in a new direction. When you physically move instead of stopping to think, your physiology changes and your mind falls in line . . . the Rule is (in the language of habit research) a “starting ritual” that activates the prefrontal cortex, helping to change your behavior.”
The ultimate way to combat procrastination is to create a habit or a ritual. You need something that signals to your brain it’s time to engage in a particular behaviour.
With habits, you don’t have to stop and think, “What do I need to do now?”. Habits are automatic. Your brain knows exactly what it needs to do, and you do it.
For example, I have a habit of running on my treadmill before I launch into my day. My brain knows that after I put on my gym clothes and shoes, I turn on my treadmill and hit the speed button to start my warm-up.
I carry these behaviours out even when I’m not in the mood to run. That’s the power of habits.
Then, I suggest you cut yourself some slack.
Forgive yourself for procrastinating, pick a strategy, and get moving.
Most of us don’t do this, though.
We bag ourselves out in an attempt to motivate ourselves. The problem is this rarely works.
Dr Sirois says that intense self-criticism leads to negative thoughts, which lead to negative feelings. We end up feeling demotivated, which causes us to procrastinate even more!
You can stop the vicious cycle of procrastination by practising being kind to yourself.
If you follow these simple rules and be playful with experimenting with these strategies, you can get a better handle on procrastination.
Like anything in life, the key is practice. The more you practice allowing yourself to feel the unpleasant emotions instead of running from them, the better you’ll do. The more times you practice a strategy, the more natural it will feel and the sooner it will become a habit.
One foot in front of the other. You can do this.
This means you need to prepare yourself mentally and physically for them.
You can work so hard to memorise large quantities of information for an exam, but if you’re not mentally and physically prepared, all that hard work can sadly go to waste.
When it comes time to take your exams, you have to relate to yourself as a professional athlete. Leading up to the day of the big performance (i.e. the exam), you need to eat nutritious food, be in the right frame of mind, manage your nerves, and allow your body to rest. These simple things can make all the difference to your exam performance.
You may be thinking “But isn’t this just common sense?”
It is! But creating healthy habits takes time and practice.
It’s one thing to intellectually know you should be eating well but it’s another thing altogether to incorporate healthy meals and snacks into your lifestyle.
I see a lot of students drinking energy drinks, getting very little sleep, and eating highly processed foods in the days leading up to exams. I have to admit, there was a time when I engaged in these behaviours too. I can tell you from personal experience, this is a recipe for mediocre grades and a miserable existence.
Here are my top 10 tips to prevent burnout and boost exam performance:
Sleep is critical to the learning process, exam performance, and wellbeing. Yet it’s usually the first thing students sacrifice to get more study done.
If you miss two hours of sleep each night for a week, the cognitive effects are as bad as going without sleep for two days straight!
Studies have also found that if you stay awake for 18 hours straight that’s like having a blood alcohol level of 0.05. In other words, it’s like being legally drunk. Your ability to focus, think, and learn will be seriously impaired.
You can’t adapt to getting less sleep. As adolescents, you need about 9-10 hours of sleep per night to be as alert as possible when you wake up.
If that feels unachievable, try to just get an extra 15 minutes of sleep tonight. Gradually increase this each night until you reach your target.
Often students stop exercising when they start preparing for exams. They think “I don’t have time to exercise!”. It’s as if they think they must spend every moment studying. Don’t fall into this trap.
Movement is your friend when it comes to studying for exams.
Research shows engaging in regular physical movement will help you to study more effectively. Firstly, it’s a great way to relieve stress and release feel good chemicals. Secondly, it gets the blood flowing more efficiently to your brain, which can give you a cognitive boost.
One study found students who engaged in 5 minute movement breaks every 17 minutes during a lecture retained more information and could focus better.
Every time you engage in a short movement break, you’re enhancing your study sessions.
Research has found that students who skip breakfast experience a decrease in cognitive performance and alertness compared to students who eat breakfast.
Eating a nutritious breakfast will give you a cognitive boost before an exam. It will also help you to feel fuller for longer, stabilise your mood, and give you plenty of energy to get through the exam.
Here are some healthy breakfast ideas:
Muesli or porridge with nuts and fresh fruit (e.g., berries) Wholemeal toast with a variety of toppings (e.g., baked beans, tomatoes, and avocado) and a piece of fruit A healthy homemade smoothie (click here for my brain boosting smoothie recipe)
Your brain requires adequate hydration to function properly. Drinking water ensures that your brain receives the necessary fluids to perform tasks efficiently, such as retaining information and problem-solving.
Take regular sips of water as you study. It’s a good idea to have a glass of water or a reusable drink bottle within arms reach.
You may even want to create a tiny habit to remind yourself to engage in this simple behaviour (e.g., “After I finish answering a practice exam question, I will take a sip of water”).
Many years ago, I started thinking that my teachers and lecturers were out to get me. I thought they would mark me down wherever they got the chance. As a result of this distorted thinking, I became too scared to write anything in one of my first tests at law school. After receiving a terrible grade (5%), my brother said to me:
“Remember sis, your teachers want you to do well. They will try to give you marks wherever they can. It’s in their best interest to do so.”
Don’t worry about writing a perfect answer. If you’re unsure, be brave and still write something down. Even if it’s just a few dot points, it’s better than nothing. You may not get any marks for it, but your teachers won’t take marks off.
Just remember, most of the time your teachers are on your side and they want you to succeed. When you do well, it makes them look good.
Chances are there will always be something that you could have studied more thoroughly come the day of your exam. But on the morning of an exam, you can’t do much about that, so there’s no point worrying. Worrying will just deplete your finite energy, which you need to conserve for the exam.
Instead of worrying, try saying this to yourself before each exam:
“I now know so much more than I did before. I’ll be able to answer many questions in this exam.”
Telling yourself this positive micro-thought will allow you to enter the exam in a calm and confident frame of mind.
It’s normal to feel a bit nervous before an exam. But there are certain things and people that can push your anxiety levels into dangerous territory and impair your exam performance.
For example, coffee and energy drinks will skyrocket your stress levels. Similarly, hanging out with people who have a lot of nervous energy and are venting about the exam (“I’m going to fail!” and “I hardly studied!”) are going to leave you feeling distracted and a little jangled.
Before the exam, do your best to isolate yourself from these people. If you’re worried about offending someone who is venting to you, you could say “I’m sorry but I really need to do some last minute cramming”. Then proceed to pull out your notes and pretend to read them.
How many times have you stayed back after an exam to talk to your friends about what you put for each question? Have you ever felt terrible after doing this?
It can be reassuring to know that you wrote the same answer as your friends. But if you find out that you wrote something completely different, you may start to second guess yourself. If you have another four or five exams to go, this may throw you off your game.
This is why I don’t recommend engaging in a postmortem of the exam until you get your results/exam paper back.
When you walk out of the exam room, tell yourself:
“That exam is over. There’s nothing I can do to change how I went. It’s time to move on!”.
You could imagine yourself locking the exam in a box and throwing it off a cliff or rolling it up and stuffing it in a bottle and throwing it out to sea. The point is you need to mentally disconnect from that exam and focus on studying for the next one.
If you come across a question that you’re not sure how to answer, stop for a moment and take a few deep breaths (in for the count of 4 and out for the count of 4).
A simple breath activity you can try is the Box Breathing Technique. This involves imagining yourself breathing along the sides of a box (breathing in for the count of four on one side, out for the count of four on the next side, etc). Repeat this 2-3 times. Then take a look at the question again.
If you are still unsure how to answer the question, move on to another question.
The worst thing you can do is panic (remember, stress impairs your ability to think and recall information).
By engaging in Box Breathing, you can help yourself to remain in a calm and stable state.
Many of us are familiar with writer’s cramp. This can be caused by gripping onto your pen too tightly. Try loosening your grip a little.
Alternatively, experiment with a range of different pens. Some biros require you to press down hard on the page to make a mark, but not gel pens. The ink just flows onto the page!
The reality is, even with a good gel pen, your elbow will start to hurt at some point if you’re taking a 3 hour exam. When it does start to hurt, have a rest for a few seconds (yes, you have time to do this). Stretch your arm out. Shake it a little.
Treat each exam like a mountain hike rather than a 100 metre sprint. Resting for a few moments here and there will be time well spent and will enhance your overall performance.
These simple strategies can help to elevate your exam performance. My advice is to start small. Even if your exams are several weeks away, select one or two of these ideas and start testing them out today. At first, the strategies will require a bit of mental effort. But like anything in life, if you persevere they’ll become second nature to you and they’ll just be things you do without even thinking.
Want to learn more exam strategies? Click here to download a free copy of 70 ways to ace your exams.
The standards are ridiculously high.
All those perfect bodies, perfect meals, perfect smiles and perfectly decorated homes can make you feel lousy.
Could all these perfect images be messing with your brain?
Absolutely.
This why late last year I took the plunge and deleted all my social media accounts. All that social comparison (and the general toxic vibe) was getting me down. It may be getting you down, too.
You’ve probably seen the following optical illusion: The Muller-Lyer illusion
In this illusion lines of the same length appear to be different lengths. But they’re not. The lines are exactly the same length.
I love optical illusions because they show us how the human mind can play tricks on us. We are so sure we are right about something (“That line is longer!”) but it turns out, we’re wrong.
Social media presents us with a highly curated version of other people’s lives. You’re exposed to the very best bits. This distorts your perception of reality.
As Professor Dr Laurie Santos states:
“If you imagine people have a plot in their life of like things that are just kind of super boring, or bad, or to things that are awesome, people aren’t snap chatting this stuff [the super boring and bad stuff] unless it’s like really funny . . . they’re usually snap chatting this stuff [the awesome stuff], right?
So you’re not seeing the right distribution. But in your own life, you see the distribution. You look at other people’s Snapchats and you’re like, “Everybody else’s life is awesome and everybody else is like doing cool things that I’m not.”
It’s in our biology to trust what we see with your eyes. So we get easily fooled into believing the highlight reel on social media.
Behind the edited photos, we can’t see the other person’s struggles.
But unlike most of the people you follow on social media, you know yourself well. You know that your life is not all ponies, kittens and rainbows. Life is messy.
If I was to fill your social media feed with the thoughts and feelings of some of the students that I have worked with, here is what some status updates would say:
• “My teachers are talking too fast. I can’t keep up! #feelingstupid”
• “I find myself swinging from not eating at all to snacking excessively. What is wrong with me?”
• “I can’t sleep at night. I manage 1 to 2 hours max. I am sooooo tired.”
• “My maths teacher is a bully. She told me to start using the big brain that is inside my tiny head. My mental health is going down hill because of her.”
• “My ex-boyfriend is toxic. I have to see him everyday at school. Ugh. It’s awful.”
• “I can’t find part-time work. I need a job. No one wants to hire me. Why don’t they want me?”
• “I’m drowning in work. I don’t know how to study. I’m not sure I can do ATAR.”
• “Some boys were making jokes about my arms. They were saying I have hairy arms. So what did I do after school today? I shaved off all the hair on my arms.”
• “I keep failing OLNA. I can’t do maths. I think there must be something wrong with my brain. I need to get a diagnosis.”
• “On my first day of school I felt sick and I threw up before going to school. I felt so sick and anxious when I arrived at class. . . I really wanted to make a good first impression on my first day but I feel like I blew it.”
• “Now I’m in year 11 and things are more serious. I have to think about my future . . . it’s a bit scary because I have no idea what I want to do.”
When I talk to students, I can often see the worried look in their eyes. Their eyes say . . .
“What the hell is wrong with me?”
But here’s what I want to say to these students . . .
“There is nothing wrong with you. You’re perfectly fine. You’re doing just fine.”
The bottom line is this . . .
That doesn’t make you weird or defective. That just makes you human.
In the book Happy, Healthy Minds by the School of Life, the authors say the solution is simple:
I realise this sounds really harsh. But here’s what they mean by this . . .
We all do foolish things.
We all feel anxious and nervous from time to time.
We all bomb out on tests and assignments.
But that’s okay!
Remember, you are human.
Accepting you’re an idiot (just like everyone else) should give you some freedom to try new things. Next time things don’t quite turn out, you’re less likely to beat yourself up. You can practice a little self compassion.
The School of Life also says it’s important to remember this . . .
“ Every so often, things will go right: we make a friend, we get a part in the play, we learn a language . . . “
In short, life doesn’t have to be perfect to be good.
So embrace your quirks. Accept you’ll make mistakes. And please, go easy on yourself.
Dr Jane Genovese delivers interactive sessions on learning to learn, combating procrastination, exam preparation, how to focus in the age of distraction, habit formation and much, much more!
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