There is something about the word ‘exam’ or ‘tests’ that fills us all with foreboding and dread. Some students start seeing words swim in front of their eyes, others forget to read the instructions on the question paper properly and, in worse case scenarios, some students completely blank out and can’t remember anything. Well, sweaty palms, breathing difficulty, inability to concentrate are some other symptoms of exam stress that students report. The problem is that no matter how well you have prepared during the year the onset of exams will definitely bring out those butterflies to some extent or the other. So let’s take a closer look at strategies you can use to stay calm and ensure a better performance during those exams.

Develop small study goals and a reward mechanism for each time that you achieve those set goals. This is probably the most obvious and creating a time-table to complete those chapters is the most basic strategy that you can utilise. However, unless you have a system to reward yourself when you achieve those goals you might find that your motivation starts to go down with time. So whether it is a strictly 30-minute slot for playing your favourite game or hanging out with your friends once a week, small regular rewards do keep us motivated and excited about our goals.

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Many a time we hide a yawn in class, because even though the presenter knows the subject matter, they are unable to enthuse students with their presentation skills. Increasingly, communicating your big ideas to a large audience is becoming de rigueur and all of us need to ensure that we develop a good style of presentation.

Structure

When we are planning our presentation the points should be distributed between the Introduction, Main Content and Conclusion. It is best to indicate to the audience in the beginning about what to expect and the structure of the talk. The points covered in the talk need to be organized systematically and logically. This is a frequent error by inexperienced speakers where they move haphazardly from one point to the other. The content of your talk should answer questions the audience might have about the topic, so while preparing the talk think about the topic in terms of: What, Why and How? Practise and plan the timing of your talk such that you don’t spend too much time on a few slides and then have to rush through the remaining.

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“What’s new” is something that we think and say when we deal with our friends, plan our holidays, go shopping or eat out. So when we go out to watch a movie we look for a new storyline or new actors. When we plan on buying a mobile we want the latest model or whatever is new in the market. We are constantly seeking new experiences and when we use something new it does temporarily revive us and makes us feel happier till of course we get used to that and seek something afresh again. The new external or material things give us temporary happiness and a momentary mood lift which we all crave. Yet when it comes to our personal habits and personal way of doing things we all resist “the new” and choose to stay within our comfort zones. But if we really think about it the real new only comes when we resolve to make a change in our own lives.

Change and the workplace

But how can your personal ease of adapting to change impact your career you might wonder. The metamorphosis of one thing in the world has a domino effect on every life and every career. For example, demonetization of currency has just not impacted bankers and economists; it can potentially change the way business will be conducted in all domains. Similar changes were seen with the advent of personal computers, laptops, mobiles, etc. Technology is moving so fast that every few years, if not every year, there is a change that transforms how we work. The reality is even if we don’t consciously want to change ourselves the world around us is constantly changing. Thus we could either resist those changes or take it in our stride and embrace them.  A simple exercise of buying a mobile can demonstrate how many models are created every few months by each major player. The decision making is mind-boggling and yet we all want the variety.

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Once the festive season arrives, all of us begin preparations with great enthusiasm. All the attention gets focused upon the sweets, the lights, the presents, etc. But there are some amongst us who will remind us what the true spiritual meaning of these festivals is and without this faith the festival just becomes a holiday. Our careers to some extent are like this; we could focus upon the salary, the promotion, the perks and forget that the true meaning of a good career is also fulfilment, happiness and self-actualization. Traditional advice from society has always been that you do this practical/sometimes mind-numbing activity for now and follow your passions later. But in today’s workplace it is possible to integrate the logical bill-paying career with passion such that that we find joy in what we do and feel a sense of contentment. Thus modern career counselling approaches people holistically such that they can work with their strengths and passions.

Questions to ask before making career decisions:

1. Will this career involve things that I “want to do” or will the major part of the career be things I “have to do”?

2. Will this career play up to my strengths and help me grow or will it mainly focus upon my weaknesses?

My suggestion would be to choose a career that will have a larger proportion of things that you want to do and that will primarily play to your assets. Once we focus upon this mindset in our lives and make working with our strengths, our compass, we will find that automatically we will move in a more positive direction and will increase our chances of success.

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Opportunities and possibilities for innovation are all around us and businesses worldwide are striving to capture the market with a new product, an innovation or a unique solution to a pre-existing problem. Today, creativity and innovation are assets in all professions as consumers constantly desire new products. To quote Albert Einstein: “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” As the rapid growth of technology solves and creates new problems the requirement in the workplace is for professionals who can bring fresh perspective to problems and think of novel solutions. Here are some ways you can encourage your own creativity to blossom:

1. Playful learning: Very often while learning we are encouraged to accept concepts as absolute truths. As if they are not open for query? But in reality the entire universe is evolving and so is the knowledge within it. A fun way of developing your creativity is to play games like “Just imagine if …” or ask questions like “What if …?” When you learn to playfully challenge old knowledge you are gradually training your mind to create multiple solutions to the same problem and to form novel connections between pre-existing pieces of information.

2. Imagine being rich and abundant: Sometimes, when we are trying to think of new solutions, we limit ourselves by the availability of current resources and shoot down ideas which require additional assets. This is a classic way of limiting our own minds and the solutions we provide. At the brainstorming stage of the project let your mind be loose and free. Write down all the probable solutions without limiting yourself by the practicality of the solution. Once all the ideas are jotted down you could then go back and see what resources are required. This complete free-style of thinking will again encourage you to develop the habit of opening your mind to all possibilities.

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I can only imagine the mindset of a sportsperson like Dipa Karmakar, the Indian gymnast who missed a medal by just a small fraction in the recently-ended Rio Olympics despite having put her best effort into the performance. When we are competing in a competitive environment it only stands to reason that there will be moments (despite having given all that we have got) when we will not make the cut and get that medal or admission or whatever else we were training and aspiring for.

Expect and accept setbacks: There are so many factors that go to make up the mosaic of success that it is very difficult to pinpoint what exactly went right or propelled you to win on that one particular day. Being reflective or introspective during times of success is a great trait to keep yourself grounded and charged to propel yourself even further. If we let success go to our heads and begin to think that we will never fail then our ego crumbles completely when we do fail or don’t get that top spot. Just like success comes our way so will failure. If we expect and accept the fact that we will be thwarted sometimes and succeed on others then automatically we can take failure in our stride and deal with it more matter-of-factly.

Positive self-talk and self-compassion: The biggest challenge in the face of defeat is self-doubt. In many ways we are our own enemies and very often we will run our own selves down by negative self-talk like “I am not good enough,” etc. But if we can take the setback in our stride then there are two important ways that you can displace and reduce self-doubt which can threaten to overwhelm you in a time like this. This is a very positive way of ensuring that you will keep working hard and giving your best to the next opportunity that comes your way.

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“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What! You, too? I thought I was the only one.” 
~ C. S. Lewis

When we are with friends who understand us we don’t feel alone, and the sense of belonging gives us security.There is something very comforting about following other people and doing what everybody else is doing. The power of friendship is such that not only our friends but our “friends of friends” can also influence our lives. Thus, how we manage our friendships in school/college can eventually have a bearing on our ethics, work habits and most significantly our career paths.

Whether we like it or not every now and then we tag along with our friends and do the same activity that they are doing. If your friend is going to the gym regularly there is a reasonable chance that you might be tempted to go along to keep them company. Similarly, if your friend is going out for a smoke you might tag along to just hang out and inhale smoke passively. Friends can sometimes goad us to take risks that we are not comfortable with and very often it becomes difficult to say no or to walk away. To quote J. K. Rowling in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: “It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but a great deal more to stand up to your friends.” The strong desire to be “liked”, to “fit in” to be considered “cool” by our friends are universal desires and cuts across all age groups. It is for this reason that friends have a great influence on our lives and can help us nurture our goals or take us away from them.

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Young students never cease to amaze me. At a recently concluded examination stress workshop I asked the clichéd question that we all ask to demonstrate the power of positive thinking: Is the glass half full or half empty? Needless to say that if you think that the glass is half full then you are approaching the situation positively and if you think that the glass is half empty then you are viewing it negatively. However the answer that completely stunned me during this workshop was from a young student. “The glass is full to the brim: half with water and half with air.” Now that is the true power of positive thinking where not only are you able to see reality in a positive light but you are also able to imbue a positive glow on the negatives as well. Just like that glass all of us are full to the brim: half with strengths and half with challenges that are truly opportunities in disguise.

During the same workshop on exam stress another student raised the concern that his mind blanked out during an exam even though he knew the majority of the questions but the tough questions blew the fuse in his mind and made it blank. To follow Aristotle who said, “We are what we repeatedly do,” I encouraged him to try and systematically incorporate positive thinking in his day-to-day life.

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Swati came to my office recently and spoke about her inability to focus and concentrate when she’s up against a deadline. The harder she tried to concentrate the more it eluded her and her mind kept wandering till the time was up and she did not have much to show for her effort. All of us have been troubled with this inability to get into the zone of productivity and underperformed. Swati asked me if I could suggest some techniques which would enable her to switch on her ability to concentrate when she needed to work.

Understand the reason

Ask yourself some simple questions such as why you are unable to complete the task. Is it because you don’t find the task interesting at all? Or is it that you are scared you can’t do better than your friends? Or is it that the pressure to perform is too high? Conduct this dialogue in the language closest to your heart and see what happens. Once you have an idea as to why you are having trouble you could seek assistance to start addressing the root of the problem.

Remove distractions

Concentration is defined as the ability to focus all of one’s attention on the given task. So naturally we can assume that if our attention is divided then we cannot focus. Those pings on WhatsApp, Facebook and email are subtle but insidious ways that reduce our ability to concentrate.

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As we near the result declaration time I see a lot of stressed faces in my office as students are trying to make that one perfect decision and one perfect career plan. The big question looming in everybody’s mind is — what next? The responsibility of making the right choice is immense and what fun would it be if God were to send us down with a lovely scroll in our hands providing guidelines about the best choices we could make. Since God has not set any such tradition let’s look at how to make a good decision and how to analyze the information that is out there.

So what’s the best way to plan for this exciting journey that is life and full of possibilities for success for you?

Understanding yourself

The questions you should be asking yourself:  Am I a people’s person? Do I enjoy working with numbers? Can I see myself sitting in front of a computer or in front of books all day? Or am I an outdoorsy kind of a person? Do a focused self-examination to assess your own interests, your capabilities and most importantly identify the drivers or the passions in our system. You need to balance those with the negatives — the traits you don’t have and areas that you are absolutely not interested in.

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