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Express appreciation: to yourself
Appreciate your greatness
It’s well known, in the circles of positive psychology, that expressing appreciation is a powerful tool for improving relationships and performance. Usually we think of expressing appreciation to someone else– someone who has done something for us or with us, whose contribution we want to acknowledge.
We don’t often think of expressing appreciation to ourselves, about ourselves. In fact, in workshops I offer when we get to this part, people are often stymied. What can I appreciate about myself?
Appreciation means “perceiving value” and “expressing gratitude.”
Test anxiety: hitting a wall
When you hit a wall: grow something slowly. You will break through.
One of the things test stress can do is get you to feel like you can’t do anything. You feel like you’ve hit a wall. Everything looks too big, too insurmountable, too daunting. You shut down and collapse. Some people spin in place. The talk in your head sounds like this: There’s too much to do, I’ll never be able to accomplish what I want to, I won’t do well… on and on. [If this happens to you I'm sure you know what I'm talking about and could supply your own script].
This kind of talk is, literally, self-defeating. The way things work is on a
Are you anxious about an upcoming test?
What's your body doing?
Let’s start out with this rule of thumb:
When you are thinking of of an upcoming test (or anything else in the future), remember to breathe.
Here’s a very common experience for test-takers: “My test is next Tuesday (or tomorrow). YIKES!” Your heart rate goes up, your blood starts rushing, your stomach wrenches. You know the routine.
I don’t know about you, but often, when I’m thinking about something that I have coming up later today or tomorrow or next week (and it doesn’t have to be as stressful as a test), I find myself getting a little amped up. What do I mean by “amped up”? Continue reading
Open the book to any page…
A close friend of mine — a nurse at an inner city high school – told me the following story…
“I was in my office and an 11th grader came in all distraught worked up. This is one tough kid– she’s had many troubles in her life, and has gotten into a lot of trouble too. She’s usually closed down and angry. On the day she came into my office she was very upset — she’d had had a bad fight with a close friend who rejected her. She was angry and ready to strike out. I didn’t know what to do with her. She couldn’t sit still. When I glimpsed The Workbook for Test Success …
Anxious thoughts? Observe your body
Anxiety: where are you feeling it?
This week I had an experience I’d like to tell you about.
I have a summer engagement working with professional actors who are recording the voices to a well-known video game.
In the middle of one of the recording sessions I found myself starting to worry about something. What I was worrying about isn’t the point here. The point is I was…
Comparison is a trap: avoid getting caught
If you’re a student, summer is a good time to take stock of your habits, particularly what kind of habits help you to succeed, and what habit hinder your progress.
One of the least helpful habits is comparing yourself to others – your classmates, your siblings, your parents, celebrities you idolize (athletes, musicians, actors). Have you noticed
Distracted by your own negative thinking?
One of the chief ways we become distracted is by our own thinking. We start thinking about the past or the future or about something else other than what’s going on now, in the present. When we’re distracted we lose focus and then it’s much harder to progress towards our goals. Our stress goes up and our performance is compromised – whether it’s on a test or when we’re facing any challenge in life. We literally fall off the path.
An example of this is when we become distracted by our own old fears. I can’t handle this, I’m not good enough, I can’t keep it together…and other negative thinking. “Negative” here means minus-ing, taking away from. But taking
Tension in your system?
Are you tense?
At a recent lecture I gave at the University of California San Francisco medical school, I was teaching the first year students how to use the calming tools: breathing, grounding and sensing.
Breathing is by far the most important of all 9 tools in the performance model. So much has been said and written about breathing, and no wonder! When we don’t breathe regularly it causes all sorts of mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual problems.
After we worked on grounding, one of the students had a brilliant observation. First, to remind you:
The best tool for staying focused
Use a timer: you'll stay focused
Often people ask me “What’s the best way to stay focused?”
Here’s what I recommend: use a timer. Whether it’s on your digital watch, your i-pad, your cell phone, or one that you set up on your computer, I’ve found the timer to be my biggest aide to staying focused.
The procedure goes like this:
Teachers cheating. Why has it come to this?
Cheating is not an option
The New York Times ran a story recently titled: Pressed to Show Progress, Educators Tamper with Test Scores. The article is about teachers supplying their students with test questions and in some cases, changing the answer sheets, all to raise their students’ scores.
Why would a teacher, a role model for his or her students, take such a drastic action?
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