How to pass exams Part 3…

“When I look into the future, it’s so bright it burns my eyes.”
Oprah Winfrey

That’s enough about the past, let’s flip it around now and talk about the future, [drum roll please…]

(Above image used with kind permission © Pip Wilson and Ian Long,
not to be published without written permission from www.blobtree.com)

If I was to ask you, how do you FEEL about your future, which blob would you be?

(BTW Blobs aren’t male or female, black or white, they’re just blobs!)

Which blob are you right now?

Maybe you feel like you’ve nearly made it and you’re on the right track, or you’ve stopped halfway over the bridge and still have a lot of questions, or maybe you are literally hanging on by your fingernails and no-one really knows it. More people have been there than you realise.

Your feelings make you special and unique, they should never be dismissed or put down because they make you who you are. However, the great news is this…we have choices and are not ruled by our feelings.

We can change the way we feel.

Wherever you are on the blob bridge you’re not stuck, if we waited until we felt like going to school some of us would never get to school at all! One of the great things about life is that no matter how we feel now, by putting a few things into practice we can change the way we feel about learning. e.g. If you don’t like maths and walk into school saying this to yourself, and then you line up outside the classroom telling your mates ‘I hate maths, we all hate maths, everybody hates maths!’, what’s going to happen in class?

[ Based on years of research you can read more about Lee’s work at http://leejackson.org/education/howtoenjoyandsucceedatschoolandcollege ]

Is it going to be a good maths lesson? No, because our feelings, thoughts and actions have steered that day into an ‘I hate maths’ day. We’ve made ourselves and our mates hate maths by shining a massive big searchlight on it.

The more we focus on something the bigger it becomes. Sometimes we have to change our focus or move the searchlight to a more positive place.

Put another way, when your favourite song comes on the radio it can really change the way you feel. If you are in public you might tap your fingers, move your feet or even smile, but if you are at home you might sing out loud or even do a silly dance.

Our feelings can change for the better, and I hope this blog will help you to do just that, to feel and act more positively towards school and college.

So you can do well and have more fun along the way.

There’s no point being successful if we are lonely and don’t smile or even dance stupidly once in a while! We can steer our feelings in the right direction by what we say, do and think. Life is 10% about what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.

We can’t control every aspect of our lives but we can have a lot of control over our emotions, whether we feel like we do or not.

Action Point:
How do you feel about your future? What actions can you take to be more in control?

More to come…

This an excerpt from Top UK School Speaker Lee Jackson’s book “How To Enjoy And Succeed At School And College” 

Available in paperback and on Kindle (for only £1.99 during pre-exam time) here now.