Staying motivated for your last exam

When you have a number of exams spread across a couple of weeks it can be easy to get burnt out and stop studying for the last one or two. You might feel like you’ve put all your energy into your first two exams, and you don’t have enough energy to keep up your studying stamina for another week.

However, it’s quite possible your strongest subject is coincidentally at the end of the exam period. Remember that almost all your subjects are weighted equally, so all the exams are important!

Here are some tips on how you can stop yourself getting burnt out and tired during the exam period.

Make a schedule

Write up a schedule of what you want to get done every day between now and the end of exams. Be specific about what you’re going to get done, for example, “Chemistry: 2014 VCAA exam”. Make your study goals realistic, but also make sure you’re working hard. This is the last time you’ll have to study for these subjects, so put in your best effort!

In terms of making your goals realistic, don’t convince yourself that you’re going to get up at 7 am and study consistently until 8 pm, with one break for lunch. You might be able to do this for one day, but it’s not a sustainable study method.

Set yourself up for productive study

When it gets close to exams, it might feel like a good idea to go all out and start cramming and studying crazy hours. However, if you have a long exam period, this is unsustainable. When you’re studying, you need to make sure you’re taking regular short breaks, like going for a 15-minute walk, so that you can keep working.

Keep your phone away from your study area, and only check it during your breaks. This is especially true if some of your friends have finished their exams and have forgotten that you’re still in exam mode.

When you relax, really relax

It can be easy to get caught up in total exam mode and forget how to relax. However, when you’re taking a break from study, do your best to completely switch off from it. Schedule in relaxation times, which could be something like watching your favourite TV show, going for a swim, or catching up with a friend (and promising not to talk about study!)

If you have a really long break before your last exam and you’re feeling prepared, it might even be a good idea to schedule a whole day off. You could get out of the house and take yourself out for lunch or to see a movie, or stay home and chill out all day. This is a good way to recharge the batteries and feel refreshed before diving back in to studying.

Look after yourself

You’ll get burnt out even more quickly if you’re not looking after your body. Make sure you’re getting lots of sleep and eating regular meals.

It’s also a good idea to have some of your study breaks involve exercise. Exercise gives you endorphins, which will help you feel good, and it will also mean you sleep better. If you’re sitting down at a desk all day, sometimes your body isn’t tired enough to sleep well at night. Exercise can help with this problem.

Maintaining self-esteem

Self-esteem is an important thing to maintain. It can help us be happier and more resilient.

Some things that might make you feel bad about yourself during your years at school:

• Not doing as well at school as you’d like to, or feeling “stupid”
• Feeling unhappy with the way you look
• Feeling like your friends don’t really like you, or like other people better

I think that all negative self-esteem more often than not comes down to comparing ourselves to others – others who we admire or are envious of, and who we see we’re not like in a certain way.

It is much easier said than done that you need to stop comparing yourself to others. Although it’s a gradual process (I know I’m still learning it!) it’s something that will make you much happier with your life and who you are.

If you’re having a lot of negative thoughts about yourself, stop and consider whether comparing yourself to what others are doing is an appropriate response for an intelligent and special person! Even this simple acknowledgement of why you’re feeling this way can help you to overcome the negative feelings a little.

Just as important as it is to not talk your self-esteem down, it’s also not helpful to make yourself feel better by dragging others down. For example, if you’re feeling unhappy about the way you look, it’s definitely not helpful to think, “Well, I might have bad hair, but he has bad skin”. All you are doing is getting caught up in the cycle of comparing yourself to others, which is hot helpful or productive at all.

We all have something different and great to offer, so it’s important to remind yourself regularly that there are plenty of reasons why you’re interesting, fun, smart or a great friend. It is also useful to remind your friends of the reasons why they are special too. Everyone likes to feel that they are admired for who they are, and if you can promote a caring culture amongst your friendship group you will find that the respect becomes mutual.

Often achievements can affect our self-esteem, so something that can help is to set reasonable personal goals. Your goals shouldn’t be based on what others are doing, and they should be reasonable enough for you to achieve. So if you’ve really been struggling with a subject, you shouldn’t aim to get an A+ on the next test. However, you could set a goal of improving on your score from the last test. With a little hard work and concerted effort, you may achieve some quick wins, all of which will go to building your level of satisfaction.

You could also remind yourself of some of the positive things you’ve done. While it can feel silly or self-absorbed to think about good things you’ve done, it’s also a good idea to remind yourself that you’re not a bad person! Take a break and think of three good things you’ve done, like “I’ve been really supportive of my best friend recently”, “I wrote three essays this week”, or “I made a delicious dinner for my family yesterday”. The word ‘self’ relates to you, the person, so if you can’t say something good about yourself, then who can? The good news is I bet you won’t have to think hard about wonderful things you have done for yourself and others.

It’s also important to be able to embrace and overcome mistakes and failures. We’re all going to do something we’re not proud of or wish we’d done differently. It’s important to realise that a mistake doesn’t define who you are. It’s also important to reflect on what went wrong so that you try to improve in the future.

No discussion on this topic would be complete without discussing the need to learn to like the way you look and its role in building your self-esteem. The first thing to remember is that your appearance doesn’t define who you are, and there are much more important things that you will be valued for by those closest to you, such as being hardworking and/or a good friend. It’s important to appreciate that your body has a purpose other than the way it looks. However, if you wish to make some healthy changes to your lifestyle, then ‘yes’ you can set body-related goals, just make sure they are about what you can do, rather than what you look like. This could be something like “I want to be able to run 6 kilometres” or “I want to be able to climb the 1000 Steps”.

Finally, take a good look around you because if you’re around people who put you down or make you feel especially bad about yourself, it might be a good idea to limit your time with them and change your environment. Avoid spending time with them if you can, or if you are comfortable enough to do something about it, then standing up for yourself when they say something negative will demonstrate to them that you respect who you are.

To learn more about how you can take control and improve your self-esteem refer to this page for more tips.

Nobody can overcome negative feelings about themselves entirely. We all have days where we don’t feel like we’ve been the best version of ourselves. But the journey to positive self-esteem will help you feel happier in the long run.

The importance of resilience

Resilience is an important skill to have, but it’s one a lot of us struggle with. When something bad happens, it can feel insurmountable and prevent us concentrating on anything else for the rest of the day.

There are a number of issues you might face during school that will test your resilience, such as getting a bad mark, fighting with a friend or family member, feeling like you’re not getting anywhere in your studies, or having no idea what you want to do when you finish school.

Resilience helps us overcome the more difficult times in our life and helps us work through our problems in a reasonable way. We won’t all be successful all the time, so it’s important to be able to deal with the big or small things life throws at us.

You might say something like “I’m just not very good at dealing with my problems” or “I often overreact”. But resilience is not only based on our personality and characteristics. It’s also influenced by contextual factors, such as having a great support network and stable accommodation and finances. While you might not have the power to change these factors, there are some things you can do to improve your resilience.

Improving your resilience is not a quick fix – it requires long-term effort, and you might not improve straight away.

When something bad happens, you want to be able to think things through clearly. Try to take the time to engage with your problems rationally, rather than reacting emotionally. You can also think the problem through and analyse whether it’s really as bad as you think. If your brain immediately jumps to catastrophic situations, see if you can create an alternative scenario in your head. One thing I like to do is think, “Will this problem matter tomorrow? In one month? What about in a year?” This can help put some things into perspective.

When something unpleasant happens, you can also try to take action. Some people become paralysed by their problems, and find that when something goes wrong, they react by doing nothing. While you should certainly stop and think about what’s happened, you should also try to take some kind of action to overcome or work around the issue, and learn some strategies to boost your resilience to the situation.

You can also work on some things over a longer period of time that will help you to develop strategies for promoting resilience and developing self-awareness of your emotions and how you react. Start by reading this information page from Kids Helpline. Use the strategies listed as a starting point to digging deeper into how they might be able to help you. A great place to start is by asking someone you respect how he or she copes. Asking someone you have a strong connection with is a good place to start, because often how they deal with situations should resonate with you.

Learning to accept change as a normal part of life can help you adjust to different situations and problems more easily. Learning to become more optimistic by keeping a positive view of yourself and the world around you also helps you move on from small problems.

It’s also a good idea to practice self-care so that when something testing does happen, you are better equipped to deal with it. This includes things like sleeping well, eating healthily, getting some exercise, maintaining positive relationships, or even something small like having a bath or reading a book.

When uneasy things do happen, take the time to reflect on what happened and how you dealt with it. Even if you didn’t react in a way you would like to repeat, you can learn from that mistake. If you got a bad mark and reacted by ignoring that subject altogether, you can start fresh today by choosing to study that subject. If you had a fight with a friend, you can learn from the situation by thinking what you wouldn’t do next time you’re in a similar situation.

It’s also important to remember that even though being resilient and looking out for yourself is a great skill to have, you should also ask for help if you need it. Your family, friends and school will provide assistance if you’re struggling. Or you can seek advice from Kids Helpline by calling 1800 55 1800.