You are entirely up to you - Writing Wednesday

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, 

Next week, I begin my first set of IB mock examinations and, as I've mentioned plenty of times before, I'm very nervous. I'm nervous because I've never done IB exams before and perhaps I'm a little bit afraid of the unknown. I'm also nervous because there's so much to remember and I don't have photographic memory. 😂 I'm also nervous because I want to do well and anything below my expectations is not going to be good enough for me. 

However, although I'm stressed, I have high expectations, and I'm naturally anxious, when I take the moment to pause like I am doing now and I look back on what I was able to achieve despite the odds that were against me, I do have to give myself a little bit of credit. If someone told me back in year 7 or in primary school that I would be doing the course that I'm doing now, it sounds very cliché to say but I honestly would have thought that they were crazy because there was a lot of things that I struggled with when I was younger. Academic subjects like maths and science I found particularly difficult to grasp early on because it wasn't naturally my interest and it wasn't something I believed that I could ever get myself to understand. I was put into many support groups as a result and my mum got me and my sister a maths tutor at one point to help us grasp the material. At one point, I also had to join an intervention-like club when I was in primary school, where I did maths and English. I joined in because my teachers were really trying to help me improve my knowledge and understanding in these subject areas. Early on in secondary school, I was also struggling for a while. In science tests in year 7 and 8, I wasn't getting bad grades but my results weren't what necessarily what I wanted to get, despite how hard I tried to revise and go over everything. I was also in bottom set maths in year 7 and 8, before I was finally able to move up, after years of persistence and hard work.

I think around year 9, I saw my grades go up because I realised that for a long time, I was letting myself believe that I would never be able to get better academically. Although my knowledge didn't click over night, that realisation that I could get somewhere if I believed that I could, caused a revelation that I will never take for granted. Once my attitude towards my work transformed, so did my mind and in return, I was able to get the grades that I wanted and I was able to grasp academic material, despite not starting out as academically minded.

I'm not the most intelligent person out there. I'm surrounded by shear intelligence, wisdom, and passion every single time I step through the entrance into the college grounds. However, I've learnt over the years that once you're in control of your attitude to how you approach your learning and exams, you'll start seeing the improvements. You'll probably still fail many times before reaching the finish line but with persistence, you'll get better.

So yes, I'm very nervous and I almost don't want to set foot into the exam room, but if I've come this far with this attitude, I can only go further with the same outlook on life.

You are entirely up to you. :)

Have you got any tips for dealing with exam stress? Let me know in the comments below and I'll be sure to reply to them. I ♡ hearing from you!

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See you next time,

Bye,

XOX, Juliette

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