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Thursday 26 May 2011

Chart Your Own Path - Ask Our Counsellor - Q&A Column May 26, 2011

[The following queries answered by me appeared in Deccan Herald Education supplement on May 26, 2011]

Dear Madam

I am a 15 year old boy. I love sports and I feel I can excel at it, but that’s just a gamble. My parents force me to study. As a result I secure low grades. Of late many sports men are found to be making a lot of money through sports, I think I could as well. What should I do, Study or Sports?

Dear Sportsperson

I have three observations to make about your letter. Firstly, are you aspiring to be a sportsperson for the love of the sport, or for the money you can make. Secondly, are you chasing sports for the love of sports, or for the desire to escape studying. And thirdly, if you are aspiring for the big league in sports, then by age 15 you would probably already have some indication if you can make it. So, check your motivation. Is it to make money, is it to avoid studying, or is it because you excel at it. I do not believe sports and studies are mutually exclusive. You may not excel in studies, but sports helps you concentrate better at your work and you would need some amount of knowledge about the world around you even to be a charismatic sportsman.

Ultimately, sports is about personal passion. But check your motivation first.

Dear Madam,

I have finished writing my CET exam. This is the second time I am attempting it and I have failed once again in securing a seat in the medical field. I am helpless at present and i don't have the courage to face my family members. I am really scared as I feel that I have disappointed them once again. Please help me. Is studying abroad a better option?

Dear Student

I can understand your worry and your anxiety. You feel helpless since you have failed at the exam a second time and don’t have the courage to face your family. You need courage to do something when you are scared of it. So my question to you is what are you scared about? Like I said in the earlier response, it is important to be able to name your fears. This helps us concretize them and see if the fears are rational or not. Sometimes we have a lot of irrational fears, and when we think about them we realize that there is no need for us to be scared of them. So what are your fears about facing your family? Are you scared that they will not love you anymore? Are you scared that they will throw you out of the house? Are you scared that they will not support you anymore? What are you scared about? They may be disappointed by your result, but their disappointment is something they have to deal with. After all no one gets everything they want, and facing disappointment is a part of life. So you don’t need to weigh yourself down with the burden of their disappointment. You need to focus on putting in your best effort in doing what you want to do. Read my article on putting exams in perspective at http://personalorbitchange.blogspot.com/2010/09/putting-exams-in-perspective.html
Remember, if one door closes, another one will open - you just need to look for it.

I don’t have an answer for you about whether studying abroad is a better option. It depends on your readiness to be in a new environment, your family’s financial situation, etc. Studying abroad is not a guarantee of success. The only guarantee is putting in your best effort at learning the maximum from every opportunity.

Thursday 5 May 2011

Do not let failure frighten you - Ask our Counsellor - May 5, 2011

[The following queries answered by me appeared in Deccan Herald on May 5, 2011]

Dear Madam,

I am a PUC II (Science) student. I completed my 10th in a small town. After much effort, I shifted to a nearby city to complete my education. I was lax in my first year and got less marks. I am feeling very tense about my second year. I am from a poor family. I want to score good marks. Please guide me.
Nikhil

Dear Nikhil

You seem to want an outcome without working for it. Unfortunately nothing in life gets attained without hard work. However, getting tense about the outcome is not helpful. Just wanting to score good marks, without being willing to put in the effort to work towards them, is not the way forward. Your anxiety and stress may be stemming from a fear of failure. It would be worth your while to take some time and think about what you are scared of? What is your worst fear about the exams? It is often helpful to write out these fears and express them. This allows you to get them out of your system and focus on what you need to do.

Do not let failure frighten you. Failure is an event, not a person. The worst that can happen in an exam is that you may fail in that exam. But, even if you fail in an exam, that does not mean you have failed as a person. And this refers to all kinds of failures in life. When you view a failure as one passing event in life rather than your whole life, and your whole being, you are able to move on. Often students feel that if they fail in an exam they have failed as a person and there is no more hope for them. So, don’t get overwhelmed by the time you have already squandered away. If you have the realisation now, that you need to make changes, then I would say, “Better late than never”. Good luck and work hard. There is no substitute for determination, perseverance, struggle and hard work.

Dear Madam

I am studying in high school. I make a lot of spelling mistakes and my hand writing is going from bad to worse. Can you give me some tips to improve my handwriting and to avoid spelling mistakes?
Student

Dear Student,
If your handwriting is deteriorating, now that you are in high school, and you feel it is not because you need to write too much too fast, and therefore, cannot focus on the writing, I feel you should get an evaluation from a psychologist who may help you deal with this. Both the handwriting and spelling mistakes may be the result of other underlying concerns you may be having.

Dear Madam,
I finished my PU II exams, and have various other exams to take up like CET, COMEDK, NATA, AIEEE. The problem is I am not able to concentrate on my studies at all. I scored well until Std VIII with 80% in my Science subjects. Of late my concentration has hit rock bottom. It has had an adverse effect on my studies. I am hardly able to pass now. I have done badly in my Board exams also because of this. My mind wanders off when I start studying. I want to get my concentration back. I am not able to comprehend what I am going through. Please help me.
Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,
I get a sense that you are over anxious about your results, and therefore, are not able to perform well in your exams. You need to be able to put exams in perspective. When you step out of your current shoes and look at your exams from a distance, you will realise that they are only one of the many things in your life and not your whole life. There are several challenges, failures and victories that you will face in life.

This is only one of them. What exams do is to open some doors for you. If you don’t do well in your exams, then those specific doors may not open, but others will — only you will have to look for them. Success in life depends on several other factors, like self-esteem, confidence, and the ability to think creatively, learn quickly, work independently, and in a team, communicate well, and empathise with people, to mention just a few. How do you interpret failure? You are bound to face failure at several stages in life. Everybody does. The important thing is to be able to differentiate the failure from you. Don’t chase the result — chase the learning and relax.

Concentrate on what we are doing in the moment, rather than let our mind wander. The ability to concentrate is a skill that the mind can be trained for, so that we control the mind (and its thoughts) rather than the other way around. Concentration can make all the difference between your excelling. Some exercises to help you improve your concentration are:

*Count backwards in your mind from 100 to 1
*Count every third number backwards in your mind from 100 to 1
*Count the words in a paragraph of your book without using your finger as a pointer.

Once this is easy, count the words on a page. Try repeating an inspiring word or a simple sound, in your mind for five minutes. Once this is easy, try doing it for ten minutes. These are just a few simple exercises which have been known to improve concentration. Try them for a few minutes everyday and see the difference.