What if I fail?
Imagine. It’s 7th grade. French immersion math test coming up in ten minutes. Numbers already feel like they’re jumbled up enough as they are, let alone in a language I’m trying to wrap my head around. Early indications of pre-test stress, sweaty hands, tight chest, rapid breathing. Bell rings. Bags at the front. Sit next to your best pal to ease the blow of the eventual fail. Papers passed out face down. Test starts. Flip it over. Read through the first few questions, find one that might be doable. Nope. Try another. Nope. Oh wait, how do I do that? No that’s not right. Shit. Shit. Shit. Blank, white noise. Bell rings, time is up. Pushing my teacher’s patience to the very end to scribble any solution down that might get me to a passing grade. A few days pass, papers are graded. Fail. Next one, repeats process, pass, but barely. Extra help after school, next test. Pass. 60%. Next test fail.
Fast forward to my undergrad in kinesiology. Biology 1st year. Class seems fine, going along with the information, practice questions are doable, I write my notes. First test comes. Nervous, sweating, stomach pains, even nauseous. Sit down. Test begins, turn the pages over…it’s like all of the information in my brain goes blank, words of the questions at hand are mixed and don’t make sense. Blanking. Scrambling. Panic. Blank. White noise. Test marked a week later. Fail. Try the next one, same presentation. Fail. 2nd year. Biomechanics. Physics of human movement. Attended every class. Thought I had a good handle on the course material, walk in first test. Blank white noise, might as well have been training with NASA because I was gone. Tests graded and passed back. Barely pass. 2nd year physics to keep some doors open for school comes along. This one was brutal. Class was hard. Studying was hard. Same result. Panic. White noise. Sweat. Tight chest. Cold. And in complete awe that for the millionth time in a row, my brain couldn’t do a fucking thing other than work in sheer panic and fear of “Oh my god, I’m blanking. I’m going to fail another test.”
Fear of failure was always there for me growing up through school and carried on with me well into my undergrad and masters degree. It didn’t always show up, but when it did, it always felt so crippling. These are just a few of the examples of times where I failed in school to make the grades I wanted to achieve through being perfect, and my confidence around school dwindled quickly. This especially was true around being smart or as smart as my classmates with early comparisons to other boys in my classes, and presenting as part of the male persona that I thought I needed to be. Early on I formed a negative script that stuck with me for some time. A script that played along well with my perfectionism and critical voice. A script that made me consistently scared of taking tests and exams. A script that told me over and over again that I wasn’t good enough or smart enough. I told myself for years that I was stupid, tried to study at home, with a wonderful tutor, and even still got down on myself for not being good enough. As I moved through junior and senior high, and early on in my university days, the script became longer, sunk deeper, and hit harder around the fear of failing and the consequences that came with it.
You aren’t going to get the job you need after school if you can’t pass exams.
You aren’t going to be the person you need to be, if you can’t even pass these easy tests.
What person would want to be with you, with a person who can’t control his emotions before tests.
You aren’t good enough. You’re not smart. Maybe university isn’t for you.
Much like my fear of public speaking, my anxiety for failing in life grew more and more during my last two years of university and into my masters. The perfectionist piece had been instilled within me for a while now, and the idea of failing equated to life ending. Thoughts of life or death situations. If I don’t pass this test, then I might not be able to graduate, and if I can’t graduate, well then my parents won’t be proud, my friends won’t want to be around me, girls won’t think I’m smart, and well my profs will think less of me. And with this negative script came the anxiety around the days leading up to and the days of big tests. This is the moment to shine. In my masters, the passing rates were bumped up to 70% or fail. Stakes are higher. More pressure. More anxiety. More sleepless nights. More sweat. More panic. What if I fail…
The best example of this relating to my academics came in neuroscience in my second year at Dalhousie. A course I was truly terrified of failing. It was new. It was complex. It was to this day the hardest course I’ve ever taken. First exam. Pass but barely. Same reactions pre and post test. Second exam comes. Test is passed around. You may begin. Instant blank. I maybe know half of the questions. Other parts are dedicated to calming my mind, not having a complete breakdown, and blanking for the remainder of the test. Leave the test not knowing if I passed. Test marked and passed back a week later. Fail. 63%. Come see me in my office hours. I did, and I took more notes, and proceeded to go home and talk down to myself for the next month and half leading up to the final exam. A story that I’ve told in previous speeches is a night where my fear took over and created another Matt that I’ve seen a handful of times in my life. The night before my final neuro exam.
Freaking. The. Fuck. Out.
In my head and running out of all the sleepy time tea I had available to shut my hamster wheel of a brain off. I had been studying for 3 weeks for this exam, more than I had prepared for any test in my schooling. But I was so deep down in my narration of potential failure - I was gone. Pacing back and forth in my small apartment. Take a shower that’ll make you feel better. 8 pm. Go grab a coffee. Down it. Oh you want to go for a run? Yeah running’s good for the brain. It’s snowing and -4. Meh. I ran 5 km that night, in shorts, T-shirt, and shoes. Back to the apartment. You better have this Matt. You need to pass this. Can’t fail. If you fail, you’re nothing. Up late or go to bed early? Up late to study some more. Sure. Memorize the diagrams. Flow charts. Vocabulary words. Do it. You know this. You must not fail. I remember walking to that exam by myself that morning prepared to ultimately fail and have to drop out of my masters program and wait a year to complete the remainder of my degree. I walked in. Test turned over. It’s all a blur. A few weeks later, I was at home, and luckily out of nowhere, a passing grade came through. The tonnes of heavy elephants had been removed and tightness in my compressed chest finally lifted in a very, very long time.
Later on in my 20’s, I had the opportunities to teach undergraduate and graduate students in two courses, and saw so much of me in many of them. Consistent fear of failing. Not meeting the perfect grades. Not being able to attend in class because of mental health concerns. Test anxiety. Presentations were tough. Minimal coping strategies to help with student life stress and I tried to help where I could. And then even moving on to my job now in working with children and teens, there’s a portion of them that do indeed demonstrate characteristics of perfectionism, present with high levels of anxiety, and consistently worry that if they fail, or even get an 80% on an assignment, their lives would be meaningless, they won’t get into the school they want to, and so on.
While I don’t have all of the answers, and still learning on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, I’ve had plenty of time to reflect, develop, and implement new strategies into my life to help with studying, anxiety, and living with failure. If you yourself are in school now, have children in school, and/or have a difficult time living with failure and the anxiety that comes with it, then some of these strategies might help:
Here are some ideas for stress management, studying, and test taking in school:
Stress Management
1) Meditation: I am no master in the art of meditation and I don’t claim to be. However, the benefits that I’ve received from directly practicing a few to 5-10 minutes of meditation include helping me build the skills to combat stress, reducing my negative emotions I have towards myself and others, and really trying to hone in on the present. I find a comforting place to sit in my house or in my shower, turn on a guided meditation, and just sit with my breath and my thoughts. To be honest, making the time to do this on a regular basis has been challenging for me, but when I’m really struggling with my stress and anxiety, meditation helps me to sit, and be still. Here are two of the apps and programs I’ve used over the past years that are worth the money:
a. Headspace: https://www.headspace.com/ - This is the app I’ve stuck with the longest and I enjoy the offerings and variations they have in the app.
b. Calm: I used Calm for a while and found it do what its title alludes to.
c. Free resources:
YouTube: I find YouTube to be a wonderful place for free resources for my clients and if you don’t want to pay the money for an app, this is a good place to start. I find often sitting with Nature sounds, waves, white noise, or rain sounds, closing my eyes, and focusing on my breath has helped.
2) Regular exercise, healthy diet: Often times for me when my anxiety and workload starts to creep up, I’m feeling overwhelmed, and this is when negativity begins to set in, usually causing me to engage in unhealthy behaviours including poor diet and binge eating, decreased physical exercise, and ultimately feeling pretty bummed about myself. I know for a fact, that every time these start to creep back into my life, I need to get back in the gym for both resistance training and cardio, and back in the kitchen, cooking healthier meals. It’s way easier said than done, and it’s the cyclical nature of my mental health. It’s generally a good indicator of when I’m not doing great, so I’m aware now after years of reflection and patterns that I need to get my ass back to exercise and making healthier choices. One area that I’ve had to continuously remind myself of is to not put pressure on myself to be the most active, the most fit, the best — but rather ease back into it, tell myself I know it’s good for my mental wellbeing, and trying to cut myself some slack when it’s not immediately perfect and that failure comes into play.
Studying Tips
Having gone through university and my masters, and teaching at these levels, I know that everyone has different methods of studying, and where one strategy may work well for one person, it might not for the other. However, one common theme in the courses and tests that caused me to have the most anxiety from, were courses that were really hard for me. And if I was going to succeed in academics and at the high level I wanted to, I needed to change the way I positioned myself, change the ways in which I studied, and ultimately prepared for the biggest challenges which for me was always the fear of failing. Here are some things that worked really well for me over the years in school, what I provided as aid for students in these programs, and how I improved my performance in the classroom:
1) Sit at the front of the class: No, you are not a nerd or a teacher’s pet. You’ve been doing something smart for years that I didn’t do until my second year of my masters. For years I aligned with sitting at the back of class as cool, what the guys did, etc. The reality is for me, the back of the class was always super distracting because you see Jimmy playing 3D Snake or Candy Crush on his laptop two rows up, and the next row has two people whispering regarding the commentary the teacher or prof just provided to the class. Sitting at the front of the class was a game changer for me, removed most of the distractions, and allowed me to focus on the main point of being in school: Learning and application.
2) Figure out who you like to study with: I generally get along with pretty much anyone, but for studying I kept my crew small. I already had enough anxiety as it was when it came to school, so I didn’t need any further comparison or anxious minds around me when I was trying to study. And by figuring out who you want to study with, I don’t mean you need to have anyone there to actually do group studying, and you can totally study by yourself. For me, I found it comforting knowing I had 1-2 people I could message and know that they were studying for the same difficult test, and if I had questions or wanted to take a break, they were there.
3) Go to your teachers and professors for help: A big portion of my high school, undergrad, and masters degree involved going to my teachers for help. You aren’t weak or small for doing this and while they might seem intimidating at first, they’re people too, and generally want to provide help and assistance. Results from going to different teachers and profs may have varied in the past, however I found the missing answers to my questions and received immediate feedback and direction on where I need to focus for the next assignment and/or test.
4) Develop good note taking strategies: There are a number of apps and programs to help with note taking on laptops, tablets and phones, but for me I always kept note taking simple: pen and paper or Microsoft Word. By keeping my note taking strategies simple, it allowed me to form a consistent process for all of my classes in school, and made it easier for me to organize my thoughts when it came time to study. Remaining consistent with taking good notes, usually allowed me to have a foundation of summaries from class to reflect on and study from that took one more thing off the list of many worries cycling in my brain during school.
5) Create your studying blueprint: When you have a big exam coming up, feeling prepared, organized, and having a process that almost feels automatic after practicing years on end is key to success in school. I think the big parts you need to figure out and think on for a bit are: Where am I going to study? How long am I going to prepare for this exam? Can I schedule out my studying times that work best for me? Do I work better morning, midday, or the nighttime? What do I need to have with me to study well? Can I make time to read the textbook in smaller chunks, rather than saving it all to before the exam? What do I need to study for this exam and practice consistent repetition? When nothing else seems to be absorbing, what is something I can do that’s healthy for me to give my brain a break? Reviewing notes, formulas, practice equations? Do I have the materials, pens, pencils, comfortable clothing, coffee/tea, snacks? Where do I enjoy studying most? Is it the library, coffee shop, examination room, common areas, student lounge? These are some of the things I’ve learned to think about when it comes to overcoming the ideas of failure in my mind. A repetitive process that enables me to be set up for the upcoming test, midterm, or exam season.
6) Go to a teacher or professor you trust for help with your mental health: I’ve had many people in my life that were there for me in and out of school that pointed me in the right directions when my anxiety became too much. Going for help is the hardest part of anxiety and fear around failure in school, but if there’s a teacher or professor that understand mental health and the importance of maintaining a healthy mind, go to this person or leadership within your school. Set up an appointment to talk, and they’ll be able to either help or point you in the right direction. Some may not be comfortable with it, but going for help was one of the best things I did for myself in school.
7) Repetition: Auditory. Visual. Writing. Oral repetition. People learn in all sorts of different ways. But for the brain to retain information and learn we need to have the new challenge, create a space and environment where this learning feels calm and has room to grow, and can be repeated often. Higher performance for me correlated well to when I studied the hardest using the strategies I mentioned above and repeated often until I found a clear plan that worked for me. Find out what works best for you and repeat.
Anxiety
The reality is that I’ve witnessed all of this in coworkers, my friends, my students I taught in university, and kids I get to work with now. Growing up there’s such a massive pressure on ideals of success in academics leading to wealth of knowledge and education, that ultimately leads to the best jobs, to live the best life, and provide for yourself and family. But the other reality is that often times, going through school over the past 20 some years of my life, ideas that weren’t taught included focusing on coping mechanisms for dealing with anxiety and failing, good study regimes and habits, positive feedback for trying hard in school, and the ideas that just because I failed this time, it does not equate to defining self worth, value, and appreciation for the special human you are. That entering the anxious arena of vulnerability, self discovery, and demonstrating imperfections of failures in the school hallways, classroom, and exam auditoriums proves that you showed up again. And that despite consistent fears of not meeting either self created or perceived successful platforms of others, you’re here sitting with this fear and and showing you want to do it, and that you can.
Test taking tips:
1) Find your space before entering an exam: When it came to testing and exam time, I always noted the behaviours of others in relation to how it made me feel. Often times I wouldn’t do anything about it and just let me anxiety build up listening to what others had to say, and not really preparing myself for success when it came to taking tests. The students who showed up early to compare and think about what was going to be on the test, how hard they studied, and what answers are to the unsure students who were less confident. To the classmate sitting and listening to music in a silent corner of the hallway. To the classmate reading over last minute cram notes prior to entry. Post test, the groups that gathered comparing answers and asking what each other got for question 20 and 25, while explaining their rationale. A lot of what I just mentioned fuelled my anxiety for years. For the last year or so of my big exams in school, I switched over to finding what worked well for me and not comparing to others. For me this included setting boundaries of not showing up to the test early, having calming and relaxing music playing in my headphones, giving myself positive affirmations of You got this. You studied hard. Do your best. When we feel anxious, breathing deep is often something that’s quite challenging. Breathing helps me to feel calm and connect with feeling grounded before stressful events such as tests, interviews, presentations and I follow the 4, 4, and 4 practice of:
a. Breathe in through your nose for 4 seconds.
b. Hold for 4 seconds.
c. Exhale for 4 seconds.
Doing this over and over, for 8-10 repetitions, has helped me more for the tests of everyday life, and something I wish I would’ve done going through school.
2) Reflect on how you perform in tests and strategize for timing: Think about the tests you’ve taken before: Did multiple choice come first? Fill in the blanks? Short Answer? Essay questions? What were the questions that took you the longest to complete? What ones did I answer quickly? Being prepared and knowing what types of questions are on the test, often times helped me reduce persistent anxiety when it came to game time and have a plan of attack for tackling the test.
3) Multiple choice: For many, these types of tests are the most anxiety inducing tests out there. I’ve had many tests where I’ve flipped through pages knowing all but a few answers, to tests of knowing answers to few questions. Often times for multiple choice, in my experience it comes down to memorization, problem solving through case studies, and identifying theoretical applications. If you’ve prepared well for a multiple choice test, you’ll generally be able to narrow it down to the correct answer via identification through memory and recall or narrowing it down to 2 answers. For the questions of narrowing it down to two answers, I always used a pencil to cross off the letters that I knew weren’t the answer (lightly). I’d take a few moments to think about the answer, however if I couldn’t think about the right answer, I moved on and put a star to come back to it before the end. By doing this, it kept my anxiety down during the exams I didn’t blank on, and helped me move onto questions I was 100% confident in. At the end of the day, there were always a few questions on tests that I didn’t have the immediate answers for, and generally I broke it down to going with my gut feelings if time was running out. If I got it right, then that’s great. If I didn’t, it’s a perfect moment for reflection moving forward and making notes for the next exam if that question shows up again.
4) Short and Long Answer questions: For these questions, I personally enjoyed them and used the main strategy of identifying a) what are the key components this question is asking for; b) can I write these components down quickly before I forget them, and c) formulate how I’m going to explain each area. Was it based off a model? Are they asking how I’d approach a case study? What are the specific problems the individual in the case is facing? What are the flow charts, diagrams I studied in this section? These are the general thoughts that helped me for short and long answers. In addition, for long answer type essay questions, I treated them as an essay and formed my answers with a clear introduction, 3-5 paragraphs highlighting the key answers, and a short introduction. It always helped me form a solid answer, even if I couldn’t remember all of the components or blanked on certain parts.
Here are some ideas around working with anxiety and fear of consistent failure:
1) Sit with your anxiety: This is something I’ve talked about before, and something I do on a regular basis in my home life and work life as an occupational therapist. Anxiety can be really motivating and get you up and doing the things you need to get done. But when it becomes too intense, and has been around for too long, it can often times exert power (much of my experiences with school above) that is intense and feels like it will never go away. For years I sat with intolerable anxiety that I accepted, rather than formed any relationship with it and asking why it was there. Over the past two years in counselling I’ve found this to be one of the most beneficial mindfulness strategies I use on a regular basis and has worked quite well for me. I’d often bring up moments of anxiety, be able to describe it in sessions, but it would never really go anywhere. That’s when my therapist asked me to start sitting with my anxiety and talking about why it was there. We know that anxiety is our body’s response to stress, and that many times in our lives, stress is going to come and go. But with me, for years I was under stress all of the time, and anxiety played along really well with my negative scripts, critical voices, and perfectionism. So now, when it comes to school and work, and after many months of sitting with my anxiety for regular chats, I’m able to identify a) when my anxiety is ramping up, my body is trying to tell me something, and b) when I am under stress, and I’m feeling anxious, I look at anxiety more so as a neighbour or close friend knocking at my door with deep concern for something going on. Further application of this and true results have allowed me to a) pull back from work and slam on the brakes when my caseload and work starts to creep up, b) rethink relationships that aren’t serving me well, and c) creating and giving space and time for my body to regulate when it’s under this amount of stress so I can be there for my family and clients. When my therapist first told me to do this and start being more mindful, I giggled and brushed it off like “You kidding me? You want me to sit with my anxiety and talk to it?” To now, I really enjoy doing it and it’s helped me be more mindful of what my body is telling me in these times of stress.
2) Meeting your anxiety with logic and positivity: Whether it’s in school, work, or home life, those who deal with anxiety know the downward spirals downward spirals of worst case scenarios and life ending perceptions of failure and the unknown. Often times, those anxious thoughts are unbelievably unrealistic, and can take you on the twisted rabbit hole of endless panic. I know, I go there a lot. It sucks. But I’ve improved with this and attacking my anxiety with logic. I’ve had a lot of help along the way with this from the likes of my therapist, Brene Brown, Jay Shetty and many others. I do much of what I do in number 1, but while sitting with it I try to remind myself of what the real truth in my life is. Here are some examples of what some common situations are of mine:
· Anxiety: That report was garbage. You forgot to punctuate the last paragraph. The parent is going to be pissed. They’re going to complain to my boss. I’m going to lose my job…
· Meeting with logic and positivity: The report was good. You worked really hard on it. One period isn’t going to make or break a report. You show up for your clients. We’ll make sure to check for that next time.
· Anxiety: New assessment with a client tomorrow. New diagnosis. I’m not going to be good enough. I’m not ready. What if they don’t like me?
· Meeting with logic and positivity: You’re a good therapist. You enjoy problem solving. You’ll breathe. You’ll take this client on like your last one.
· Anxiety: That paper was shit. You’re not going to be good at business. You didn’t indent on your title page. Did you remember page numbers and reference formatting. Maybe business isn’t for you. What if I don’t get a good grade. Just like that accounting course.
· Meeting with logic and positivity: This is a new experience and a new course. You’ve worked hard on this paper, dedicated time on the weekend, and have done fine on the other assignments. Business is for you, it’s just different from what you’ve done before. You’ve got this.
All recent examples within the last year of practicing strategies provided to me from the people I look to in my life to help with my challenges I face and helping me work with my anxiety.
3) Failure: Embrace it. Welcome it. Process it. Grow.
Looking back at my time with fearing failure relating to my academics, career and life, I find it quite interesting to reflect on that younger me. The me that had no idea what 10-15 years out looked like for him. And while the fear that was always there of the conditioned idea that if I didn’t do A well I must be B, and if I don’t make the grades, then my parents and friends won’t think highly of me, and if I don’t get on the team, well I must be…it’s presented an abundance of skills and life experiences that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. It’s through failure that I am who I am today. It’s through the battles with my mental health, my anxiety, my depression, and suicide attempts that have made me stronger and have taught me more about myself than if they wouldn’t have been there at all. And while this might not help in the moment of feeling like your mind has been sitting in overdrive for too long, and that the consistent negative thoughts and potential consequences of failure are racing through your brain, here are my final words of advice to you:
Failure and anxiety are going to come and go in your life in school, at work, in relationships, and in your mind. Embrace them. It’s part of the greater process of becoming the person you are, and it is through failure that you will learn the most. I encourage you to fail. Not intentionally, but to embrace the moments when they do happen, process them and cry it out. Be upset. Feel it. But try not to dwell for too long and keep pushing forward on your journey. Tackle the next challenge with logic, positivity, and strength. You have an unbelievable amount of courage for showing up to the tests of life, and even if you do fail, you showed up, and that is what counts.