It’s always this time of year that schools ramp up the pressure on students as exam season approaches. Having spent two years working in Further Education, I have seen the negative impact this has on students. However, I am also far too aware of the pressure placed on staff by the senior managers and leadership teams within our learning institutions, and the reason why they begin to become more stressed than usual.
Working with athletes on a daily basis, there are many lessons we can learn from those working within pressured environments in the sport setting, and apply them to every day pressured situations, just like school exams.
As a sport coach, I would often work with athletes telling myself that I had a role in teaching lifelong skills of time management and resilience - skills that would stand them in good stead when it came to challenging times in their lives away from sport. However, I came to realise that the lessons we teach athletes are only relevant if we tie them to every day life. For example, how many times do we discuss athletes’ abilities to balance sport and school giving them valuable time management skills? How valuable is this, unless we also take time to help them highlight this skill set when it comes to job applications? Or their ability to manage their exam revision alongside their already packed schedule?
Recently, I was asked to deliver a session to GCSE and A Level students on the lessons learned on the pitch, that students can use in the classroom when it comes to preparing for their school exams. I thought I’d write a summary of that presentation, to share my tips beyond that one specific school.
Firstly, however, any discussion about pressure requires a definition of pressure, and why this can be responsible for causing stress. Essentially, pressure on any performer is the gap between what they feel they are capable of delivering, and the performance they feel they need to deliver. The smaller this gap, the less stress the performer feels. However, by contrast, the bigger the gap, the more stress the performer feels.
So what does that mean? Well, quite simply, to reduce the stress of an upcoming event, close the gap. That can be done in numerous ways. For example, it might be that it's possible to increase your ability - within an exam scenario, it might be that a student reviews their knowledge of the curriculum, and focuses more on some aspects than others. When I taught in FE, we often gave students traffic light self-reflection sheets where they would rate their knowledge of certain topics. Red sections were those the learner had no, or little understanding of; amber sections were the areas students felt they had an understanding, but needed help or support in gaining a better understanding; and the green areas were those areas that the student felt they knew really well. However, students very rarely, fully engaged in this exercise. This task required a great deal of self-reflection, and that’s something that elite athletes are very good at. They know where they are weak, and where they are strong. They make their strengths stronger, and tactically decide how crucial their weaknesses are. Sometimes strengthening another area of their tactical approach to the game can counter the damage caused by any weakness.
For students closing that gap, however, the first place to start is turning more of those amber areas into green. For students with upcoming exams, their ‘gap’ - the cause of their stress - is likely to be influenced by their level of understanding and what they think the exam is going to demand of them. Going back to the traffic light task, by working to get the total percentage of green higher (and consequently, feel like they know more of the curriculum) the ‘easier’ the exam appears, and the smaller that ‘gap’ becomes. If there is a section of the curriculum a student really does not understand at this stage in their course, then tactically, the decision has to be made about how important that section of the curriculum is. Is it a crucial area of the course, which underpins other areas, and therefore, likely to make up 80% of the exam? If so, then time needs to be put into increasing your understanding of this area. On the other hand, is it a small section of the curriculum, only accounting for around 5% of the exam. Logically, if this is the case, then it might be arguable to focus your attentions else where, and not spend too much time trying to get this red area to green in the time left between now and your exam.
Within the context of school exams, pressure to perform might also be increased by external factors. For example, expectations from teachers and parents might shape the student’s expectation of themselves, and their future plans. These expectations might therefore shape a college or university application, and that, again, might increase the demands placed on the performance in the exam. So, another way of minimising the stress that students face during this phase of the academic calendar might be to shift their expectations. By reviewing their goals and expectations, students have the ability to change the potential outcome of their exams and the grades they need. It might mean rethinking which university to apply to, or which course to study. Start by examining why you want to achieve the goals you’ve set, and go from there. If the goal is to study a particular course, then shift your expectations to a more realistic institution based on your abilities. If the goal is to study at a particular institution, then is there a different course you can study to make the demands of your application easier to achieve? Athletes regularly evaluate their goals and they understand their goals operate within a bandwidth from a minimum expectation of themselves, to the outcome they’d be happy with, through to a maximum expectation of themselves, where they would consider they’d smashed their goal. Sometimes, the end goal has to change slightly. This doesn’t mean failure. It’s simply being realistic about realising your goals in the most appropriate manner.
From here, it’s important to have the right approach to preparing for exams. The truth of it is, there is no such thing as luck, just hard work. And on this note, there is a really crucial takeaway message on the importance of consistent effort. The best to way to explain this point is through telling the story of the 20 mile march.
This story goes back just over 100 years, to the early 1900s. Two teams set out to trek across Antartica. The distance was 1,400 miles, equivalent of walking from Chicago to New York. Both teams were lead by different leaders, and the race was on to be the first team to reach the meeting point. Both leaders decided to take different approaches to the task at hand. One leader said that he would march his team as far as possible in the nice weather days, and use the bad weather days to rest up, conserve energy and refuel. The other leader decided to break the 1,400 miles into 70 manageable chunks of 20 miles. The catch: this team had to march the 20 miles every day, regardless of the weather. This leader justified that the team could rest at the end of each night, and use this time to refuel, rest up and prepare for the next day. The question is, which team was successful in reaching the meeting point first?
Most people assume the first team would win the race. We often think we can achieve something by pushing ourselves to extreme limits - and there can’t be that many bad weather days in Antarctica can there? Surely, this approach would take less than 70 days? Well, apparently not. Because the second team were the ones who won. See, this leader understood that consistent, persistent effort over a sustained period of time - having a structured plan and a systematic approach to this task - would win. This also teaches us that there is no such thing as the “perfect” day. How did the first team decide what made a “good weather day”? This approach is dangerous, because it’s very easy to convince ourselves, in that scenario, that the weather isn’t good enough to march on any particular day. Because the second team didn't consider the weather, there was no such thing as a good or bad weather day. We are all great procrastinators. We can stall on tasks really effectively. For students revising, this means the “best” day to revise will never come along. Pushing back your revision to the “best day to revise” will ultimately result in losing time. But, revising a set amount each day, regardless of the conditions, is the best way forward.
And this links to my final point: the bandwidth tax. Humans are really good at searching out what’s important, when we need to. Normally, this refers to things we’re short of. For example, societies that are scarce of food, can hunt it out. People lacking money, obsess over ways to find the next pound. However, the biggest scarcity in the modern, developed world is time. Everyone is time poor. And this means we often feel we work best under the pressure of time. When we work to a deadline, we are able to limit our distractions. Social media usage becomes less important and we’re able to put all our focus and effort into the task at hand. As humans, we’re great at working to a deadline. What we’re not so good at is being disciplined enough to work to a deadline. The reason why the idea of the 20 mile march is hard to realise in practice is because we know that the real deadline to having our work completed is a long way off. Our self-discipline to stick to the plan - to complete a small amount of work each day - lets us down, because we know, no matter how much we kid ourselves it is important, that the deadline is in the future. It becomes less important, and we become easily distracted by other tasks, or other things around us.
In summary...
Stress is the gap between your perceived ability - what you feel you can deliver - and your perception fo the demand you’re working towards - what you feel is being asked of you. The smaller the gap between these two points, the less stress you feel. The larger the gap, the more stress you feel. Know your strengths, and build towards making them stronger.
To be successful, any performer needs a plan. And they need to execute the plan. Plan for setbacks, and remember, these aren’t failures. But preparing for a ‘Plan B’ now if things don’t work out is important, because considering what might be your reality if the plan goes wrong builds your resilience and offers some psychological safety. Think about it now, and it’s not a shock when things don’t work out the way you hoped. It’s not a negative process, but an important consideration as you plan for success. What’s more, the best athletes plan for setbacks. Working through the bad days is important; it’s about consistent, persistent effort, sustained, over time. Persistence wins over perfection, every time. Break your workload into manageable chunks and do a little bit each day. But, be disciplined. Stick to the plan.
Thank you for taking time to give this a read. Be sure to share this post with anyone you feel would find it useful. Please get in touch, or leave a comment if you have any questions.
Want more information? Drop me an email to discuss how I can help you with specific areas of improvement. Or, check out my website, or social media platforms to see how my psychological services might be able to help you overcome the hurdles you're currently facing.
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