Mindful Tips for Leaving Cert Success

He who has a why… can bear almost any how.  ~ Fredrick Nietzsche

Exams are such a stressful time for so many people.  Here are some tips that can be applied to any exam, and are particularly relevant to those preparing to sit the Leaving Cert.

1.     Be mindful of task/exam when anxiety arises.  Remember that the vast majority of people feel anxious going into an exam.  Research by Rich and Woolever found most students have similar levels of anxiety.  Those who focused on their self-doubts and other factors that were not relevant to the current exam did worse than those who could acknowledge their anxiety and refocus on the exam at hand.

2.     Be mindful of your breath as an anchor.  While waiting to turn over your exam paper, this is an ideal opportunity to anchor yourself in your breath and your breathing.  From a mindfulness perspective as long as we are breathing there is more right with us than wrong with us regardless of whatever your mind might be telling you to the contrary.  In times of high anxiety, mindfulness expert Thich Nhat Hanh suggests it can be particularly useful to say the phrases “breathing in, I am aware that I am breathing in” as you breath in and “breathing out, I am aware that I am breathing out” as you breath out to help maintain your focus on your breathing. 

3.     Be mindful of time.  Time management can be an issue for many students.  Being mindful of time throughout your exam can greatly improve your chances of answering all questions and giving you the best chance of getting the best grade for you.  Psychologically many of us need contextual cues, or reminders, to help us to remember to be mindful of time.  One way to do this is to put a little “T” in a circle, or a figure of a clock in the margins of your answer booklet in light pencil.  This will serve as a prompt to be mindful of your time.

4.     Be mindful of “towards” and “away” moves.  It can be very easy to get caught up in judgments such as “right” or “wrong” and “good” or “bad” both during and/or after exams.  In the recent book The ACT Matrix, I shared that when we get caught up in these judgments we often find it more difficult to get back to the moment, and what matters.  It can be more helpful to acknowledge when we have moved “away” from what is helpful and important to the exam at hand and then channel our time and attention to moving back “towards” where we want to be.  This can really minimise the time we spend beating ourselves up and maximise the time we spend focusing on the exams that are important to us.

5.     Be mindful of your thoughts.  Many of us get hooked by unhelpful thoughts at exam time.  It can be useful to identify the prominent themes that arise for you in an exam, for example “exam failure”, “not enough” or “need to repeat”.  Then when these themes arise in the exam you can simply note “oh, there’s the exam failure/not enough story again” and refocus on your exam or study for your next exam.  Research has shown that this is more helpful than ignoring or getting caught up in the thoughts. 

6.      Be mindful of compassion.  Often we are our own worst critics.  In times of high stress we can find it difficult to see the bigger picture.  It can be useful to connect to what your older, wiser, kinder 21 year old self would say to you to help you during your leaving cert. 

7.     Be mindful of what matters.  It is very tempting to get completely hooked in the points system and what you “have to do”.  Meanwhile you can lose sight of why you are doing the leaving cert in the first place.  Many psychologists, such as Dr. Steve Hayes creator of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), have found that if we focus on the reason behind why we are doing what we are doing that greatly helps us to make more moves towards what is important and to get more enjoyment as we do this. 

Aisling Curtin is a Counselling Psychologist with the Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI), founder of ACT Now Ireland and WTF Psychology Blogger.  You can find out more about her and the workshops she regularly gives in Ireland and internationally at www.actnowireland.com, www.wtfpsych.blogspot.ie, find ACT Now Ireland on Facebook or call ACT Now Ireland at 01-4433307.

Ways to Practice Self-Compassion

Most of the shadows in this life are caused by standing in one’s own sunshine.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

v Acknowledge common humanity- we all screw up.  We all make mistakes.  We all let people that we know and love down.  We do it on many occasions.  And so does everyone else.  It can be useful to remind yourself “everyone messes up, I am not on my own” and see if you can connect with a moment where a loved one messed up and treat yourself the same way that you treated them.

v Allowing your heart, values and integrity to be your guide rather than a desire to please or placate others.  When you make choices- check in to see are these choices going to bring you closer towards who and where you want to be?  Or will these choices in fact bring you further away from who and where you want to be?

v “Choose discomfort over resentment”.  I loved this saying when I first heard Dr. Brené Brown make reference to it.  Often we say yes when we really want to say no out of a sense of obligation, or no when we really want to say yes as we are hooked on some reason why we can’t do it.  These choices often give us some relief.  Yet this relief is often short-lived, quickly replaced by resentment, which unfortunately can hang around like a bad smell.

v Importance of seeing and listening deeply.  Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn speaks of the importance of looking and listening deeply.  See if you can go below the surface of the situation/yourself and delve into the heart of what’s going on in situations/yourself.  He proposes that when we look at ourselves, and others, at a shallow level- we see only faults.  Yet, when we look more deeply- we are more likely to witness common humanity and the many strengths we have. 

v Allowing ourselves to be seen and heard deeply by others and ourselves.  It follows that it is not enough to see and hear deeply.  We also must be willing to allow ourselves to be seen and heard deeply.  Many of us, myself included, can hide behind masks.  We can find a false sense of security in only showing certain parts of ourselves for fear of rejection.  Yet, often the parts we expose are of the more shallow level, which is often judged by ourselves, and others, harshly.  And we protect and therefore hide the hidden gems within.

v Recognize that our emotions and bodily sensations often hold important messages for us.  It can be useful to slow down and connect beneath the surface level of these feelings to what helpful messages they might be trying to tell us.  For example, this past week I noticed the emotion of overwhelm that was about to tip into resentment and bodily sensations in the forms of sore throat and general lethargy.  When I tuned in I could see clearly that I had overcommitted and spread myself too thin.  I could also see that I wasn’t getting a sense of freedom and joy any more from these activities as I was doing things out of a sense of obligation completely disconnected from the values underlying my actions.  So I needed to make some uncomfortable moves for me, which was lightening my load by pulling back from some things.  Risking the potential to disappoint others in order to be true to my inner core values.

v Acknowledge that on the journey to loving ourselves more, when engaged in fully, we may often love ourselves less temporarily.  Personally when I fully showed up to who I was- warts and all- I found this difficult.  I often found more reasons to reject myself that to accept myself.  To be willing to recognize and acknowledge this- being accepting of my non-acceptance of myself was the first important step.  Wherever you are currently is the perfect place to start putting loving fluid into your tank so you can go that extra mile, or maybe even before you can take that first step in that direction.  

We are each gifted in a unique and important way.  It is our privilege and our adventure to discover our own light.  ~Mary Dunbar

ACTing Mindfully in Daily Life

“The secret to achieving inner peace lies in understanding our inner core values- those things in our lives that are most important to us- and then seeing that they are reflected in the daily events of our lives.

~ Hyrum W. Smith

What is the function of this Mindfulness lark that so many people are harping on about?  The whole idea behind Mindfulness is that we consciously work on bringing more of our time and attention to the present moment- the here and now. 

How is ACTing Mindfully different to Mindfulness?  Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) is a mindfulness-based approach that places a particular emphasis on connecting with our values- those things that matter most to us.  In a nutshell, ACTing mindfully is around three things. 

Learning to cultivate acceptance and compassion towards the things that are outside of our control and a willingness to do things that feel uncomfortable in they are in the service of something that matters to us.

Connecting to this present moment and what matters most to us rather than getting caught up in the past, future or things that have relatively little significance in our lives.

Taking meaningful action that brings us closer towards who and where we want to be.  Essentially acting in a way that we would be proud to stand over with integrity if we were to see our actions rehashed on a video.

If this is something you are interested in finding out more about, here is a 1-hour video where I overview the ACTing Mindfully approach.