Sunday 15 February 2015

HALF TERM, MOCK RESULTS AND THE 'COMPARISON BUG'

Half term is finally here!!! 

I left school on Friday feeling absolutely drained and I promise you that it had nothing to do with me writing my 5,000 word Extended Project draft in two days (not a good idea). It also had nothing to do with me cramming revision for a Psychology test on stress, which was quite stressful (oh wow that really was not funny) and it's definitely not because I got the results for my mocks. The whole week was literally a music video for 'cry me a river', except there was no Justin Timberlake and the river was my tears. It wasn't even a river; it was more like cry me a Niagara Falls, jump into it, swim to a deserted island and make friends with endangered animals. And yes, it really was that deep (OMD the irony).

It was the 'oh Itunu you look so sad', that snapped me out of my 'I'm-so-done-with-this' mood and I spent my free period channelling the happy vibes and sorting out the rest of my Extended Project. Yay PRODUCTIVITY!!!

When the day was over one of my friends brought up our mock exams and said 'I know this sounds bad, but I always compare my grades to other peoples. If one person gets the same grade as me but has an extra mark I don't feel as happy about my result'. Yes, yes and yes, someone finally said it. I totally got what she was saying. Despite a whole assembly on  'you are not your mock grades' and us being encouraged to see  our mock results as a learning curve; the frustration of not getting the grades you want ,coupled with the 'comparison bug', makes you feel rubbish. It's true. Ok, so that's the problem, what is  the solution?

Constant comparison will never give you satisfaction.

We have all fallen into the 'I revised so much more than them, so why have they got a better grade than me?' way of thinking, but:

1) You don't actually know that you revised more than them (unless you've got your whole year under surveillance- then yeah you should stop that)
2) Even if you do know (again stop with the whole surveillance thing) stop caring. They aren't you, you aren't them. The End.

The 'comparison bug' is on the verge of becoming a sixth form epidemic and I think that if we all relax and see mock results as an opportunity to improve, then we can stop it spreading. If your mock results were not great, or even if they were fabulous, use them to encourage you to work harder and smarter. You can even start this half term!

So, if you caught the 'comparison bug' when you returned to school, shake it off and remember that you still have time to turn things around.

Have a lovely week and remember WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER. 


Did you catch the 'comparison bug' last term? Comment, share and let me know what you think.

Itunu :)
P.S Just realised that I made a HSM reference. BLAST FROM THE PAST!!! and just in case you missed it check out my last post.

 










1 comment:

  1. I know the feeling of comparison, but for me its definitely about comparing my results with my results! I felt pressured to do just as well in the march gcse mocks as i did in the december gcse mocks, even though i know i havent :(

    ReplyDelete