Disappointed with your “exam” results?

Coping with Disappointment

Are your exam results less than you hoped, even when based on teacher predictions?

How to cope with disappointment

When your faced with disappointment your psychological chain gets yanked, and it is easy to get overwhelmed by strong feelings. However, losing control of your emotions is never a good thing, as it makes responding to the situation just about impossible. Therefore, it is essential to develop a skill set so that you can loosen the strong grip your emotions may have over you.

So don’t let your emotions run away with you or enable you to do or say things you may later regret in the future and follow these 10 suggestions to beat negative feelings stemming from disappointment:

1. Relax your body from tension with purpose and breath slowly and purposefully to calm the body and eventually the mind down.
2. Name and challenge any unhelpful thoughts driving your negative emotions- simple consider if you are catastrophizing, mind reading, jumping to conclusions, black and white thinking or all or nothing thinking?
3. Look for the positives- shift the angle you are looking at and ask yourself what can I learn from this?
4. Suspend your point of view- and take on the other persons point of view (your most respected teachers view maybe?).
5. Become more mindful- sit with feelings that have been aroused and set up a distance to let it go and process through it.
6. Do not judge yourself based on how you are feeling- you will be plagued by plenty of too many unhelpful/self-critical thoughts as it is.
7. Apply Self Compassion when you need too- be kind, considerate and forgiving towards yourself over and over if necessary.
8. Offer yourself some reality reassurance- you are good enough even if you critically tell yourself you are not. You do not need to be a genius to do well in life and will be able to come back more equipped for the future.
9. Take Appropriate Action- talk to people when your upset, appeal to your school if that is what you and others think is justified. The school will help you with this if indicated.
10. Reach out to friends and relatives for support. Also reach out to professionals if needed, they are there to help and well prepared to help you get through disappointments.

Written by Ant Lacey (MSc) Psychotherapist (EMDR, DBT, SFT)

Reference

BBC News (2020) Exam results: `My future has been set back completely’. Available at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53765190