by Bill Sheate
Career change - stressful or exciting?
There can be many reasons to make a career change or change your job. Stress and work/life balance may be a strong motivating force. Sometimes, however much you try to manage the stress and anxiety, changing the principle stressor in your life - your job - may be the only real option. That can seem even more scary than the stresses your current job is putting you under. But it need not be. Maybe the stress is exactly the impetus you needed to step back and look anew at what’s really important to you and where your job fits into your wider personal values…….[Read more]
by Bill Sheate
…...because it is what it is.
Anxiety is typically future focused - a fear that something bad is going to happen and I won't be able to cope. And so we worry - as a coping strategy, believing (unconsciously) that all that over-thinking will somehow solve our anxiety, find the answer - except that it won't. It prolongs the thinking to try to avoid anxiety, but the struggle means we engage ever more in thinking about the very thing we are anxious about and so maintain the cycle…….[Read more]
by Bill Sheate
Why do we do it?
Surprisingly, perhaps, procrastination is often used as a coping strategy; procrastinating - delaying doing something you need to do - in order to reduce the anxiety you might feel as you contemplate doing a task that might appear to be overwhelming, e.g. an essay; a group project; or revision for an exam. Procrastination is typically an avoidant behaviour, ……..
by Bill Sheate
Changing your approach
At advanced levels - especially postgraduate - exams are less about what you know and more about how you apply your knowledge and understanding to problem-based situations. They’re not there so much to test your knowledge, as to be part of making learning possible, for example as opportunities to apply higher order learning skills like analysis, synthesis and evaluation (and creativity). There are some very simple hints and tips that can make all the difference to your exam technique, especially for essay-type questions – the whole way in which you perceive an exam, approach it, prepare for it and sit it..........
