1. Your grades have nothing to do with who you are. On the level of identity it doesn’t matter what grades you get. You are not clever, you are not dumb. All that stuff is conceptual. So relax.
2. Study smarter, not harder.
3. Have breaks. Relax. Have a social life. None of those things are going to get in your way. You are giving your brain extremely valuable time to have a break and consolidate information. More importantly you are going to enjoy yourself a bit. This is your life after all.
4. There’s a Paul McKenna book “I can make you smarter”, take a look at that for some ideas on how to study smarter. There are lots of study methods you’re not using and you can find them in that book. Taking notes and looking at them is probably too passive. Using your brain actively will help.
5. Put some activities in your schedule. Get some physical exercise. Go on runs etc. This will help you focus, give you more energy and give you something to do other than sitting around staring at notes.
6. There’s a difference between putting time in and “trying really hard”. When you start tensing up and really “trying” to learn things, you can get in your own way. Sometimes it’s better to relax and soak in the information without all the exertion. Stressing out and “trying” aren’t the same thing as putting the time in to learn and getting effective results.
7. What do you think achieving straight As will offer you? Being “clever”? Being “happy”? Well, “clever” is just a judgement, just a thought, it’s not actually who you are, so that won’t happen. And “happy” isn’t obtained through telling yourself you need to achieve this and that to be happy, it’s achieved by accepting whatever is happening in each moment. So I would seriously question why you want these As. If it’s to, say, get into a good uni or something then that’s fine, but why do you want to get into the uni? And can you handle the thought of not getting into the uni? If not you might want to explore the fear of failure that suggests.
Good luck. Take it easy. Well done for putting the time in – now do that with the broader focus I’m suggesting here. The above 7 points are only SUGGESTIONS but why not see what it’s like to try them on and give them a go.
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