12th time table 2018

by Jeet Seo Off page seo

Waiting for Exam Results? This Isn't the Rest of Your Life!

You're either a parent worried about your child's future, a young person at school anxiously hoping that you've done well in your exams, or a young person who is reasonably sure that you haven't. Or you may be a person who didn't do well at school and is curious as to what this article is about.

Whoever you are take a deep breath and realise that what happens in the next few weeks does not define an entire lifetime, or what happened in school need not continue to define you.

Let me tell you a little about me. I loved school and I always did very well in subjects I loved and very badly in those I didn't. That didn't bother me because I never wasted time on anything that I didn't like, instead putting all my energies into the things I knew would be important to me.

However, when it came to my 14th year things changed. Exams reared their ugly heads and, to me, the adults around me lost their minds. Suddenly I'm being lectured from all sides about how, if I don't do well in my exams, I will spend the rest of my life as a loser.

Because I was a very good student my parents had huge expectations of me, the school had even bigger ones, and there I was trying to deal with an emotionally difficult home life, growing up into a woman, and also cope with this stupid pressure which to me was, and still is, completely unnecessary. To be honest I folded.

I didn't do well in my exams, in fact I dropped grades on all but the one subject that I couldn't possibly fail - English. My parents were so disgusted they took me out of school without a decent exam result to my name, and put me into my first low-paid job. I spent the next 24 years doing work that bored me stiff and paid me badly, trying desperately to protect my sanity. If you had told me then that my 'failure' at school had ruined my entire life I would probably have agreed. I don't now. In fact I totally disagree.

At 39 I went back to university and achieved 2 degrees, one in history and one in computer science. I also have a Diploma and several certificates to my name. Plus I am a retired black belt, and if you knew me you would know that it was nothing short of a miracle that I achieved that dream.

I now do work that I love, I command decent money, and I published my first book in February. A book that is helping  people to respect themselves and get their lives back on track. I have self-confidence, self-respect, and a great life. What happened at school means absolutely nothing to me, and doesn't even come close to defining what I've become in the last 43 years.

You see, your school days are a very small part of your life, they're good in as much as you learn what you do and don't enjoy, if you get good exam results you can go on to further and higher education and get an easier start in your career. But they are not and never will be the total of who you are and who you will become.

I would never encourage anyone not to work hard at school, it certainly makes the future easier to step into, but it doesn't make it impossible to create a brilliant future. Far from it.

I always quote Richard Branson, head of the Virgin empire and owner of his own island, as someone who transcended his school years as soon as he was allowed to be who he was. Sir Alan Sugar and Theo Paphitis are two other multimillionaires born into poverty who took no notice of any of that and created the life they wanted.

Some people suit the education system and some do not, it's as simple as that. Some people are business-minded, some creative, some hands-on. And everyone, absolutely everyone, grows up and changes throughout their lives. You never stop learning, you never stop changing, and you never stop developing new skills unless you want to be a stick-in-the mud and grow old before your time.

So some of the most important things you need to commit to now are:

I will always be willing to learn, grow and change.

I will never believe that I know everything there is to know.

I will never allow anyone else to define me.

I will never believe that I can't get myself out of a bad place.

I will never believe that there is only one way to make a success of my life.

I will never be beaten.

I will always remember that being happy is the greatest strength and achievement of all and I will never downgrade happiness and make it less important than money and status.

If you are prepared to make these commitments then no matter what happens with your exam results you will always be able to create a brilliant life for yourself.

The problem with the general education system in most countries is that it is limited. Schools have a relatively short period of time in which to teach a large number of different characters. As such they have one choice, work to a common denominator. If you haven't done well at school it may be that you needed a more unique education where more unusual strengths were identified, but it simply wasn't available. There is more than one master carpenter who can charge thousands for a coffee table but was no good at grammar, more than one artist whose paintings sell for six figures who was no good at maths, more than one highly paid actor who hated school, more than one author who didn't enjoy exams.

Obviously I hope that you have done as well in your exams as you needed to, but if you don't, or know that you won't, or didn't in the past, just sit and make a list of all the amazing people who have become fulfilled - and possibly rich - despite anything that happened at school.

If you are a parent whose child fails to get the grades they need, commit to encouraging your child to transcend this moment in their lives and go on to find out what they really care about, because most people are at their most successful doing the things they love. Help your child make that list and then ask them what they find really interesting, or care about. Help them to step past this moment and see the rest of their life as an adventure zone yet to be experienced.

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Created on Sep 18th 2017 01:14. Viewed 362 times.

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