Test and presentation anxiety: What if I can't?

Did I answer correctly? What if I don't get a good grade? What if I fail? Did I not forget to say something important? Did I write everything that was needed in the answer? What if I don't get the grade I want?

‍

The “If” and the “Will” bring too many doubts and rarely, if ever, give certainty. Doubt feeds anxiety and curiously increases the likelihood of exactly what you fear will happen, because the focus of attention and effort is on the fear of failure and not on the will to try to do the best you have to give.

‍

Many young people feel lost in these doubts, especially in the phase of national exams and/or in the phase in which the average marks on the tests gain an extraordinary weight in their daily lives and in the goals for the future. They are divided between anticipating their performance in tests, presentations and exams, and trying to check at the post-evaluation moment if everything went well, what they did or did not get right, mentally reselling as much as possible to see if they managed to get everything right. And, in the situations themselves, they are in a state of hypervigilance that distorts their ability to realistically read situations and tasks, in addition to creating a negative interpretation of what others will be thinking of them.

‍

In these cases, we speak of Social Anxiety,more specifically Performance Anxiety, as the fear is limited to speaking in public and/or having a performance that is negatively evaluated by others.

In this form of anxiety, the fear of making a mistake, of not achieving what they set out to do, of being evaluated negatively by others, of not reaching the goal of expectation, can both motivate them to face fears, and can block them from performing the most diverse forms of evaluation. There, the results tend to be lower than expected, expectations are disappointed and fear wins. Win for the situation to have happened as expected and win for the fear it brings about future evaluation situations.

‍

They study a lot. Some even study too much. They try to have everything under control so that nothing runs as they fear, but there is a set of thoughts that tells them that they will not succeed, that they will fail and, sometimes, they even go so far as to think that they are less competent than the others, exhausting even more.

What about fear? This continues to strengthen because, instead of young people facing their fears and increasing efforts in the opposite direction to what fear indicates, they end up increasing the fear that everything will happen as it appears to them in negative thoughts. Doubt and insecurity grow, and anxiety also increases its cognitive, emotional and behavioral proportions and expressions.

‍

The role of anxiety is to signal possible dangers and important moments for each of us. However, with it in its extreme (negative) form, we lose confidence in ourselves, we lose opportunities, we feel diminished and, not infrequently, we are tempted to try to control it instead of dealing with it and accepting it in its essence.On the other hand, if we do not experience it, we do not feel the satisfaction of finding a good mark in the guideline or the contentment after successfully facing anxiety-provoking situations, but important in our growth, whether they are in the personal or professional forum. We need anxiety, but in a regulated way.

‍

Learning to manage anxiety about tests, exams and other forms of assessment, in an increasingly competitive society, becomes an essential tool for the entire life course.

‍