Today's Going to Be a GREAT Day!

- by Jaime Willis

In the ten plus years I’ve coached students to do better on standardized tests, there is one sentence that almost all of my students utter that makes me STABBY.

“I’m bad at test taking.”

Firstly, test-taking ability is not genetic, but people certainly act that way. As if their test-taking ability was as immutable as the size of their feet or the number of freckles on their face. This way, they don’t have to take responsibility for the outcome on their exams—it isn’t them, it’s that they lack the ‘test-taking gene.’ Right? No! The ability to do well on tests is a skill that anyone can learn and excel at, given time, attention, and a fair amount of practice.

What that pronouncement says to me is nothing more than, “I give up.” Even worse than that, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more negative you are about your own abilities, the more likely that you follow that path to failure.

One of the things Matt and I feel very strongly about is the need to PRIME yourself to be successful. This doesn’t mean that you have to shout from the rooftops about how amazing you are all the time (that would be really obnoxious!), but you do need to reframe your thinking to focus on the positives and success instead of on the negatives and possible failure.

Priming yourself to succeed is a very deliberate, conscious act.

It is waking up every morning and deliberately being happy about the day, whether you feel that way at first or not. (I personally like to walk to work to “All I Do is Win” by DJ Khaled).
It is focusing on the positives, not the negatives. “I’m working on getting better at remembering people’s names, “ not, “I’m so forgetful.”

“I am so happy that I’m working hard on becoming healthy” instead of “I can’t believe how fat I let myself get.”

I challenge you to reframe one of your goals so you are completely focused on the positive and see if your results improve!

Believe it. Achieve It.