After speaking with hundreds of PA students and PA-Cs who have failed their exams, there is one thing that causes more failures than anything else. Fear.
Bhodi was right when he said, “Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true.” (Point Break)
Being nervous, anxious, and overwhelmed on test day will cause your worst fears to come true. Even if you know everything. You need to be In The Zone, in Flow, to make the kinds of connections you need to pass the exam. You need your entire brain working overtime and cranking through the material.
If you’re pensive, tight, tentative, and nervous, it’s harder much harder.
One of the main tenants of passing the exam is to be able to stay loose and focused. Outwitting anxiety is key. The problem is that after all these years no one has shown you any of the techniques to do this. Yes, they’ve taught you medical knowledge, but they haven’t taught you how your brain works.
Well your good friend here has a few things he’d like to show you. Here’s one for example. This one will take a little less than 10 minutes, and man it’s a good one.
Grab a piece of paper. At the top right of the paper writ out the word, “Worst Case Scenario” in big bold letters.
Then start writing about the thing that terrifies you and, here’s the important part, write about what happens next and make sure you write down every ridiculous fear as you go farther and farther down the story. As far-fetched and terrifying as you really feel in the moment.
Here’s how mine looked getting ready for my PANRE:
– I fail my exam.
– I have to tell my wife who laughs at me.
– I have to tell my boss who broadcasts it over the PA system at the hospital before firing me.
– I go home and tell my wife I was fired, and she takes the kids and leaves me.
– The PAER community finds out I failed my exam and ten years of work is gone as the community dries up and blows away.
– My family is gone, I’ve lost my job, I’ve lost PAER, and I don’t know where to begin to study.
– I get a job at the local gas station and live out my days in overalls and along white beard talking about the good old days to people who just want to get their gas and get out of there.
Put them all down on paper. Your worst fears. Seriously.
Don’t edit it. Don’t think too deeply about it. But get it down on paper.
You have to name your fears. You beat them by dragging them out into the light.
Jedi Master Yoda, “Named must your fear be, before banish it you can.”
Confucius, “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.”
Once you have your fears down on paper, you can begin addressing the reality of the situation.
If I fail, I will feel stupid. I’ll feel really dumb telling people. I’ll be worried because I will have done my best and I won’t be sure what to do next to prepare.
My wife will feel bad and try her best to help me.
My employer won’t care a lick as long as I eventually pass the stupid thing.
As far as the PAER community goes, I could probably chronicle my failure and what I did next as an education piece for them that they would appreciate. It would also help them see that it isn’t a horrible stigma to fail and that anything is possible one way or the other.
In the end, it would be a frustrating three months studying again, but it probably wouldn’t impact my life much.
Then a cleansing breeze comes through the window, and you feel so much better.
You can banish that fear that cycles in your brain by bringing it out into the open. By confronting it.
One of my favorite quotes is by Mark Twain, “I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.”
We all torture ourselves. You can get better at it, but you have to do the work. You have to actually get that piece of paper out and write out the exercise above. Do it, or those thoughts will keep spiraling around in your head.
This exercise is just the tip of the iceberg, there’s so much more I want to cover for you. So many ways to get through this. You can do it, but you need a few strategies.
The No More Test Anxiety Package is available until midnight tomorrow EST.
The package is only available for a short time, so if you’ve got a test coming up in your future you might want to take a look at this one.
www.physicianassistantexamreview.com/nmta
Brian Wallace
P.S. If you know someone who this might help please share it with them.