The impact of our emotions on academic performance

Our emotions influence how we interpret situations on a daily basis. While positive emotions such as happiness can lift us up, negative emotions such as sadness can bring us down. They play a role in how we behave in a situation and can determine how we perform academically. Depending on the type of emotion, they can either hinder your performance or they can help it. Whether you’re in a place in your life where you feel an abundance amount of hope, or you’re in a place where you feel a heavy amount of sadness; it is key to know that there are ways to cope with your emotions. Just because you have this feeling right know, it doesn’t mean it will last forever.

In this moment in time my emotions fluctuate between being positive and negative. I generally do have a positive outlook on my ability to succeed in college. However, my outlook sometimes changes when something I perceive as bad happens, such as receiving a low grade on an exam or assignment. I get easily discouraged when I find myself in this situation because I feel as though that one grade holds so much weight when in actuality it may not. I start to worry that by receiving that low grade, it will have a negative impact how well I do in the class. I then start to conjure these panicky thoughts and worries that initially lower my ability to concentrate. Nonetheless, I manage to find a way to bring that positivity back into my mind. I always remind myself that there is always someone else dealing with something a lot worse than what I’m dealing with now. It is moments like this where it is also helpful to have a support system. By having a support system, I realize that I may have created a horrible situation that wasn’t really that bad to begin with. Having support helps relieve me of my stress and helps me find hope in a situation I thought would end badly. Having a strong support system is one of the reasons why I don’t easily fall into a depressive state. Because of that support, I’m able to pick myself up again and move on.

When we think about our emotions we often think that they are just something that we feel from time to time. However, there are areas that are strong and areas that could be improved. It is helpful to strengthen the dominant areas but improve to weak areas. Something I can improve about myself is learning how to let go of my shame. When I certain event happens that leaves me unsatisfied I’m quick to place blame on myself because I know I could have done better. I usually have this thought of “ If I did better in this situation maybe I’ll be further in completing my goal”. When I have these thoughts it’s difficult for me to let go and begin to move on. Instead I reflect back on it and think about what could have happened if I went about it a better way. However, one of my strengths is I’m able to instill this sense of hope in myself. I’m able to prevent myself from falling into the state of not feeling like I’m unable to accomplish my goals. Learning how to replace a negative emotion with a positive one is something I have learned to improve throughout the years. At times I may experience negative emotions such as shame or stress but that’s normal. I always know that even though I may be experiencing those emotions, things will always get better. This moment won’t last forever I just have to pick myself up and learn how I can improve and be better next time. It isn’t always easy, but finding a way to be hopeful is how I can lower the opportunity for negative emotions to take hold.

Emotions play a role in our ability to maintain a positive performance and engage in self-regulation, they can either hinder us or help us. Pride is an emotion that helps me maintain a positive performance and encourages me to be better at self-regulation. It is an emotion that helps push me to succeed in future goals. My goal in school is to always try and maintain good grades, and whenever that goal is achieved it makes me want to work harder to achieve similar goals. Having that sense of pride makes me feel as though I’m able to complete any goal I want to. In order to keep that feeling, I’ll want to keep challenging myself to push further. I know that in order for me to keep that feeling, I’ll have to find more ways to improve my academic performance. Stress on the other hand can hinder my academic performance greatly. It is a negative emotion that can put a tremendous strain on my ability to self-regulate. I tend to procrastinate the things that stress me out the most. If I feel stressed about an upcoming exam or assignment, I’ll want to avoid it as much as possible. When I avoid it I give myself less time to prepare for it. This then limits my ability to engage in self-regulation and could lower my chances of performing well. It is important to know how to handle stress so it isn’t something that prevents you from maintaining a positive performance. An emotion that can counter this stress is hope. Being hopeful is a positive emotion that enhances my performance and motivates me to improve in how I self-regulate. One way I find is helpful to remain hopeful is to engage in positive self-talk. “ Some of our self-talk serves as a productive motivator to try new tasks and persist in learning”. It is a way for me to remain positive in an otherwise negative situation. Through self-talk I’m able to encourage and motivate myself until I accomplish my goal. By doing this I am relieving myself of that stress that is caused through negative emotions. Once I replace that stress with motivation, I’m able to improve my academic self-regulation and performance.

Even though it is shown that self-talk can to improve emotion in a positive way, it can also lead to negative emotions as well. From time to time I catch myself using negative self-talk known as irrational thinking patterns. These thinking patterns negatively impact my academic emotions and cause me to have a drop in my performance. There have been plenty of patterns I have caught myself using, but the ones I use too often are overgeneralization and catastrophizing. Overgeneralization tends to happen when I receive a grade on an exam or assignment that I feel I should have done better on. I construct this idea that because I did badly on this exam, all other exams I take I’ll do badly on. Furthermore, I’ll think because I got a low grade on the exam I’ll get a low grade in the class. I’m now experiencing stress because I’m overgeneralizing a situation that is most likely not going to happen. I then become too stressed to study properly for the next exam. If I get a low grade one exam that doesn’t mean I’m going to get a low grade on the future exams. It just means I have to work harder the next time. I experience catastrophizing not only in my academics, but in life in general. I’m always thinking about what could go wrong rather than thinking about what could go right. I attribute catastrophizing the main reason as to why I experience anxiety sometimes. Right before I’m about to take a big exam that thought of “ what if I completely blank and can’t remember the information?” goes through my mind and I’m now anxious that I’ll forget something even though I studied. Being anxious is similar to being stressed in which it can impact my performance in a negative way. It is important to mindful of when I let negative self-talk control my thinking. Learning how to cope with these thinking patterns is essential in order to maintain positive academic emotions.

When confronted with irrational thinking patterns, there are cognitive and behavior ways to cope with them. Taking the cognitive approach is to alter your way of thinking in order to change a situation. When taking a behavior approach, being action oriented is the general way to go about changing a situation. With my previous problem of overgeneralization, a cognitive approach could be to always have a positive way of thinking. I have to realize that just because I didn’t do well on one exam that doesn’t mean I’m going to do badly on all exams. By changing my way of thinking, I’m changing how I will react to the situation if it were to happen again in the future. Seeking help and improving my way of studying is a behavior I need to adopt in order to prevent the use of overgeneralization. An approach for catastrophizing is to not think about what could go wrong in a situation, but instead to think about all that could go right. By not letting myself go down that dark road I am able to relieve myself of that anxiety that I would initially cause. Better preparation is action I can take in order for me to not have those negative thoughts. Self-testing and self-questioning is a way to better prepare myself. Even if those catastrophic thoughts were to arise, I can easily shut them down because I know that I prepared myself in a way where I can’t fail.

Emotions are linked to our behavior, which then influences how we perform. It is important to know that even if you may feel as though you experience more negative emotions than positive, there are ways in which you can cope with them. Positive emotions bring a positive performance. So in order to accomplish all that you want to accomplish, you have to know how to use your emotions to push you further, but not hold you back.