Self Imposed Stress!

I like to think that I am a pretty stress free person. I don't get too worked up about things, I'm positive and my glass is almost always half-full. However ... recently I learned that I do get stressed, and it was completely SELF IMPOSED!

I have gone back to college to complete my Bachelors degree and I am taking 9 hours. This in and of itself is not a problem, and I seemed to be able to keep up with the work load with very little stress. Then it happened ... MID TERM WEEK! One of my classes required a 3 page research paper for the mid-term, one was just a weekly quiz, and one was a Mid-term exam. No problem right? WRONG! I began to get very nervous about the exam. I had done well on all the quizzes up to this point, but just the word EXAM seemed to turn my usually stress free self into a quivering, fearful person that I had never met before.

This really surprised me because I have been in college before and it never had this effect on me then. Unfortunately no matter what I did I couldn't seem to shake it. I studied all the time, memorized, and studied some more. I even saved my notes onto my iPod so I could study when I didn't have my notes with me! I was OBSESSED with this exam. No matter how much I studied I did not feel I was prepared and my stress level simply continued to go up!

The exam was on Friday evening at 6 pm, so I met my husband for a quick bite to eat at 4:30 and was so nervous I could barely eat. Just before I left he said to me "just relax, and do your best." I went to the exam, completed it, and even got the answers before I left so I would know exactly what my score was and guess what ... I got a B!

Now, here is the point to this rambling blog post ... WORRY AND STRESS DON'T DO ANYTHING BUT MAKE YOU FEEL SICK! I once heard a statistic that 90% of the things we worry and stress about don't even come to pass! Can you imagine? The next time you get stressed over a situation, you need to ask yourself a few questions: 1. Can I change the outcome of this in any way? If the answer is NO, just let it go and move on! 2. If the answer was YES, you need to do what you physically can to make a difference (in my case study) and then be willing to let the chips fall as they will!