ICSE Results 2017 declared: Here's how you should cope with post-results stress

The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) declared ICSE 10th Result 2017 and ISC 12th Result 2017 today at 3 pm on its official website www.cisce.org.

As the results season stays busy, here are a few tips on students should combat pre-examination stress and advice on how to deal with the outcome of the results – good or bad.

1. This is the start: Regardless of whether the results were up to your expectations or not, realise that this is only an important but small milestone in your career. If you did well, don’t become complacent. If you under-performed, you can always turn the ship around.

2. Avoid comparisons: A lot of anxiety students and parents face during results can be traced to peer pressure. This has become especially grueling now, when cut-throat competitions mean even a 0.1 percent could decide someone’s fate at the cutoffs. But learn to think beyond your peers: look at your results as an absolute assessment of how well you did, not relative.

3. Self-Reminder: Assure yourself that you performed to the best of your capacity, and accept that beyond a point, one cannot influence outcomes.

4. Meditation: Ahead of the exams, devote a half hour to meditation techniques, and make it a habit to continue after. Meditating everyday can work miracles for your frame of mind.

5. Positive distractions: After the results, go for volunteering and other positive activities to keep you distracted through the summer. Studies have found that activities like volunteering for a social cause, exercising, swimming and other sports help in beating stress.

6. Don’t over-think over exam results: Repeatedly thinking negatively about your results, especially when you think they are not up to the mark, is a most harmful activity. Instead, divert your energy towards something productive.

7. Put the exam in perspective: Even if you have faced poor results, you will always have scores of career options open in which you could do very well. Check out JK Rowling’s inspirational Harvard commencement address titled The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination.

You may be one of those who may not performed as per your expectation. Understand that the results were only an assessment for your preparedness at that on those particular subjects and do not necessarily are a reflection of your intellect or capability.

It is important to remember: What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.

Some of the most successful and brilliant people the world has seen have failed in most conventional things. This elite list includes the names of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and even the genius scientist Nikola Tesla.

Closer home too, there are many such examples of people who failed conventionally but went on to become successful.

Mahesh Murthy has spent 29 years in helping big brands with marketing counsel, and 13 years in helping startups with the same. A dropout from Osmania University, he started off by selling vacuum cleaners door to door. He won fame as a creative director for marketing projects with Unilever, Economist, Pepsi and MTV. He is now the founder of advertising company Pinstorm.

Ritesh Agarwal, a college dropout, is the man behind Oyo Rooms. The company helps Indians find budget hotels across the country, and covers 700 hotels under its brand.

Varun Shoor was interested in computer programming from a very young age and started his own venture “Kayako” in 2001, a user-friendly approach to web-based ticketed support and visitor engagement. Today his company is valued at 3.7 crores.

Remember, American philosopher John Dewey’s famous saying: “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.”