Question from a subscriber: Since childhood, I’ve always been taught only with a whip (and for 4), but a good grade should have been obvious. The result is many years of studying “for grades” without understanding or remembering. Along the way, my brain got so used to it that I became a stupid crammer who takes an exam and all knowledge disappears. And this despite the fact that I understood the topic perfectly, I even explain it to others. This makes it sad - that C students remember a lot, but you can’t even remember a simple definition... and somehow self-esteem decreases. I’ve just finished university and I’m so scared to go to work - I’m afraid that I won’t live up to expectations, that nothing will work out, that I’ll be thrown out of everything. It’s the same story with driving - wild stress and I stopped going there altogether. I wrote a sheet and I don’t even know what specific question besides what to do. I have a lot of OCD during exam periods, which gets worse and constant anxiety about everything...—I didn’t see an obvious question, so I’ll just share my opinion about what you wrote. We all come from childhood. One of the good news is that it is over. Now you have the opportunity to build your life the way you want. This does not mean that it will be easy and simple. But without action in that direction, you are guaranteed to remain in place. In consultations, I often come across the belief: Everything should work out for me. Or Everything should work out well for me right away. Well, it shouldn't. :) It doesn’t matter how a person learned to think this way, thanks to parental education or something else. The important thing is that the older we get, the more opportunities there are to change something in our lives. And, the first thing you should pay attention to is the idea “everything should work out for me.” — With whom and when did you sign such an agreement? - Why does this suddenly “should”? “If someone ever told you that, does that mean anything other than that it’s just a person’s opinion?” — Before you decided that “everything should work out for you,” nothing ever worked out for you? And, if it worked, then what now prevents you from simply allowing yourself to act, how will it turn out? The fact that you stop demanding through “shoulds” does not mean that you need to stop wanting what you intend to do. You may sincerely want to get a job, finish a university or some courses, learn to crochet like that girl from Instagram. At the same time, realize that you MUST NOT, MANDATORY, ONE HUNDRED PERCENT, for something to work out for you. Try to remember your most distant childhood memory, when you played something, tried something, learned something. You just DID it. Sometimes you wanted to do one thing, sometimes another. The presence of one desire did not cancel the previous one. But there was no debt to anyone. Not even now. — If you don’t live up to the hopes of a certain circle of people, what will happen then? — If you don’t pass your driving test, what happens then? - If you are fired from your job, what will happen then? As part of individual work, I would analyze each consequence and ways to cope with them. Here I will assume one thing: you will feel unpleasant. — It’s unpleasant not to live up to expectations. — It’s unpleasant to fail an exam. — It’s unpleasant to be fired. Yes. This can be unpleasant. Very unpleasant. But should these cases be pleasant? Not sure. Therefore, the point is not what will be unpleasant, but what you will do next with this “unpleasant” thing. If you think that “it shouldn’t be unpleasant” and in general “why is it always so hard for me,” then you are likely to experience strong unpleasant feelings and experiences. If you agree that, yes, it’s unpleasant, yes, I wouldn’t want to fail the exam and lose my job, but this can happen! This can happen no matter how WELL prepared I am, how GOOD an employee I am, etc. If this happens, it will be unpleasant for me, but this does not mean that I am a failure. This only means that today it turned out the way it did. And I would like to move further towards my goals in this or any other ways. It's possible that this.