I use this strategy whenever I'm feeling anxious about an upcoming test. When I'm feeling nervous I remember all the past tests I've taken and realize that I usually do well. This gives me confidence in my abilities and helps me relax. Having something to look forward to helps me get through a bad day more than recalling past events. Realizing that there will always be good times ahead is a big help.

One Friday afternoon my brother and I decided to go see a movie with some friends. I was thirteen and my brother was eleven at the time. We had planned on getting a ride with our friends to the movie theater but we were both held up at school and couldn't get home in time. I called and said that we would get a ride from our parents. When we arrived at the theater the movie had already started. We couldn't find the group so we sat in the only open seats available. When the movie was over we went back to the foyer in search of our friends. They were nowhere to be found. This put us in quite a predicament. We had told our parents that we would get a ride home with the other kids so they were not expecting to pick us up. I took out my cell phone only to find that the battery was dead. Neither of us were feeling brave enough to ask a stranger for the use of their cell phone so we decided to walk home. It took us about a hour to get home but along the way we learned a lot about each other. I realized we had never had the time to really talk until then. There had always been distractions between us. There aren't any distractions when your walking through an empty field so we were forced to give our full attention to one another. I learned a lot about him during that time.

I tend to be an extremely anxious person when it comes to school work. During the school year I wouldn't think about anything else if I didn't fight it off. My constant state of mind would be: "What if I get an F on this test and fail the class. Then I might not graduate and work at 7 eleven for the rest of my life." This is, of course, totally absurd. One test doesn't decided the path you will take in life. Irrational or not, this was the way I thought. To get my mind of my school work I started to workout at the school gym in the mornings. This probably wasn't a good idea because it tired me out before football practice in the afternoons but it helped me keep my mind off of school.