@@Alice-si8uz Im positive he also means, do it in the exact opposite way of how the education system works, because the system is in fact designed to just steam out grades from people. It's very capitalist by nature. And I am positive he thinks we should be doing education differently, because digit grades do not have a positive effect on student performance.
I remember I was in a very interesting lecture once and I was having a lot of fun and learning well. Than teacher said: this will be on the test. I immediately got bored and stoped paying attention.
Wooowww ok... This makes so much sense! I do this all the time!! I can spend hours researching interesting topics/learning new things but as soon as it becomes an assignment or something I HAVE to do for uni that will be graded I miraculously "lose interest in" it..... I never quite understood why regardless of all the reflecting I did to figure it out... This is crazy... Thank you for posting your comment it helped spark that memory in my mind!
Tfw you have low self-esteem, self-efficacy, and self-compassion... Thanks for this video, this made a lot of my habits and choices a lot more clearly. You explain things so well. I'm going to bring this up to my therapist this week. You explained it a lot better than I ever could. Hopefully I can start breaking this habit and begin to work towards feeling better about myself.
here's only one way to fail, it's giving up before succeeding. Never give up, and you'll get even higher than your greatest dreams! Dare to dream! There is nothing TOO big for a dreamer.
What pisses me off is when people look at that and say it's an 'excuse'. just because i don't have the same neurological architecture to support certain stressors doesn't mean I WANT to be a lazy failure sitting on the couch eating potato crisps and looking at the youtube app on my smarttv; it's just how it ended up happening.
beesland As a matter of fact, you cannot change the past, neither what you have or don't have, or even you genes. Now the real question is: Will you cry about what you should have had or what you don't have today, OR will you gather all your strength to get further, and keep getting better and better in the way you want? If I told you, you die at the end of this week, will you complain about about what you have or don't have? You'll go much higher thinking! I'm sorry Sir, but equality does NOT exist in this world, but one thing is sure: the hardest you fight, the better you'll get and feel about yourself. You can lose a battle, ok that's life. But if you put 100% effort in it, you'll feel like: I've done my best anyway! And you made yourself more resistant to failure. If instead you put 70%, you would feel like, oh god that was close, why I didn't make a 100% all -in? THAT feeling is the worst of all. Never go 70%. Always go 100% in what you do. And I don't care about your past, what you have or don't have, I only care about your mindset, that's the mindset that you can change and that's the only thing that matters at the end. Good luck in life, or should I say, good tryhard, cause luck is often induced.
I appreciate the sentiment you're trying to reach; that i should take life by the balls and live every day like it's a fight for survival and everything. But for some reason your method of injecting multiple statements that dont relate to one another in sequence just doesn't seem genuine. It just sounds like I put 5 dollars into a compliment machine and all i'm getting are little fortune teller platitudes like it's black friday at the advice store. I think what's wrong with me is that I DONT have a battle or war to fight against. I'm just a college graduate stuck between the self that was left in the classroom at the final exam bell, and the self that sees himself walk into a cubicle with a suit for the rest of his life. And in those two periods I have all this time to figure out what battle I really want to fight. Plus the way that I was taught school was kinda weird, like my parents would make me do the work, as difficult as algebra or english may seem, but if i didn't do a good- OH MY GOD CAN'T YOU EVEN FIGURE OUT A SENTENCE, HERE LET ME DO IT FOR YOU. JEEZ 22 YEARS OLD AND YOU STILL CAN'T MAKE A COGENT POINT COME ON YOU'RE AN 'ADULT' NOW. With all the video talks about in terms of Self-Esteem (of course you're going to fail, you're not even that smart), Self-Efficacy (can't even begin a homework without 2 hours of youtube how are you expecting to finish A, B, or C), and Self-Compassion (hey look how i write about myself ffs), all I see is the fact that I lack all three of those elements in myself. Would blaming myself for not having any self-compassion feel ironic or hilarious? Maybe, I should write a comedy skit or something about this. i dunno.
I have an explanation of my own. I think this phenomenon is caused by the brain trying to protect itself from being overwhelmed by stress. As we know, stress is pretty much the brain's last-ditch effort to.... well, not die. Meaning our stress mechanism operates on two assumptions: 1. if the stressor (the thing that induces the stress) isn't taken care of, we will die. 2. The stressor doesn't last long. You either run away from it/fight it or you die, meaning the stress response is only for emergencies. Unfortunately, both of these assumptions are false in the modern world. Consider exams. Your life doesn't depend on it. Even if you do badly, you won't die. And yet it triggers a stress response in your brain. But unlike actual stressors, exams last for a long time. Our brains simply aren't able to handle such prolonged stress. Things are made even worse by the fact that we tend to isolate ourselves during exams. And isolation triggers its own stress response, this too being a false alarm. So we experience extreme amounts of stress during exams and since we can't fight exams, the only thing our brains can do in this case is run away from them, in this case mentally. By taking our minds off the exam. Hence the binge watching and what nots. So we're not actually handicapping ourselves. We're protecting ourselves from stress-induced brain damage.
I agree. While watching this video, my first thought was that stress and being overwhelmed are much more reasonable explanations for me. At least if I think about myself. It would also match with the observation that people who feel negative about the exam are more likely to do something else. The same goes for the counter-measures discussed at the end. I'm not sure about the other observations discussed in the video, thought.
i think u and scishow both are correct, what you are talking about here is called escapism and its a form of escape from reality because reality is very stressing and by escaping to an alternate reality where you aren't conscious of your responsibilities or circumstances, its at least a moment of 'happiness'
I think that my procrastination is just my brain trying to protect itself. After months of studying sometimes I become so stressed and miserable that I need to do anything else. But I won’t give myself time to relax because I need to do stuff. So I procrastinate because it’s just too much. But then I still need to study so I end up having to rush study late in the night. It makes my life more miserable and the circle restarts.
I am not in school anymore, but still have anxiety when i think of exams lol even today, i am a curious person by nature, and learn about things that interest me through google, youtube videos, books etc. and that information stays in my head much longer than all that information that i force fed myself during my youth, and forgot the very next day after the exam.
I finally have a word for it... I'm so scared that I'm genuinely not good at anything that I screw myself over so that I have something else to blame... Now I fully understand what I need to work on. Thank you, SciShow. ❤️
Really appreciate this episode. Currently in the process of studying for the MCAT and every day feels like I'm self handicapping myself from trying my best. Nice to know that it has a name and I'm not alone
Wow, this explains why I use to be A grade student throughout all elementary + high school, but dropped out of university - until then I never let things like grades get to me and I almost never studied for tests, I just naturally wanted to know more about the topics that we were taught and so I kept learning them on my own terms and made my own research etc. The evaluation was something that I basically didn't care about... so ironically, I would almost always get an A and I graduated with the highest honors. Then when university started they kept repeating how important which project is for our final mark, just how many credits we need to pass etc., and I developed major anxiety and depression, and just couldn't do it anymore. But I never realized it was because I kept focusing too much on the "what if I get a bad mark and don't have enough credits to pass" side of things instead of enjoying the topics themselves - or in other words, because I studied the exact same way as they kept telling us we should. _Goddamit..._ Well thank you, Hank, you seriously helped me here :)
Thank you so much for your comment! It hits me and makes me think a lot! The process is the most important, how you figure out this world and the class, the curiosity will lead us to focus instead of the grades. Usually people do it very well under this circumstances rather than pushing scors. Thank you again!
This taught me so much about myself. Self-handicapping almost caused me to sabotage my entire future a few times. I started to hate myself for it and i couldn’t stop. It became a self feeding cycle of lowering self confidence and repeated failures. I’ve worked past it since, but having some insight into why it happened helps. Thank you for making this video.
Back when I was in school I used to be obsessed with getting good grades, but would always procrastinate when studying the night before a test. Good to know I'm not the only one!
It explains a lot how I'm currently looking for a job now, but my field has changed so much that I need to learn new things in order to get the said job. I'm interested in learning them, though not as interested, but instead learn about things that I don't *have* to learn. I think I'm saying *having* to learn things for a daunting reason is harder than wanting to learn something you're interested in at your own pace.
If you don't know the material the night before the test, you've already sabotaged yourself by waiting too long to learn the material. Might as well relax and binge watch Netflix.
Also, don't stay up late either studying or on the internet. Being well rested is one of the best things you can do for the exam. If you are going to study the night before skim over your notes for 30 minutes just before your ready to go to sleep then make sure to go to sleep right after.
I rarely cared enough about exams so i didn't do it at school. I got good grades usually, i like learning. But now in normal life, i do a lot of this self handicapping. A lot. This video made me understand it a little better, though i'm starting to get my daily/weekly rhythms sorted out, and doing things like making food and cleaning has become a lot easier lately.
Hank is exactly right. Focus on learning rather than just passing the test and you self handicap less. I was bad about self handicapping all through college, but CDL school? I was focused on the end goal, driving a truck. The tests were not easy, there was just as much to memorize and way more opportunities to mess up than some of my programming tests, but I self handicapped less in CDL school. It felt less like school and more like job training because I was focused on learning rather than grades. Passed with a 98% average.
Coincidentally, this was published on my birthday... So, I'll consider it a birthday gift. And this is a really good birthday gift, too. It shed light on something I've been dealing with for most of my life. So thank you a lot, this has been very helpful and informative.
I considered taking exams to be an extreme sport. Literally every semester of undergrad I would cram a whole semester's material into the last ~3 days, slamming endless coffee and adderall and blasting weird hard driving metal music (which I never listen to otherwise.) In retrospect, I realize that this was partly actually for the thrill of it. It was like being really concentrated on drawing or playing music, and cramming was one of the few things that actually put me into the "flow state." Just single-minded, adrenaline and panic fueled improvising. I actually started an informal business of being the "cram doctor" where I would go to someone's place a couple days before something huge and try to bail them out of failing. I wondered whether this was unethical but I had a pretty good pass rate so I think I helped more than harmed.
I liked the casual interjections in his video, esp at the end. It’s nice to see Hank-the-vlogbrother shine through Hank-the-guy-reading-a-scishow-script. :)
Thank you for this! So this is possibly what made me fail my courses. Knowing this, I can understand better this behavior. Hopefully also lessen this in the future. It's so much easier to give in to binge watch, doing senseless things than to study or do more important things.
I am old enough to understand my self-handicapping behaviors, but not so great at stopping them before they start! Possibly the worst incident was a few days before college graduation. I attended a small 'religious' college, so the big graduation party was off campus. I started drinking alcohol early and by the time the party started, I was so far gone, I passed out in a friends car and stayed there all night. I have VERY vague memories of the night. The problem was that I had a major test the next morning!! In my day, it was called GRE (?) It was a graduate school entrance exam, much like SAT. Next morning, major hangover...just make it in time and the test... well, the literacy...no problem...but the math and science was sooo far out of my league that with the pounding in my head, I stopped being to focus on the page. Miserable failure😭 I would actually get into grad school and got on with my life...but I still haven't shaken this habit. Thanks, for giving it a name, Hank😞😂
what a coincidence that i was recommended this video today, when i had a final exam for a pretty difficult subject. i procrastinated so hard that i didn't start studying until yesterday and even i couldn't stop procrastinating and i had to force myself to get up to get to the exam centre on time. the only reason i did as well as i did today is that the stuff i didn't bother/have time to study weren't asked in the exam.
Big self handicaper here. I kinda got it under control by switching from a typical university to a system were you performance is checked more often than twice a year. I did however put off watching this video for a few days, ya know, because if i don't hear about tools for fighting it i "basically had no chance" ^^
Típoténnos "basically, do the opposite of what the school system is set to work like" Somehow, I'm not even surprised by that, that being both your comment and what hank said.
Its evolutionary advantageous to expend the least amount of effort and still pass/succeed. Over-achievers die first in an extreme stress situation, too much to handle for humans. Self handicapping being a problem is usually connected to a bloated self esteem or estimation of abilities.
I should be studying for my re-examinations of August, and here comes a video about self-handicapping and procrastinating. Well, now I've got an excuse ...
I have this problem. I really wanna fix it. I just can't stand the thought of being told I'm not worthy. I love learning. So I'm afraid to try my best beacause if I still don't perform well after giving my best then I'll just never be able to look at that subject again...I'll die of depression ..
Trying your best is really hard, you can always do better, so don't fret about failure. Do as much as you can, do the exam. Whatever you get, just accept it and see where you went wrong. You shouldn't concern yourself with what other people think, try your best to just focus on trying better than you did before. Your aim doesn't need to be to beat Einstein, just try being better than the you of yesterday. You'll need go get used to failure because like you said, you'll 'die' of embarassment. People quickly forget the dumb mistakes you do, it sounds counter-intuitive, but it is true. Doing stupid stuff isn't always bad, it can actually be a bit liberating. Ask the dumb questions that everyone else probably knows, but you don't. You are here for yourself and no one else.
Dr. Aysh No problem :) Happy to help in anyway I can. I was in a similar situation too and I know how bad it is. It'll take time, but so is anything in life worth having :) It helps me to remember that even when I fail or don't do as well as I feel I should have even though I tried my hardest, think of it as the universe giving you constructive criticism. Maybe a rethink of yourself, your aspirations, your revision techniques or anything. Or maybe, now isn't your moment to shine and you have other things that could be done. We live in an age where the problem is having so much choice. We have too much we can do even though the education system doesn't always reflect that. There is always a way for those dedicated. And even if that sounds really idealistic, it matters little. The journey we take, I feel, is more important than the destination. That is cliche, sure. But it's true. If you aren't enjoying yourself, this isn't how you should be doing things. If you are trying your best and enjoying it, who cares if you don't become President? Sorry for the mini-rant, but yeah. All the best with your life :D I wish you the best!
In college I would self handicap cuz it's fecking rock star to put off studying for the cell-molec exam until 11:30 pm, finish by 1:30, and still get the highest score the next day.
Everyone: procrastination SciShow Psych: self-handicapping I like this term too but procrastination is more commonly used and yeah just wanting to let you know that i enjoy your videos. The meme was intended for purely entartainment not to mock or anything.
Heh I'm self-handicapping right now. I kind of get all nihilistic about school and marks these days because they don't matter, but this video telling me I should focus on the skill itself actually kinda helps
But is this true aswell guys, why i don't study is because the cramming and thinking about the test(ticking in the brain about less time is left) while studying is too displeasureful/uncomfortable .Simply the thoughts during the cramming are too stressful. Once and for all staying away from that thought process. By distracting yourself and getting into something else is better. The brain chooses the pleasureful option.(We defaultly want to escape from stress) Right , Hank ? I think at least this happens to me rather than "self handicapping".
Max tenyson there's a simple reason for that, and something that also makes me wonder about the behaviour of many people on earth: Why do things, that you don't want to do? Admittedly, you probably WANT to pass on that test, but not actually doing it, so, as you said, normally your brain would steer you to something you'd actually want. And... That's it basically.
Yes. This is a big reason why I did so poorly in English. The mere thought of writing a paper causes huge amounts of stress for me and the quickest way to calm down is to stop thinking about the paper.
Then, you have to remember WHY you are doing this. If it's a test, you don't care about the TEST, you don't care about the diploma, you care about what is AFTER it. Find real and ambitions goals that motivates you deep in your soul, and you'll fight harder than you ever expected :-)
Masterpouya also called a passion or dream. It's far too easy to say than to do, I ain't op but I've quit school at just 1st grade high school because of that(and other reasons)
Used to procrastinate very mich but it got better in recent years maybe because I'm mere mature. Well, I'm still a pretty lazy piece but I somewhat found the sweet spot of learning stuff that actually sticks and having fun about it and cramming the details to forget the minute the exam is ended. So, yeah, my advice: seperate the importance and try to learn the broad strokes before exam time even starts. Or don't, I don't care.
B&W photos seem remote. Not talking about artistic works but family or historic photos. See a colour version of the same thing and suddenly people are relatable. I saw the other day that Peter Jackson, of The Lord of the Rings fame, is producing a movie about WW1 using archival footage from the Imperial War Museum. The footage will be digitally restored and colourised. Should be amazing.
I thought self-handicapping is not studying minutes before a test, even if the teacher/professor specifically told that you could. Because you want to test your own "skills". And, yes, I'm that person who never cheats.
How did he know that I have a test in 3 days that although I had months to prepare for it I only realistically spent most of them procrastinating? I sense a conspiracy! Btw, this, right now, watching this, is me taking a break because I've been studying for about 2 hours straight and my brain is hurting me. I AM NOT PROCRASTINATING RIGHT NOW SO GIVE ME A BREAK!!!!! D
I have never actually studied in my entire life. I’m kinda terrified if i reach a point where I genuinely have to study. What I do is skim the night before a test, sleep, then thirty minutes before the test skim again. Takes about 2 hours the night before plus the half hour. It works though! So thank god for that
Tip for self-handicappers: binge watch fun videos about the subject of the test if possible, so you'll do good AND be able to truthfully say that you didn't do your best;).
What's super soul crushing is when you try and put in a lot of effort but still end up doing mediocre at best. Happened to me in a few of my courses last year :'( There wasn't really much of a difference between how well I did in a course based on the effort I put in. They all just kind of ended up with the same grades and often times I did better in the courses where for whatever reason I couldn't/didn't put in a tonne of effort. Sure none of my grades were terrible but when I put in effort I expect at least A's and not B's... It's kind of given me the impression that whether I get an A or B in a course is based entirely on luck rather than the effort/skills I have.
I self handicap by staying up all night studying even when I know I need at least 9 hours to do my best work on a test. I also skip breakfast on test days.
I am in the exam crunch right now and the more stressed I am for a test and the less time I have, my brain is like NOPE. How about building a pen holder from bike parts before I start
I never studied the day before or morning of a test or exam. Same goes for practicing an instrument before a performance. To me it felt like I would have been overdoing it if I didn’t get that break between working on something the first time around and having to execute what I have learned in a very important setting (either performing or writing an exam). I’ve always had the mind frame that if I don’t know what I’m doing the night before it’s actually important, then I’m not going to magically learn it overnight.
Ironically, I once self-handicapped by binging Scishow and other nerdy videos on RUclips the night before an exam.
I'm doing that right now instead of finishing my book to send it to a contest.
Priscilla Ferrari Ah, procrastination. And I know this is completely off-topic, but Priscilla is a beautiful name :)
Then, disconnect internet, here, the box cable, *PLOP *, take a hot chocolate and keep going! And good luck!
It hurts that this is true for me too. (It was all the videos that covered food.)
Marc Shanahan I do that with Vsauce and TEDtalks
Saw this notification and felt so called out
Olivia Mercer for real
I know, right?
I know right !!!!!!!
Don't worry, me too
10/10 hanks eyebrows
Yes.
forever
"Lets say you've got a big test tomorrow, and it's a big chunk of your final grade." Thanks Hank for not making me procrastinate
Been there, done that, cried about it
So basically *do the exact opposite of how the education system is set up*
Sounds easy enough.
He's kinda saying to not be too worried about your grades but to focus on learning skills.
@@Alice-si8uz Im positive he also means, do it in the exact opposite way of how the education system works, because the system is in fact designed to just steam out grades from people. It's very capitalist by nature. And I am positive he thinks we should be doing education differently, because digit grades do not have a positive effect on student performance.
I remember I was in a very interesting lecture once and I was having a lot of fun and learning well. Than teacher said: this will be on the test. I immediately got bored and stoped paying attention.
Wooowww ok... This makes so much sense! I do this all the time!! I can spend hours researching interesting topics/learning new things but as soon as it becomes an assignment or something I HAVE to do for uni that will be graded I miraculously "lose interest in" it..... I never quite understood why regardless of all the reflecting I did to figure it out... This is crazy... Thank you for posting your comment it helped spark that memory in my mind!
Tfw you have low self-esteem, self-efficacy, and self-compassion... Thanks for this video, this made a lot of my habits and choices a lot more clearly. You explain things so well. I'm going to bring this up to my therapist this week. You explained it a lot better than I ever could. Hopefully I can start breaking this habit and begin to work towards feeling better about myself.
YASSSS
here's only one way to fail, it's giving up before succeeding. Never give up, and you'll get even higher than your greatest dreams!
Dare to dream! There is nothing TOO big for a dreamer.
Thank you for the encouragement \o/
Good luck! I hope you getting better result with your therapist after understanding yourself more from this vid, cheers.
Always try your best at the things you do. Maybe no one is encouraging you, but put in effort anyways. Good luck bro
Me personally, i feel like i put too much pressure on myself which makes me give up
Main Same!
I don't care how prepared I am, the hours before a test I'm a nervous wreck.
Same.
What pisses me off is when people look at that and say it's an 'excuse'. just because i don't have the same neurological architecture to support certain stressors doesn't mean I WANT to be a lazy failure sitting on the couch eating potato crisps and looking at the youtube app on my smarttv; it's just how it ended up happening.
beesland As a matter of fact, you cannot change the past, neither what you have or don't have, or even you genes.
Now the real question is: Will you cry about what you should have had or what you don't have today, OR will you gather all your strength to get further, and keep getting better and better in the way you want?
If I told you, you die at the end of this week, will you complain about about what you have or don't have? You'll go much higher thinking!
I'm sorry Sir, but equality does NOT exist in this world, but one thing is sure: the hardest you fight, the better you'll get and feel about yourself.
You can lose a battle, ok that's life. But if you put 100% effort in it, you'll feel like: I've done my best anyway! And you made yourself more resistant to failure.
If instead you put 70%, you would feel like, oh god that was close, why I didn't make a 100% all -in? THAT feeling is the worst of all.
Never go 70%. Always go 100% in what you do. And I don't care about your past, what you have or don't have, I only care about your mindset, that's the mindset that you can change and that's the only thing that matters at the end.
Good luck in life, or should I say, good tryhard, cause luck is often induced.
I appreciate the sentiment you're trying to reach; that i should take life by the balls and live every day like it's a fight for survival and everything. But for some reason your method of injecting multiple statements that dont relate to one another in sequence just doesn't seem genuine. It just sounds like I put 5 dollars into a compliment machine and all i'm getting are little fortune teller platitudes like it's black friday at the advice store.
I think what's wrong with me is that I DONT have a battle or war to fight against. I'm just a college graduate stuck between the self that was left in the classroom at the final exam bell, and the self that sees himself walk into a cubicle with a suit for the rest of his life. And in those two periods I have all this time to figure out what battle I really want to fight.
Plus the way that I was taught school was kinda weird, like my parents would make me do the work, as difficult as algebra or english may seem, but if i didn't do a good- OH MY GOD CAN'T YOU EVEN FIGURE OUT A SENTENCE, HERE LET ME DO IT FOR YOU. JEEZ 22 YEARS OLD AND YOU STILL CAN'T MAKE A COGENT POINT COME ON YOU'RE AN 'ADULT' NOW.
With all the video talks about in terms of Self-Esteem (of course you're going to fail, you're not even that smart), Self-Efficacy (can't even begin a homework without 2 hours of youtube how are you expecting to finish A, B, or C), and Self-Compassion (hey look how i write about myself ffs), all I see is the fact that I lack all three of those elements in myself.
Would blaming myself for not having any self-compassion feel ironic or hilarious? Maybe, I should write a comedy skit or something about this. i dunno.
BeeslandWhat did you study at uni
I have an explanation of my own. I think this phenomenon is caused by the brain trying to protect itself from being overwhelmed by stress. As we know, stress is pretty much the brain's last-ditch effort to.... well, not die. Meaning our stress mechanism operates on two assumptions: 1. if the stressor (the thing that induces the stress) isn't taken care of, we will die. 2. The stressor doesn't last long. You either run away from it/fight it or you die, meaning the stress response is only for emergencies.
Unfortunately, both of these assumptions are false in the modern world. Consider exams. Your life doesn't depend on it. Even if you do badly, you won't die. And yet it triggers a stress response in your brain. But unlike actual stressors, exams last for a long time. Our brains simply aren't able to handle such prolonged stress. Things are made even worse by the fact that we tend to isolate ourselves during exams. And isolation triggers its own stress response, this too being a false alarm. So we experience extreme amounts of stress during exams and since we can't fight exams, the only thing our brains can do in this case is run away from them, in this case mentally. By taking our minds off the exam. Hence the binge watching and what nots. So we're not actually handicapping ourselves. We're protecting ourselves from stress-induced brain damage.
I agree. While watching this video, my first thought was that stress and being overwhelmed are much more reasonable explanations for me. At least if I think about myself. It would also match with the observation that people who feel negative about the exam are more likely to do something else. The same goes for the counter-measures discussed at the end. I'm not sure about the other observations discussed in the video, thought.
i think u and scishow both are correct, what you are talking about here is called escapism and its a form of escape from reality because reality is very stressing and by escaping to an alternate reality where you aren't conscious of your responsibilities or circumstances, its at least a moment of 'happiness'
I think that my procrastination is just my brain trying to protect itself. After months of studying sometimes I become so stressed and miserable that I need to do anything else. But I won’t give myself time to relax because I need to do stuff. So I procrastinate because it’s just too much. But then I still need to study so I end up having to rush study late in the night. It makes my life more miserable and the circle restarts.
I couldn't agree more.
Did you address it? How are you now with procrastinating?
I am not in school anymore, but still have anxiety when i think of exams lol
even today, i am a curious person by nature, and learn about things that interest me through google, youtube videos, books etc. and that information stays in my head much longer than all that information that i force fed myself during my youth, and forgot the very next day after the exam.
Education = what you learn at school ÷ what you remember from school (or something like that)
This video seems a little too convenient for me, I literally have a big math test tomorrow at 9 am, I’m a night person and I tend to take breaks
and this is your break?
kinda ironic but funny
That's nice and you should have breaks. I on the other hand abuse my breaks and end up procrastinating. 😆
Isn't it Summer break for you?
I’ve literally got a huge math test in 3 days and here I am, handicapping myself
What is non- literal math test?
I finally have a word for it... I'm so scared that I'm genuinely not good at anything that I screw myself over so that I have something else to blame... Now I fully understand what I need to work on. Thank you, SciShow. ❤️
Really appreciate this episode. Currently in the process of studying for the MCAT and every day feels like I'm self handicapping myself from trying my best. Nice to know that it has a name and I'm not alone
When he said it was better to master a skill I thought for sure it was going into a Skillshare or Brilliant ad
Wow, this explains why I use to be A grade student throughout all elementary + high school, but dropped out of university - until then I never let things like grades get to me and I almost never studied for tests, I just naturally wanted to know more about the topics that we were taught and so I kept learning them on my own terms and made my own research etc. The evaluation was something that I basically didn't care about... so ironically, I would almost always get an A and I graduated with the highest honors. Then when university started they kept repeating how important which project is for our final mark, just how many credits we need to pass etc., and I developed major anxiety and depression, and just couldn't do it anymore. But I never realized it was because I kept focusing too much on the "what if I get a bad mark and don't have enough credits to pass" side of things instead of enjoying the topics themselves - or in other words, because I studied the exact same way as they kept telling us we should. _Goddamit..._
Well thank you, Hank, you seriously helped me here :)
Thank you so much for your comment! It hits me and makes me think a lot! The process is the most important, how you figure out this world and the class, the curiosity will lead us to focus instead of the grades. Usually people do it very well under this circumstances rather than pushing scors. Thank you again!
This taught me so much about myself. Self-handicapping almost caused me to sabotage my entire future a few times. I started to hate myself for it and i couldn’t stop. It became a self feeding cycle of lowering self confidence and repeated failures. I’ve worked past it since, but having some insight into why it happened helps. Thank you for making this video.
I just love this! That ending was gold, Hank.
Back when I was in school I used to be obsessed with getting good grades, but would always procrastinate when studying the night before a test. Good to know I'm not the only one!
It explains a lot how I'm currently looking for a job now, but my field has changed so much that I need to learn new things in order to get the said job. I'm interested in learning them, though not as interested, but instead learn about things that I don't *have* to learn.
I think I'm saying *having* to learn things for a daunting reason is harder than wanting to learn something you're interested in at your own pace.
That jab at the educational system tho
If you don't know the material the night before the test, you've already sabotaged yourself by waiting too long to learn the material. Might as well relax and binge watch Netflix.
don't underestimate my short term memory :D
don't underestimate the exam
Also, don't stay up late either studying or on the internet. Being well rested is one of the best things you can do for the exam. If you are going to study the night before skim over your notes for 30 minutes just before your ready to go to sleep then make sure to go to sleep right after.
You should rather not watch Netflix and go to sleep. The more well-slept you are, the better you could do at a test.
@@DLBBALL How do you do well on test you haven't studied for by just sleeping?
Thanks for that education system comment. That's exactly what I always thought and felt.
I rarely cared enough about exams so i didn't do it at school. I got good grades usually, i like learning. But now in normal life, i do a lot of this self handicapping. A lot. This video made me understand it a little better, though i'm starting to get my daily/weekly rhythms sorted out, and doing things like making food and cleaning has become a lot easier lately.
as someone who has a lot of self-confidence issues and struggles with exam situations, this video is super helpful. thanks!!
Hank is exactly right. Focus on learning rather than just passing the test and you self handicap less. I was bad about self handicapping all through college, but CDL school? I was focused on the end goal, driving a truck. The tests were not easy, there was just as much to memorize and way more opportunities to mess up than some of my programming tests, but I self handicapped less in CDL school. It felt less like school and more like job training because I was focused on learning rather than grades. Passed with a 98% average.
Excellent video, SciShow team! The editing and the eyebrows are both very very good.
I have been struggling with keeping up my studies for my 3rd CPA exam this week. Thanks so much for being the show I decided to procrastinate with!
Coincidentally, this was published on my birthday... So, I'll consider it a birthday gift. And this is a really good birthday gift, too. It shed light on something I've been dealing with for most of my life. So thank you a lot, this has been very helpful and informative.
I have always said to my sister that she should focus on learning and not getting good grades. It is nice to see it wasn't bad advice :)
I considered taking exams to be an extreme sport. Literally every semester of undergrad I would cram a whole semester's material into the last ~3 days, slamming endless coffee and adderall and blasting weird hard driving metal music (which I never listen to otherwise.) In retrospect, I realize that this was partly actually for the thrill of it. It was like being really concentrated on drawing or playing music, and cramming was one of the few things that actually put me into the "flow state." Just single-minded, adrenaline and panic fueled improvising.
I actually started an informal business of being the "cram doctor" where I would go to someone's place a couple days before something huge and try to bail them out of failing. I wondered whether this was unethical but I had a pretty good pass rate so I think I helped more than harmed.
I wish I could like this multiple times. This is so helpful and I'm pumped that you put this out there, why it happens, and how to fix it.
I liked the casual interjections in his video, esp at the end. It’s nice to see Hank-the-vlogbrother shine through Hank-the-guy-reading-a-scishow-script. :)
Thank you for this! So this is possibly what made me fail my courses. Knowing this, I can understand better this behavior. Hopefully also lessen this in the future. It's so much easier to give in to binge watch, doing senseless things than to study or do more important things.
4:21 nice shot
I am old enough to understand my self-handicapping behaviors, but not so great at stopping them before they start! Possibly the worst incident was a few days before college graduation. I attended a small 'religious' college, so the big graduation party was off campus. I started drinking alcohol early and by the time the party started, I was so far gone, I passed out in a friends car and stayed there all night. I have VERY vague memories of the night. The problem was that I had a major test the next morning!! In my day, it was called GRE (?) It was a graduate school entrance exam, much like SAT. Next morning, major hangover...just make it in time and the test... well, the literacy...no problem...but the math and science was sooo far out of my league that with the pounding in my head, I stopped being to focus on the page. Miserable failure😭 I would actually get into grad school and got on with my life...but I still haven't shaken this habit. Thanks, for giving it a name, Hank😞😂
I was literally self-handicapping watching this video and doing a school assignment based on it 😅 I feel so called out 😂
what a coincidence that i was recommended this video today, when i had a final exam for a pretty difficult subject. i procrastinated so hard that i didn't start studying until yesterday and even i couldn't stop procrastinating and i had to force myself to get up to get to the exam centre on time. the only reason i did as well as i did today is that the stuff i didn't bother/have time to study weren't asked in the exam.
My self-handicap is to binge on buckets upon buckets of KFC chicken! I end up failing the exam because I am passing on the toilet instead.
But at least you're passing something amiright?!
black people SMH
Gravijta
You are saying you got sick because you *gobbled* up chicken?
Master Therion
Yes, and so nervous I plucked my eyebrows as well.
Gravijta youll be *passed* away if you continue
Thank you so much for this video! I kept wondering why I sabotage myself and now when I know the reason I will try to make some changes :)
4:15 THE SHADEEEEE
I love the solution, because that's literally what I concluded by myself. But it's so hard to do it with our current educational system😥
I had a 48 hour take-home final in undergrad that I was so nervous about that I spent about 20 of them binging the first season of House of Cards.
Big self handicaper here. I kinda got it under control by switching from a typical university to a system were you performance is checked more often than twice a year.
I did however put off watching this video for a few days, ya know, because if i don't hear about tools for fighting it i "basically had no chance" ^^
I watched this an hour before a job interview. So hey, I can blame you now.
This made me so happy I'm no longer in school. Damn did I hate all the stress.
Típoténnos "basically, do the opposite of what the school system is set to work like"
Somehow, I'm not even surprised by that, that being both your comment and what hank said.
Its evolutionary advantageous to expend the least amount of effort and still pass/succeed. Over-achievers die first in an extreme stress situation, too much to handle for humans. Self handicapping being a problem is usually connected to a bloated self esteem or estimation of abilities.
I should be studying for my re-examinations of August, and here comes a video about self-handicapping and procrastinating. Well, now I've got an excuse ...
I have this problem. I really wanna fix it. I just can't stand the thought of being told I'm not worthy. I love learning. So I'm afraid to try my best beacause if I still don't perform well after giving my best then I'll just never be able to look at that subject again...I'll die of depression ..
Trying your best is really hard, you can always do better, so don't fret about failure. Do as much as you can, do the exam. Whatever you get, just accept it and see where you went wrong. You shouldn't concern yourself with what other people think, try your best to just focus on trying better than you did before. Your aim doesn't need to be to beat Einstein, just try being better than the you of yesterday. You'll need go get used to failure because like you said, you'll 'die' of embarassment. People quickly forget the dumb mistakes you do, it sounds counter-intuitive, but it is true. Doing stupid stuff isn't always bad, it can actually be a bit liberating. Ask the dumb questions that everyone else probably knows, but you don't. You are here for yourself and no one else.
Abdullah Saurus Thankyou for reaching out. That helps. Esp the part where I need to understand that I'm here for me. Thanks. I'll work on it.
Dr. Aysh No problem :) Happy to help in anyway I can. I was in a similar situation too and I know how bad it is. It'll take time, but so is anything in life worth having :)
It helps me to remember that even when I fail or don't do as well as I feel I should have even though I tried my hardest, think of it as the universe giving you constructive criticism. Maybe a rethink of yourself, your aspirations, your revision techniques or anything. Or maybe, now isn't your moment to shine and you have other things that could be done. We live in an age where the problem is having so much choice. We have too much we can do even though the education system doesn't always reflect that.
There is always a way for those dedicated. And even if that sounds really idealistic, it matters little. The journey we take, I feel, is more important than the destination. That is cliche, sure. But it's true. If you aren't enjoying yourself, this isn't how you should be doing things. If you are trying your best and enjoying it, who cares if you don't become President?
Sorry for the mini-rant, but yeah. All the best with your life :D I wish you the best!
This was a really insightful video, thank you!
This video came for my entire life 😤 never felt more called out
I'm watching this, instead of doing this 📚📖
I'm sabotaging myself right now
In college I would self handicap cuz it's fecking rock star to put off studying for the cell-molec exam until 11:30 pm, finish by 1:30, and still get the highest score the next day.
This video really motivates me thank you!
I literally had a test today and was doing self handicapping. Wish this video released sooner
This show impacts lives very deeply
Never imagined it would be so well structured... seems like iam a big behavioral self-handicapping
I've never really experienced test anxiety, but I claim self-handicaps in social situations all the time. I'm always tired.
4:20
*Focus on the Process not the Result*
That's _literally_ what the pros are doing.
Everyone: procrastination
SciShow Psych: self-handicapping
I like this term too but procrastination is more commonly used and yeah just wanting to let you know that i enjoy your videos.
The meme was intended for purely entartainment not to mock or anything.
4:21 Ohhhhh, the burn!
‘I don’t need no help, I can sabotage me by myself...’ ✨
Heh I'm self-handicapping right now. I kind of get all nihilistic about school and marks these days because they don't matter, but this video telling me I should focus on the skill itself actually kinda helps
But is this true aswell guys, why i don't study is because the cramming and thinking about the test(ticking in the brain about less time is left) while studying is too displeasureful/uncomfortable .Simply the thoughts during the cramming
are too stressful.
Once and for all staying away from that thought process. By distracting yourself and getting into something else is better.
The brain chooses the pleasureful option.(We defaultly want to escape from stress) Right , Hank ? I think at least this happens to me rather than "self handicapping".
Max tenyson there's a simple reason for that, and something that also makes me wonder about the behaviour of many people on earth:
Why do things, that you don't want to do?
Admittedly, you probably WANT to pass on that test, but not actually doing it, so, as you said, normally your brain would steer you to something you'd actually want.
And... That's it basically.
Yes.
This is a big reason why I did so poorly in English. The mere thought of writing a paper causes huge amounts of stress for me and the quickest way to calm down is to stop thinking about the paper.
Then, you have to remember WHY you are doing this. If it's a test, you don't care about the TEST, you don't care about the diploma, you care about what is AFTER it.
Find real and ambitions goals that motivates you deep in your soul, and you'll fight harder than you ever expected :-)
Masterpouya also called a passion or dream.
It's far too easy to say than to do, I ain't op but I've quit school at just 1st grade high school because of that(and other reasons)
iota-09 School is a way of getting knowledge, if you can reach your goal in a better way, then all in that way! Good luck and wish you to succeed!
Used to procrastinate very mich but it got better in recent years maybe because I'm mere mature. Well, I'm still a pretty lazy piece but I somewhat found the sweet spot of learning stuff that actually sticks and having fun about it and cramming the details to forget the minute the exam is ended. So, yeah, my advice: seperate the importance and try to learn the broad strokes before exam time even starts. Or don't, I don't care.
Lol wasn't expecting to hear RPDR in this video at all. What a nice surprise.
I tried saying, "Hank, your eyebrows look great," in the mirror.
It worked!
Could you do a video on the psychology of why black and white photos seem different to us than color photos?
...or am I the only one...
whaddya mean by 'different'?
B&W photos seem remote. Not talking about artistic works but family or historic photos. See a colour version of the same thing and suddenly people are relatable. I saw the other day that Peter Jackson, of The Lord of the Rings fame, is producing a movie about WW1 using archival footage from the Imperial War Museum. The footage will be digitally restored and colourised. Should be amazing.
No you are not the only one. Black and white photographs don't have colour that's the difference you are seeing
Please make more videos about Self-Handicapping!
I thought self-handicapping is not studying minutes before a test, even if the teacher/professor specifically told that you could. Because you want to test your own "skills".
And, yes, I'm that person who never cheats.
YAS, that RuPaul's Drag Race mention, WE STAN QUEEN HANK
This hit me right in the high school feels.
Ooooooh, Hank giving the education system a burn that transcends what modern medicine can heal or soothe!!! :D
Aaaaaaand here I am almost 2 AM watching SciShow x) luckly I have no exam in near future.
Watching this video was an intense experience for me.
sounds familiar...only outside of uni, it's tough to tell when you're doing this.
One of the best videos that you ever made!
How did he know that I have a test in 3 days that although I had months to prepare for it I only realistically spent most of them procrastinating? I sense a conspiracy!
Btw, this, right now, watching this, is me taking a break because I've been studying for about 2 hours straight and my brain is hurting me. I AM NOT PROCRASTINATING RIGHT NOW SO GIVE ME A BREAK!!!!! D
No time to write a proper comment today... way too busy reorganizung my sock drawer... so if tis comment sucks, it's not my fault!
New Message you mean socks.
youtube decided to recommend this to me a few days before my next exam.. ARE THEY READING MY CALENDAR
I have never actually studied in my entire life. I’m kinda terrified if i reach a point where I genuinely have to study.
What I do is skim the night before a test, sleep, then thirty minutes before the test skim again.
Takes about 2 hours the night before plus the half hour.
It works though! So thank god for that
Hank your eyebrows look great.
you guys have made me a better man today
My worst fault is that I care what people think to such an extent that it is harmful to me.
You need more testosterone in your system.
Tip for self-handicappers: binge watch fun videos about the subject of the test if possible, so you'll do good AND be able to truthfully say that you didn't do your best;).
4:20-4:26 = The most important quote of 2018!
@ 2:30 the caption "I still am variable" means to be "valuable"
Gotta toss a like for Hank's Eyebrows. All that Drag Race paid off.
*Binge watching Netflix is what i do for a living, stop judging me!*
this video made me motivated to actually go and study for finals now
That jab at the public education system was perfect haha.
I have a big exam in the next few weeks, I’ve been skipping school and studying, hopefully this will help me get back into it
And this was just after I realized I’m not smart enough to do well on these exams
All I can think of is "NO JOHNS!"
Love the melee community lol
What's super soul crushing is when you try and put in a lot of effort but still end up doing mediocre at best. Happened to me in a few of my courses last year :'( There wasn't really much of a difference between how well I did in a course based on the effort I put in. They all just kind of ended up with the same grades and often times I did better in the courses where for whatever reason I couldn't/didn't put in a tonne of effort.
Sure none of my grades were terrible but when I put in effort I expect at least A's and not B's... It's kind of given me the impression that whether I get an A or B in a course is based entirely on luck rather than the effort/skills I have.
I self handicap by staying up all night studying even when I know I need at least 9 hours to do my best work on a test. I also skip breakfast on test days.
I am in the exam crunch right now and the more stressed I am for a test and the less time I have, my brain is like NOPE. How about building a pen holder from bike parts before I start
Now that's why I always end up trying new cake recipes when I'm on a diet!
I never studied the day before or morning of a test or exam. Same goes for practicing an instrument before a performance. To me it felt like I would have been overdoing it if I didn’t get that break between working on something the first time around and having to execute what I have learned in a very important setting (either performing or writing an exam).
I’ve always had the mind frame that if I don’t know what I’m doing the night before it’s actually important, then I’m not going to magically learn it overnight.
Mandiness Entertainment Yup.