What to do when you get a bad grade

You’ll need to download the Better Grades Action Plan!

Grab yours by clicking on this link!

When you receive a bad grade, you feel crushed.

But how you react to getting that bad grade will set the path for what happens next.

In this short blogpost, I’m going to explain exactly what you need to do when you receive a ‘bad grade’.

(1) Reframe it

Firstly, take a pause and change the way that you are looking at this “bad grade”.

As the late great Wayne Dyer once said, “Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change”.

Seeing grades in a binary way, either good or bad, 1 or 0 with nothing in between is not going to help you make progress.

Try not to think of your grade as an objectively “bad” grade. Reconfigure it. Reinterpret it.

It’s a pitstop, it’s a town that you’re travelling through on your way to somewhere nicer.

You’re not staying here for long. But you need to use this as an opportunity to take stock and to make a plan, because if you do, you’re way more likely to get to grades that make you happy, faster.

(2) Own it

Read through the feedback you received with that grade, thoroughly. That feedback is GOLD – it is going to help you construct an action plan, a road map to better grades.

Read it a few times, get really familiar with it.

Notice the things the grader is complimenting you on, as well as the things they say you could do better.

Download that feedback. Maybe print it off.

Make sure that you are interacting with it.

Underline things, highlight stuff, make notes on it. It’s your feedback, so get right into it, get involved!

(3) Better Grades Action Plan

Now it’s time to fill in your Better Grades Action Plan, so download that if you haven’t done so by clicking here.

Complete the “What” sections: What have you done well? What do you need to do more of? What haven’t you done at all?

Then complete the “How” sections. How exactly are you going to make these things happen?

Head to my YouTube video below for detailed guidance on completing the Better Grades Action Plan. The video is full of examples and action points. Go on, do it! Your degree will thank you for it!