Pretty much:
*Start of Yr 12 my careers advisor told me with my complacent attitude I wouldn't get an 88, and I couldn't handle my ext subjects.
*Everyone told me I went away too much and did too much stuff and that it would really hurt my HSC.
So was away the first few days of Yr 12 from being overseas for 3 weeks. I went away two weeks in the summer holidays too. I went away 3 weeks in June/July right prior to trials. I'd also been away a bit for public speaking/debating and even once for a ballet exam.
Along the way, there's always the points of the HSC that seem really tough;
*Trials time was tough as it was also MW time and I happened to get quite sick, and that felt like a very hard time due to the illness. But I worked through it and my trials went quite well to secure good ranks and my MW got in and was successful.
*During the year, I had a bit of stress due to very ill relatives. During my actual HSC, I was told one of these relatives wouldn't make it. It was a tough time to push through that final study as I was pretty burn out with study by then and generally distracted by running the house and that, while my family dealt with all the stress.
All through the HSC, I'd set goals for the assessment tasks to lead to my final goals for ATAR and uni. ANd just kept at it, despite whatever external distraction there was or doubt about it.
So anyway, end of HSC, I was offered course, college and scholarship at both my number 1 UAC and VTAC preference. I am happy to say that I proved the careers advisor exceedingly wrong by getting a score almost 10 over what I reportedly could not get lol.
Trust in yourself, know what you've gotta do and the HSC is just an objective thing.