How to Keep Alive the Fire Inside You as the Exam Approaches

“You were not born a winner, and you were not born a loser. You are what you make yourself be”       ~ Lou Holtz

Students often write to me about the problems which they constantly face during their exam preparations. Particularly exams like IAS/IES require long term preparations and it is difficult to keep our motivation high all the time especially if we face a few failures. As the exam date approaches, we often creep into low self-confidence. As a result, the urge to study for exam starts diminishing and is plagued by negative thinking. When our mind loses the grasp of our goal, we start searching for alternatives. From here starts, the beginning of our end.

This is a common problem faced by all exam aspirants. But we must not forget that there is no joy in life without problems. We cannot really feel happiness unless we have felt sadness. There is no value of light if there is no darkness. Nature has given us a power that we often undermine. That is the power to decide. We are free to decide what to do with these problems. Either we can solve it and walk over it with confidence or we can just keep worrying.

Understanding the problem is the first step towards the solution. Today, India is a free country only because our forefathers were able to understand the real problem behind British Rule in India, that was Colonialism and Imperialism. In the same way we must understand that these negative thoughts that lurk around in our mind are nothing but an outcome of our own fearful thinking. The high confidence at the start of preparation turns into low confidence as the exam approaches. Isn’t it ? The last two months before the exam seem so less that our human mind involuntarily assumes that we haven’t prepared much for the exam. That is bullshit !

No doubt, IES preparation is like walking over an Agneepath. But this path is of finite distance ( say 100 kms ). Nobody has the clear roadmap to reach the destination. Everyone takes his own route to reach the destination. Some lose the direction and keep roaming uselessly while some follow the right directions and reach their goal. My aim is to act as a bridge to help you reach your goal.

It all depends on what choices and sacrifices you make during the journey that determines your successful landing over the destination. It happened with me as well. When the last two months were left before IES exam, I had a doubt over my ability whether I would be able to revise the huge syllabus or not in such a short time. But since I was doing my preparation alone in some obscure locality of Allahabad, there was no one around me to tell that I can’t do it. Infact, I often talked to myself inside the closed doors of my 10x15 rented room. I questioned my ability every now and then. Amidst all the failures that I faced in exams like GATE, SAIL, AAI, BARC etc. one thing that kept my hope alive was a belief that my circumstances whatever they may be, however tough they may be, are not going to affect my final performance in ESE. I will not let my circumstances take away an inch of my focus away from my goal. I never changed my attitude towards ESE despite repeated failures, I only changed my study pattern according to my needs. I gave other exams like SAIL, AAI, BARC etc but always revised the same ESE syllabus that I had studied all over the past 3 months.

I never ever compromised with ESE preparation. For 6 months, I never went out of Allahabad and strictly followed my other commitments to myself. Today I enjoy telling people all the sacrifices that I made during my preparation. In those days, ESE was like a dream for me as may be for most of you. This dream gradually seems more distant as the exam approaches, so my advice to all of you is never ever worry because worrying will change nothing. If you can solve the problem what is the need to worry, and if you can’t solve the problem, is there any need to worry ? 

Don’t think about what rank you will get in exam, instead focus on how you will give your best performance in exam. Get ready to give your maximum in whatever time you are left with. You never know how close you are to your best performance. You might break all the previous records, you just don’t know. You must keep in mind that there is no ‘Teesmaarkhan’ in this battle. This exam is as much in your control as in control of others. So why do you fear ? The world is won by those who are fearless. If your colleagues are fearful of the exam let them fear, you are completely different from everyone. Take full responsibility of yourself. Don’t let others play with your time. Mark my words, “ What you do in your next one hour will decide what you will do in your exam. Never underestimate the power of next one hour ”.

Everyone has the same number of hours in a day. Try to use the time as  judiciously as possible. A lot can be done in the last two months before exam. The whole game can be changed in the last two months. I don’t need giving an example here as I have myself done it. So stop thinking of what is gone, eye over those things that you still have. You are alive, healthy and left with more than 2 months in your hand. The whole climax is left. Picture abhi kaafi baaki hai mere dost.

"Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.”            ~Ralph Waldo Emerson