MIND THE MINDSET – WIN FIRST, THEN GO TO WAR

“Failing to prepare is preparing to fail”

The years that I spent chasing my dream of becoming an IITian were fueled by these words. 

People think competitive exams are about memorization, or formulas, or having your eyes glued to a book 20 hours a day. But it’s not entirely true. These exams have a higher purpose, a motive, far beyond just textbooks & classrooms. They are about a bigger picture.

They delve into your thinking, infiltrate your life & actions for years, these exams test not just your mind, but your mindset. 

It’s all about the mindset.

Not the number of hours you try to study, not the formulas you try to memorize, not the heavy textbooks you carry in your backpacks. It’s not about any of this, not until the mindset is in the right place, because exams would come & go, but a mindset is for life, and that’s exactly what these exams test you for.

WHY THESE EXAMS?

We often used to whine in class “Sir we are not interested in physics, why are we studying all this?” or “How am I going to use Moment of Inertia, or Titration, when I’ll be doing a job at an MNC, why am I even studying it?”

To this, one of my teachers always used to say that JEE is not about the 60 or 100 questions you’ll have to answer in those 3 hours. The questions, the curriculum, the framework, it’s just a medium. The motive, the purpose of the exam, is far beyond that.

It tests you on your tenacity, how persistent you are. It tests you on your out-of-the-box thinking, how can you use known facts to arrive at a conclusion. It tests you on your ability to spontaneously mould yourself, how well do you adapt to unprecedented situations.  It tests you on your dedication, how focused you can keep yourself. It tests you on your drive to compete, how well do you take the competition. 

All these qualities are what these exams test you for. The syllabus, the subjects, are a mere medium for it. Sure these would contribute to your life if you take up academics as a career, or if you’re purely in love with the subjects, but the purpose they serve in the exams, is to test you on all these parameters that you must have as a problem solver.

And this is where the mindset comes into the picture.

WIN FIRST, THEN GO TO WAR

Sun Tzu was a legendary Chinese strategist, who lived in ancient times. He wrote an excellent book, “The Art of War”, in which he wrote the famous quote, “Win first, then go to war”.

My teachers often used the analogies of war in our classrooms, not to shed bad light onto the exams, but to tell us how the preparation for the two is not very dissimilar. 

The keys to success in both situations is passion & preparation. 

In your heart, you have to have the drive, the passion, the burning urge & desire to accomplish something  & before you step into the battlegrounds, you have to be prepared, on all fronts. You have to have confidence in yourself, you have to have the belief, the surety, the assurance, that voice inside you saying :

“Yes, I want to do this, I am ready for it, and I can handle whatever comes my way”.

And here’s how you get there, in war, or in life:

• Passion : Have love & drive for what you do. Feel the process, let yourself be consumed by the passion you have for it & enjoy every bit of the grind.
• Strategy : The most crucial step, know what it is that you’ve got yourself into, research, talk to people, read, understand, and strategize. Understand the game & how it is played before you play it.
• Strengths & Weaknesses : Know yourself. Know what you are good at, know what needs improvement. This helps in allocating resources & time to the right areas, as well as formulating the plan of action.
• Plan of Action : It’s time to sweat! Devise a plan of action, use your strategy, gather all information about what is to be done & how, keep your strengths & weaknesses in mind, formulate a timeline, know the milestones, have checkpoints & assessments. Put the ideologies into action, one day at a time.
• Advice & Counselling : Talk to seniors, teachers, parents, colleagues. Seek advice & counselling from people who have relevant knowledge & experience in the field. Learn from their mistakes & failures. Let someone who has been there guide you.
• Introspection : Every now & then, introspect. See if you’re on the right track, check upon the milestones that were planned, look back & see if everything has went according to plan, incorporate necessary changes, reward yourself for what you achieved & improve upon mistakes that were made.
• Experience : Practice, practice & practice. 1 day of experience trumps 10 days of theory. Make sure to maintain a right balance of both. Learn & implement. 
• Love & Support : The most important of all, always spend time with your family and loved ones. Share your achievements, your failures, your goals. The support of loved ones is the most important thing, ever in life, ever, it’s beyond anything & everything and make sure you cherish it and have empathy & compassion for them in your heart.

As time passes, and you work & grow on all these fronts, these would dissolve into your personality & form the mindset I have been talking about.

(Source : https://cdn.lifehack.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/key-to-success-1024×768.jpg)

The mindset of having belief in oneself, of taking up challenges, of loving & feeling passionate about what you do, of knowing & respecting one’s capabilities & limitations, of learning from your experiences, of seeking advice and guidance, of having a structured, disciplined yet creative way of tackling problems & most important of all, of having empathy & compassion.

LOVE THE PROCESS

The challenges life throws at you can be tough, the failures can be heartbreaking & the road ahead can be hazy. But to move an immovable mountain, you need an unstoppable force.

The years you spend preparing for an exam, or preparing for life, are the years when you nourish that unstoppable force, that radiating belief inside you which fuels you to achieve greater ambitions as you pass through life.

And there is no stronger force in this universe than love & passion. To succeed at anything, you have to love the process. You have to fall in absolute love with the journey, the hustle, you have to enjoy the late nights & the early mornings, you have to appreciate the successes & failures alike, you have to do it because you want to, not because you have to, and then, before you realize, the journey would become a part of you and you would know exactly where to take yourself with it.

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