Page 15 - Failure to Triumph - Journey of A Student

exam hall ‘byhearting’ only the easy parts, falsely convincing yourself
that you have worked extremely hard for this exam? Everyone
claims they work hard but what I have seen and experienced is: very

few actually work hard. You must remember these lines of Saint
Acharya Sharma Ji: “Failure only proves that you did not make a full-
hearted attempt for success”.
Now, let me tell you what you should do after your first failure.

First of all, you have to take a note of the margin of your failure i.e.
by how many marks you failed to pass the exam. If the gap is big, it
means that there was no sound preparation at all. But if the gap is
narrow, you must introspect: why you missed the cutoff, what made
you score less? Did you get less marks because the questions were
too tough for you, or you did not focus on the paper? or do you have

poor time management skills? You have to develop a strategic plan
with these questions as the central pillars.

Very often, I see that students feel a sense of pride when they
prepare for a prolonged time. They feel, success is their right. A
prolonged study for a number of years is no guarantee for success
and this is the point that I want to emphasize in this chapter.

To study the same thing year after year and to repeat the same
mistakes again and again is not learning. Preparation is about giving
ample time to subjects, which you are not good at, and also
consolidating those subjects which are your strong areas. Always
study those subjects first that scare you the most. Face your fears.
“The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who

conquers that fear."--Nelson Mandela.

If you always study the subjects which you like and ignore the ones
which you dislike, there is no value addition to your knowledge,
nothing significant happens even if you are investing your precious
years. You try and you fail. There is nothing wrong in that. But after
your first failure, work on the weaker areas, take up those subjects

which are the reason behind your low score.