Your Attitude Matters
Shreya Kabir
It so happens sometimes that I get super stuck on some topic and then, it becomes difficult to let go off the unfinished portion but, at the same time the mind refrains from accepting any further information!
The situation starts becoming more complicated as my frustration levels begin to shoot up. My already frustrated mind gets all the more reason to fret when it hits me that I’ve wasted so much time on a topic. Ultimately I end up with a good dose of ‘stress’ of having wasted my time, not finishing the topic and the opportunity cost stress. This renders me unproductive for the remaining study hours and I end my day with a demotivated feeling.
One day, I observed that my friend who is also preparing was going through the similar situation. She wasn’t getting the hold of a particular topic on which she wasted good one to one-and-a-half hours. She was left with much on her plate for the remaining day. BUT, she was calm and relaxed unlike me. Though she regretted the time wasted but then she chose not to sit on it for long. She left that topic for starting it afresh the next morning and took a break of sometime. Post-break she resumed on to her schedule and completed the remaining topics for the day. She worked productively and ended her day with a rather satisfied feeling.
One similar situation, and two different outcomes?
What is the difference?
Attitude is the little thing that makes a big difference.
-Winston Churchill
The light in which you view your situations is one of the most important factors that can make or break your preparation. In this long process of preparation, you might meet failures periodically. Sometimes in the face of unachieved daily targets, sometimes in low results in mock tests despite your hard-core preparation or sometimes in mustering enough self-motivation to keep going on. All this and much more is faced by almost every aspirant at some point in their preparation period.
What will separate you from other aspirants in such similar conditions is the “attitude” that you hold. Today, all the successful aspirants who’ve made into the list, have had inculcated the right attitude at some point in their preparation phase! Otherwise, it would not have been possible for them to work on their shortcomings and become an IAS even after their second or third or fourth attempts!
You can choose to ruin your peace of mind which is very much required for effective studies or you can choose to work out a way in which you can be the most productive! For example: you know that you’ve just started your preparation and there are people who have graduated in this game. You start feeling apprehensive about will you ever have a chance to cut your way through and make it to the list? This future thought hampers your present preparation, which is all you have to increase your probabilities of success. Now your attitude comes into play when knowing all these apprehensions, you choose to calm yourself down and focus on what is in your hands, which is your preparation.
Thus, the attitude or the perspective that you hold is a conscious choice that you make. Initially you will have to invest in developing this ‘positive attitude’ in tough times. And, gradually it will become an unconscious way of thinking, which will sail you through these tough times. With practise, it is quite possible to develop the right frame of mind for success in this examination. And, if you do not succeed, your attitude will still matter!
~Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude~
-Thomas Jefferson
