Pay the price!

I feel like I am addicted to YouTube, and I just cannot stop watching the movie trailer for ‘Sultan’. Now, this is an aberration as I am not a big Salman fan or a even a movie buff. What amazed me the most was the kind of efforts the 50+ year old actor made, while in the process of filming this blockbuster. (This was probably the first time I could really appreciate Salman’s acting skills).

Salman Khan has been in the Hindi Film industry for close to three decades now, and I am sure that his performance in Sultan will give the younger lot a tough run for their money, for years to come. This, in turn,  made me reflect on the power of consistency. Having worked with some of the best brains in this country and having groomed a lot more made me introspect. What separates the winners from others? The only answer I could pinpoint was consistency.

The IITs have an acceptance rate of 2% and AIIMS, 0.08%. The situation is equally gloomy for other prestigious institutes; the stalwarts in commerce and humanities like SRCC, St. Stephen’s or LSR (colleges affiliated to Delhi University) release cut off’s that are a massive 100%. The system of reservation makes the situation even more uneven. Clearly, we are in an era of survival of fittest!

What should a concerned aspirant do?

1. Ensure that you start your preparation early. Ideally, dedicated preparation for JEE or NEET should start right after class X examinations.
2. Maintain a healthy biological clock. Sleep, get up, eat and study at nearly the same time of the day, everyday. Do not complain about time; all of us have only 24 hours a day.
3. Incorporate some form of workout, ideally, half an hour a day. You could try Yoga,  it’s a great stress buster. (I don’t recommend weight training as it leads to fatigue]
4. Make sure you get around 7 hours of sleep a day. It ensures effective assimilation and rejuvenation.
5. Stick to your strategy. This is where most people mess up. If you keep on changing your strategy every now and then, you will make no real progress.
6. Take care of the bare minimum in the syllabus first and then go for an exhaustive approach. For example, in Physics, finish NCERT thoroughly. If stuck with a section then refer to Resnick and Halliday for that specific section. In addition to this, solve the last 5 years’ JEE or NEET question papers. Only when you feel you have mastered this portion, go for for HC Verma, DC Pandey, Irodov and the likes.
7. Maintain a balance in your preparation between the three main subjects, whether they are Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics or Physics, Chemistry and Biology.
8. Learn to forgo pleasures. Success is about having the determination and perseverance to say no to 100 things, and these 100 things are at your discretion.

I hope the dots are connected better now. In India, there is a colossal difference between the best and the rest. If you want to be in the league of the extraordinary, you need to pay the price, and that price, dear aspirants, is in terms of consistency. Follow step 1 to 8 rigorously and make success your mission statement. Everything else is secondary!

“Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. It is the first lesson that ought to be learned and however early a man’s training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.”

                                                                                                              – Thomas Henry Huxley

Wishing you the best and more!