Summary: Failure is a common experience for many, especially for CA students and finance professionals who face intense competition and rigorous demands. Despite diligent efforts, late nights, and sacrifices, encountering setbacks can be disheartening, particularly when others fail to understand the challenges faced. This often leads to unnecessary stress and comparisons with others. To bounce back from failure, it is crucial to adopt a positive mindset and well-structured planning. This involves understanding that higher goals require proportionately greater efforts and adjusting strategies accordingly. It’s important to evaluate personal performance critically, identify weaknesses, and make necessary improvements. Developing a positive mindset takes time and persistence, akin to the gradual process of building skills like time management and personality development. Evaluating past failures, learning from them, and making detailed plans for improvement can help overcome setbacks. Effective time management and prioritizing small tasks over distractions are essential for productivity. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle also contributes to better concentration and performance. Continuous self-assessment, leveraging personal strengths, and seeking guidance from mentors can lead to eventual success. Embracing failure as an opportunity for growth and adjusting plans based on experience and changing circumstances will help in achieving long-term goals.
Everybody in this world have faced failure in their life at some point of time. Life is certainly not a bed of roses or cakewalk, and in the case of CA students or Finance professionals it is even more difficult because of the tough competition prevailing in the market. Even if we have given our 100%, have updated ourself on all the latest skills and legal amendments, sacrificed socialization, festivals, endless sleepless nights preparing for CA Exams, we end up facing failure. At such moments, we feel why life is harsh on us and why we are not achieving results inspite of putting all the required efforts. The dilemma here is that, our close relative and friends and sometimes our parents also do not understand our problems and blame us for failure and they are only concerned with the ultimate output. On the top of it, they compare us with others. Example : Mr. A, son of Mr. B, has cleared CA Exam or has become CFO and you are still struggling. This undue pressure due to no fault of us, leads to stress and other psychological problems. At this juncture, its only through positive thinking, well planned efforts and right direction which will lead you to your destination, there is no point in thinking negative as it is dead end and will lead to no worthwhile achievement.
It is to be understood that if the goals are higher, the efforts, must be proportionately more and accordingly our strategy, planning and way of working should be modified so that we get the desired results in the desired time and of required quality. If we are lethargic and procrastinate, the work/study will pile up leading to less than expected output. If we aim high, its obvious that we have to be extraordinary performer (study/work) and if we fail to take timely action, then we cannot blame the circumstances or other factors which led to failure because there is something lacking in us, which needs to be addressed before its too late.
The intelligence, talent, grasping and learning ability may certainly differ from individual to individual, all are not that much outstanding individuals in using their brain or memory, these factors are certainly beyond our control, but an average student or individual in his area of work, can also perform wonders if he has a quality of hard work, learning from mistakes, patience, determination and positive mindset.
It is to be emphasized that positive thinking or mindset cannot be developed in a day or two, it requires time, then only we can enjoy the fruits of this invaluable skill. As its said that “Rome was not built in a Day”, similarly any skills which is useful to us like positive mindset, personality development, time management, requires time to cultivate and as we use these skills (which we can learn from self help books, seminars etc.) in day to day life, we achieve proficiency in those skills.
The fact is that failure has some impact on our mind that we consider ourselves as worthless and the future looks dismal (what will parents, relatives, friends say, future prospects, financial constraints) and for some time we are engaged in the negative thoughts, however if we are accustomed to positive thinking, its nothing but an opportunity to find out the deficiency in ourselves, and where we went wrong, our plus points and weaknesses so that we can rectify the same and perform better next time. If we think with an unbiased mind, consider all the facts, (rather than emotional biases), we come to know our various shortcomings, like we performed poorly in which subject, particularly which topic, how to fix that problem, by way of seminar, books, notes, coaching classes, proper guidance from seniors, mentor etc. Its only a matter of analyzing, the answer automatically comes, it we take pen, paper and jot down, the whole thought process, our weakness, lack of concentration etc. how to overcome the weakness etc. we can arrive at a solution which will definitely help you in achieving your goal.
Once you have thoroughly evaluated yourself as where you are lacking, make it a point that you rectify those mistakes, and make sure that those mistakes are not repeated in future. Then make a time bound plan for the future considering your strengths and weaknesses. You can leverage from your strengths, For example: If you are expert in Information Technology or Income Tax subject, then you can make extra efforts in that direction because you are already well versed with the subject, so with little extra effort you can increase your performance drastically (leveraging effect) and excel as a student or as a professional.
Its said that “Its easier said than done.” At the initial stage, it seems that all the planned targets of study/work will be achieved. But practically it never happens as 100% preplanned because at the planning stage we are unaware of the future problems which may arise, contingencies, like health problem, financial difficulties, etc. Other problem is that we tend to procrastinate due to lack of motivation or adverse circumstances which come in our way and we tend to delay the execution of work. Because of this valuable time is wasted. It should be noted that if by whatever reason, we are not able to do difficult task first, at least we should concentrate on the small work and complete them, instead of wasting time on social media, mobile games, etc. which are unproductive because of which time is wasted and we get distracted from the work. Its better to maintain a diary to note down the work to be done, important due dates, instructions from Managers/Superiors, in case of students its better to maintain a proper time table of study of each subject along with revision prior to exams. Its all about maintaining balance between mind and body, if we are healthy (regular exercise, adequate sleep, morning walk etc.), we can concentrate better while studying and with minimum hours of study we will be able to retain more in memory. Too much of exhaustion, whether mental or physical becomes counter productive. Its rightly said that “A Healthy mind in a healthy body”
Any professional course is generally vast in syllabus and demands long hours of study, patience, determination, consistent efforts to get the desired results. It generally happens that the student finds the subject boring, monotonous and finds difficulty concentrating due to many factors/distractions such as noise, social media, mobile etc. Because of this, at the end of day, the student thinks that whole day is wasted without any important work being done, only to realize that now its too late, 1 day/month is gone unproductive which could have been fruitfully utilized. This happens with everyone of us but the key to the problem is that we should be passionate about our study/work and have a keen desire to excel in the field chosen under any circumstances. If required, guidance should be taken from teachers and mentors, at home, parents’ support should be there for making conducive environment to study/work. Example:– separate room where study can be done with concentration and without any disturbance. Parents also support emotionally and motivate to reach the goals. Reading motivational books helps to maintain a positive frame of mind.
To conclude, bouncing back from failure should be viewed positively, to find out and overcome our shortcomings and deficiencies, where we are lacking behind and taking suitable measures, make a detailed plan/future course of action, make it a point to not repeat the same mistakes again, implement the plan in a phased and accurate manner, at appropriate intervals modify the plan as per the changed circumstances, take timely and appropriate action at events of low morale or motivation and this will ensure that you have achieved the desired results.
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