Students’ Speak: Fight and conquer the battle

By: Abdullah Salman

Failures are also a part of our life which comes with great lessons and you are considered a failure when you don't get up after falling. Hence, if you have the courage then you can fight with failure and achieve greater heights from your previous attempt.

Higher Education is always a trend or tradition or sometimes a compulsion in our Indian Education System. Hence the competition is also very much high as we know India stands next in the highest population.

It should be your goal to make this journey an adventurous one and to stay there.

Below are descriptions of different stages including approval, acceptance and adventure which can help you overcome the fear of failure and what you’ll need to do to continually progress.

Stage 1: Approval

During our school life, we perform very well and while growing up in life, we tend to perform less compared to our previous school journey and it has various reasons and hence we seek approval for wrong decisions from our parents and teachers.

I made it from Stage 1 (approval) to Stage 2 (acceptance) only when I realised that I wasn’t defined by my grades and achievements. My role as a human being, as a student, was merely one of the many roles I had.

Some major questions you must ask yourself for taking approvals:

• Do you have insecurities you need to deal with?
• What’s the root cause of those insecurities?
• Do you have any unhealthy thought patterns?
• Are you committed to changing those thought patterns?
• Who can you talk to about these issues?

When you move from Stage 1 to Stage 2, you’ll experience the freedom of taking full responsibility for your life, instead of trying to live up to other people’s expectations.

Stage 2: Acceptance

Students accept themselves for their strengths, talents, shortcomings and inadequacies. Academics are important but what matters is your skill sets and what you reflect as a person acts as your identity. At Stage 2, it’s crucial that you surround yourself with encouraging people. Don’t hesitate to ask your family and people close to you to support you.

I suggest you write down your goals and break it into small chunks and achieve it day to day or on a weekly basis with utmost focus.

Stage 3: Adventure

We need to take learning as an adventure. We are our biggest competitors, we need to fight with our previous performances and make ourselves better. Given that we live in a stressful, competitive society, it’s easy to regress from stage 3 to stage 2, or even stage 1. Before reaching stage 3, you must connect and go around with like-minded people. Stage 3 is about becoming a lifelong learner.

Set a rule for yourself of learning at least one new thing a day or reading one book a month. Get creative and don’t confine yourself to learning only things that are “in the syllabus.” When you do these things, the school will become more fun and interesting too, because you’ll see more clearly the beauty of this amazing world we live in.

Conclusion

There will be fear of getting failed. It doesn't mean we shouldn’t equip ourselves with the skills and mindset necessary to fight a winning battle. It is a thrilling journey, let's fight and conquer the battle.

About the Author:

Abdullah Salman M is a student of Master in Business Administration (MBA) in General Management from Thiagarajar School of Management (TSM), Madurai. He has worked for over a year as a Network Engineer and has studied his graduation in Bachelor of Engineering with a specialisation in Electrical and Communication Engineering from Anna University, Chennai.