Between the ages of 18 and 25 you have a certain power that will never be as powerful going forward: The Power to Screw Things Up!

Between the ages of 18 and 25 you have a certain power that will never be as powerful going forward: The Power to Screw Things Up!

Barely any mistake, failure or screw-up can permanently damage you or your life at 22-years old.

You still have the body, the mind and the time to make it all up and that is a phenomenal strength, because it allows you to explore!

Not all the investments you will make are going to be golden! Some will be piles of crap, but that’s okay!

If you spend the time you have now to grow, to become better than you were and to find out what you can about yourself and your life, you will be miles ahead of everybody else even if you do screw up along the way!

Dive right in, take a chance, do the things that scare you and take the time to give yourself your all!

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#1. Invest in Books

Understand that every book you read holds information that someone else spent years collecting, organizing and making easy to understand.

Use that help!

Invest in your own improvement, your own mind and knowledge, because it will stay with you forever!

The biggest reason why so many people stagnate as soon as they get a job out of college is because that is the moment they stop growing and learning at the same rate they used to.

Go above and beyond and learn those things that others are unwilling to learn so that you create an arsenal of knowledge that supports you in creating the life you desire!

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#2. Invest in a Coach/Mentor

Coaches and Mentors can see the things that you will miss.

They hold you accountable, make you see your own mistakes and help you grow in a way you could never grow alone. That is why the smartest and most successful people in the world know this and all have mentors, coaches and a circle of amazing people themselves.

Even Warren Buffet is taking financial advice from someone!

A good coach/mentor will take your mind for a loop, they will make you feel like you got slapped across the face, and by doing so will cut through all the limitations you have set yourself, giving you a clear cut path.

It’s one of the most luxurious, high-class investments you can make, especially if you start early.

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#3. Invest in your Circle

Invest in the relationships that will help you succeed!

Find people that push you to be greater than you were and people that make you do uncomfortable, but great things.

Do not spend your time with “Feel-Good People” or those that do not even care for you. Invest in the relationships that push you to be your best!

You want to find people that are better than you at the things you want to get good at so that they pull you towards them, but also those that will not allow you to cheapen out on what you are capable of!

Find at least 5 of those people that have the same drive or that will not allow you to B.S. yourself!

Once you find these people push them in the ways you want to be pushed and they will push you back, creating an upwards spiral of growth!

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#4. Invest in One Hobby

Go all in into something that you love and improve, grow and master that thing.

Maybe it’s playing Music, Writing, Drawing, or even becoming a Master in how to invest.

The point is that you pick one Skill that you already love and become even better at it.

This does not have to be a marketable skill! We are not going for Sales or Money here! What’s important is that YOU derive value from this hobby and love it.

We all need some ways to get our mind off of the daily stress and off of our problems, and if you have something that gives you self-worth and makes you feel phenomenal outside of what you do for a living you will have a powerful safety net when hell breaks lose!

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#5. Invest in Getting to Know Yourself

Who are you? What do you like? What do you dislike? What are your strengths and weaknesses? What do you do well with and what do you struggle with? What makes you uncomfortable? What makes you scared? What is your mindset like? What are things you still wish to gain? Who do you wish to become?

Get to know yourself right now and become comfortable with who you are. Travel alone, meditate in peace, or take some time to answer the questions above.

When you become comfortable with who you are there will be less things that scare you. You grow a belief in yourself, which will bring you far more joy in life.

Go explore life, test some things out, do what you find uncomfortable right now and put who you are to the test. Only when you do what scares you do you clearly see who you are and only then can you truly act upon it.

Learning who you are and how to love yourself is the best, self-repaying investment you can ever make.

-Lukas Schwekendiek

Working as hard as Elon Musk?

 

You can only improve things which you measure

You can only improve things which you measure

Let’s say you want to improve your ability to focus.

After a couple months, you wont be able to tell if you have made substantial improvement unless you have some metrics to measure.

You can only say you improved your focused work hours by x% when you have the data to back it up.

To have that data, you must track measure and track something which proves your performance.

For example, on day 1 you can say I worked for 1.5 Hours in a focused manner. You can keep tracking it every day, and can measure your progress.

-Saurav Sharma

Things Not Worth Anyone's Time

Consistency

Consistency: Understand than improvement is not a one day game. Improvement is a gradual and a very slow process. You can only start working on improving certain aspects of your life today, does not mean that you will see the result in the next day or even next month. Why most people are skeptical about self improvement is because they lack patience and expect fast results. To improve upon anything, its’ important that you do it on a daily basis. You don’t need to do a lot but you need to do it daily. To remember this, keep this phrase in your mind “Doing a little everyday > doing a lot a single day”.

-Saurav Sharma

I am attaching my marksheets of Class 10th, Class 12th and Graduation. I have been an average student all my life and I always emphasize on this fact because..........

 I am attaching my marksheets of Class 10th, Class 12th and Graduation. I have been an average student all my life and I always emphasize on this fact because I always felt so under confident because of my academic performance and it all happened because of Hard Work, Perseverance and Honesty. I always believed in this Quote -

Work Hard in Silence, Let Your Success be Your Noise

My academic Performance -

• Class 10 - 63%
• Class 12 - 59%
• Graduation - 67%

Exams Cleared -

• IBPS RRB PO
• IBPS PO
• SBI PO
• FCI AG3
• SSC CGL PRE & MAINS
• NABARD DA PRELIMS
• Class 10th marksheet -

• Class 12th -

• Graduation -

-Vishal Kumar Dubey

Don't Abandon Your Dreams

Life Problems ?

Firstly I want to tell you little bit about my academic background I............

 Firstly I want to tell you little bit about my academic background I am from so called science maths background and I got 47% in 12th class in first time and second time I got 63%. The reason I did 12th second time because my father told me pass it with first division. After that I did graduation from RTU that too without my will.

After graduation I started convincing my father to help me financially to open a start up but he refused to give me a single penny.

So I thought of preparing for govt exam and started preparing for patwari in my state Rajasthan, I prepared seriously for that exam but unfortunately that exam got postponed and I got frustrated, so I thought of preparing for central govt exam.

SSC CGL was something which I thought of giving a try because in patwar I had covered almost everything in GK portion little bit of maths and English. I had almost 7–8 months before prelims of CGL.

I covered maths syllabus thoroughly from CGL persepective and English grammar portion too and I used to work very hard those days, ‘good understanding of English’ was a factor which played an important role because of which I didn’t face many problems in English section.

I started giving mocks initially my score was very bad in maths section I still remember I got 78/200 in my first mains maths mock and I was devastated although It was hard mock. But in prelims I used to get 150 plus which was a good score.

Finally I gave ssc cgl 2020 prelims in which I scored 168(normalised) and raw was-145 and in mains maths-152/200 and English-170/200 so far I had 490 marks and all I wanted was any 4600 gp post which I would’ve got if I had got 40 marks in written exam, and I was very happy because I wrote good in descriptive exam and hopeful of getting Inspector post from cgl-2020. By the way I am from OBC category.

Out of my surprise I got 34/100 marks in tier-3. For the first time in my life I was sad on my performance and there was sheer disappointment on the faces of my family members because they were expecting 3 stars on my shoulders. And I got a post of junior accountant in Punjab.

In the meantime I started preparing for CGL-2021,form of which I had already filed for backup. This time I worked on the nuances of maths like calculations skills, dealing a question with options, percentages calculations, pen free calculations and many more. I gave CGL-2021 and got 170 in prelims 170 in english 186 in maths. Now I was certain that if I get even passing marks in descriptive exam I will become Inspector of CGST.

I got 47 marks in written exam and my AIR was 1432 in which It was entirely impossible to get Rajasthan because vacancies were only around 15–20.

But right before the DV ssc increased the vacancies in Rajasthan to around 90. And I saw a ray of hope of getting my homestate with 4600 gp which most of cgl aspirants dream of.

Finally the day came and I got my homestate. I was the second last person to get jaipur zone that means there was someone who was luckier than me.

Now I have been working here for last 10 months and I am looking forward to achieving the goal of financial freedom for which I am saving 70 to 80% of my salary and investing in safest place(my father’s shop❤️) from where I will surely get good returns.

IIT takes only very intelligent People ?

 This is a myth.

The IIT JEE (the exam to get into an IIT) tests for 4 things broadly, and in order of importance they are:

1. Hard Work
2. Dealing with Stress and Rigour
3. Numeric Aptitude
4. Scientific Aptitude

1 and 2 are more emotional parameters (or emotional intelligence) and do not indicate IQ, which is the widely assumed definition of intelligence (I will use intelligence to refer to IQ henceforth). 3 and 4 only contribute to IQ.

As a result, you cannot clear the JEE without the first two. You can clear the JEE with an average amount of the last two - while having 3 and 4 only are not enough to clear the JEE. Therefore you have a combination of something that is not intelligence and something that is partially intelligence to get into IIT.

Due to the hype of the JEE and the lopsided focus on just these 4 things, parents and students begin to believe that the JEE is an end all and will assure lifelong success. There are multiple other parameters like people skills, communication, leadership etc. that are needed to succeed and the JEE just tests a few. This usually results in unfair self expectation and an unreasonable assessment of self.

Overall, someone who has cleared the JEE is usually very hard working, composed and reasonably intelligent.

-Aviral Bhatnagar

Clearing JEE is the one and only path to success ?

Average Student ?

JEE is a journey, and a very challenging one at that

 JEE is a journey, and a very challenging one at that. It requires sacrifices, and it really strengthens the candidates along the way. It has the ability to bring out the best in people.

Some sacrifices made by me during the JEE preparation:

• No outings or parties with friends: I had minimized my outings to almost non-existent during the JEE preparation phase. As a result, I could not attend the birthday parties of my friends or go for movie outings with them.
• Tussle with school: My attendance started dropping in school, because I spent most of my time at home studying for JEE. This led to quite a lot of tussle and arguments with my class teacher, who felt that Class XII board exam was the only determining factor in one’s career.
• No computer games: I used to play a lot of computer games before I started preparing for JEE. Age of Empires used to be my favourite. Not a day would go by without me playing Age of Empires. I stopped that during JEE preparation, and I soon lost interest in computer games. I haven’t played any computer game since then.
• Control over sleep: I used to study till late night and then wake up early in the morning to study again. My dad used to fill a full jug with cold coffee and keep it by my side at night, so that I could concentrate.

The JEE preparation phase was a defining period in my life, and led to many positive developments:

• I gained an excellent friend circle: While I could not go out with my school friends, I developed a new friend circle in my coaching. All of us had similar goals, and we soon became really close.
• I started developing new hobbies: I started playing Badminton everyday for a couple of hours in the evening to keep myself fit. I also read novels whenever I found any free time.
• I started becoming more confident: JEE preparation makes you more confident in life, especially because the JEE syllabus is tougher than the school syllabus by a huge margin. You start looking even at real-life problems from a different angle, and develop a structured thought process.

I have very fond memories from my JEE days. Those two years of JEE preparation have taught me a lot.

-Rohan Jain

Steps to develop Grit

1: Invest in Pain

The first step to develop the grit, therefore, is to reverse the natural desire of seeking pleasure and accept pain as the tool to achieve goodness in your life.

2: Avoid Instant Gratification

There are many things like tasty food or sex that provides instant gratification and thus consumes your energy. They are like nectar in beginning, but become poison later. Learn to avoid them as much as you can.

3: Develop a Purpose of Life

Most of us don’t know what we wish to achieve in life. When you don’t know where to go, you are likely to waste your time roaming around and reaching nowhere.

You must develop a purpose of your life. Your purpose should be worthy of pursuit as it is not carved for your own benefit, but for the benefit of society as well.

Once you know where to go, you have already done half of the task.

4: Develop Perseverance

All things that are good takes time to bear fruit just like a mango seed takes years to become a tree and bear fruits.

You can’t eat the mango in your own orchard unless you are willing to invest considerable time, money and resources for it.

You must be ready to work hard for long time to achieve the results because there is no shortcut to achieve long term goals.

5: Learn from Failure

It is never easy to accept failure. However, failures are inevitable if you are planing to achieve a worthwhile goal. Be mentally prepared to accept failure as part of life. You must learn your lessons from the failures and become wiser rather than cursing yourself or others for failing.

6: Ignore Popular Opinion

The world is never encouraging to people who strive for greater things in life since most people don’t have the courage to take challenges in life and prefer to lead a risk-free life.

They even secretly hope that you would fail and they will not feel their own smallness and meanness.

You must learn to avoid popular opinion since what is popular is rarely good or worthwhile to follow.

7: Never Lose Hope

When you fail repeatedly, you tend to lose faith in yourself, God and even in the world. You want to avoid challenge and live a normal life like other people.

You must not lose faith in yourself and hope for the future.

Only by keeping your hope alive, you can achieve your long term goals and achieve true happiness in life.

The American author Angela Duckworth said wisely, “Grit is living life like it's a marathon, not a sprint.”

-Awdhesh Singh Ex-IRS, IITian

What is important in life: luck or hard work?

Let’s assume there are 100 big containers numbered from 1 to 100 and one of them has gold in it.

Two people ‘A’ and ‘B’ have the chance to win this gold, all they have to do is break open these containers until they find gold.

Odds of finding gold in those containers would be 1 in 100 as per probability theory.

Its A’s turn, he starts off breaking the containers, he opens the first one, then the second and then the third, goes on till 24th and is too lazy to open up the rest and gives up.

A later discovers that the gold was present in the 28th container, which means that had he broke 4 more containers he would have won that.

He would have been called lucky if he had tried just a little bit hard but he didn't, he was too lazy to do so.

It’s now B’s turn, he starts off breaking the containers, 1,2,3,4…..till 50 and still no luck but B is still determined and continues breaking them and finally discovers gold at the 78th container.

What conclusion can be drawn from the above example?

Even if A was lucky to have gold in the 28th container the luck didn’t favour him because he was lazy.

Even if B had a bad luck because of having gold in the 78th container, he overcame his fate by overcompensating it with persistent and hard work.

Which means that:

Luck does exist but it favours the people who take an honest effort.

Bad luck exist too but it can be overcome by compensating it with hard work.

Although this example might sound lame(it actually is) most of the things in life work in a similar way, your odds of becoming successful eventually increases the more shots you take.

I would vouch for hard work any day as effort is something you can control.

Another funny thing is that people like to believe in luck because it seems so effortless and magical.

People in the real world look at people like ‘B’ who walk with a pot of gold and say how luck they are to get that gold.

However what they fail to see is the work that’s behind it.

Only intelligent people go to IIT ?

-Saurav Sharma

It’s much simpler than you think

Success is not all about hard work, it’s a combination of multiple factors combined together.

However, the two major factors contributing to success are hard work combined with consistency.

If you truly want to become successful in whatever you want, you need to be able to work hard over a consistent period of time.

Let’s face it, we all can work hard for a day or two. We can do extreme workouts, follow strict diets for a day or two but the real challenge is to be consistent with it for an extended period of time.

Why most people don’t succeed:

People get all inspired and jacked up about achieving something, they plan meticulously and decide to start from tomorrow.

They almost overachieve on their first day, however what they don’t realise that it wont be possible to sustain that level of willpower and effort over a consistent period of time.

You may work hard, study/work for 16 hours a day with just 4 hours of sleep but what we fail to take into consideration is how sustainable it is over a long period of time ?

What successful people know & do:

They pick the optimal combination of hard work & consistency.

They work hard enough to get things done but not so hard that they don’t feel like working the next day.

The ripped and muscular guy you see at the gym has been consistently working out and dieting for years.

The people who own million dollar businesses have been in business for decades.

The people who have achieved great positions in their careers have been putting in consistent efforts for years.

The guy who topped the most competitive exam has been studying consistently since the first day.

With consistency you can work less:

If you are consistent with working on a goal, it takes relatively less effort to achieve it.

For example, it is much easier for a fit person to loose weight as compared to an overweight individual who has never had a workout in his entire life.

A fit person is able to have a pizza and skip a few days of workout whereas the individual who is overweight has to be much stricter with his workout and diet.

Same applies to other domains as well. Whether you are a student, a professional or a businessperson. The more consistent you are much easier it becomes to achieve something.

Hope this helps.

Mistakes that should be avoided during UPSC Prep

-Saurav Sharma