A couple of weeks back, I wrote an article on “Theory of Constraints ” explaining why most MBA aspirants continue to repeat the vicious cycle of failure despite having great potential.The very same article got tons of likes, comments, shares. In this article, I am going to explain you why most of you are still going to fail/struggle despite your potential and what you can do to avoid it.
This is the single most important article you will ever read in this entire season. Even if you miss everything else, read this very carefully. I am going to tell you a typical failure story of a typical MBA aspirant explaining how he wrongly identifies his constraints, wastes his valuable time, energy and eventually fail.If you don’t want to be in that category, please read this very carefully.
The Protagonist in the story is a boy representing a typical average MBA aspirant. His name is Shashank. Shashank is a Computer Engineer from reputed engineering college. He is employed at reputed IT company & commanding decent salary.
He has screwed up in his CAT Quant last year but otherwise he is good in other areas. Although he gets decent salary he is not at all satisfied with the type of work he is doing. He always looks upto the senior management of his company or seniors from his college or his other friends who are MBA & at the top position fetching over 6 figure salary every month. He thinks if he just cracks CAT, he will be into their league.
And the same reason, Shashank becomes very serious about his preparations, he joins famous CAT coaching class, he joins 2 test series just in case to be sure of his preparations. He starts working on weekdays, attending regular classes on weekends, giving mocks and he starts seeing initial improvements in his Quant score but again his Quant score doesn’t remain consistent.
He is giving 1 mock every week now, so he thinks he is probably not doing enough so he finally decides to start giving 2 mocks every week but still after 2-3 weeks his Quant %ile is still going up and down.
Now he starts really wondering but determined to make it work, he thinks his speed is the real problem so he starts learning all the smart methods, learns Vedic maths, referring to different books, eventually his %ile increases little bit but not up to the level he expected. Again that doesn’t remain consistent.
Now Shashank is really angry at himself. One day, he starts thinking,
Why I keep struggling in Quant ?
” I am working harder than ever, why the heck I am not seeing any changes? What I am doing wrong ? I am still not able to crack this Quant code. I am still struggling.”
After a lot of thinking, he doesn’t get any valid reason to justify his failure. A few days after, just while checking his analysis, the realization hits him like ton of bricks, he gets shock of his life only to realize that in the last 8 mocks he never even looked at last 8-10 questions in every single test he attempted, so he just takes a close look into those questions just to get second shock of his life, all these remaining questions were fairly easy and some of them even can be solved orally.
GOSH.
Shashank’s head starts to spin because speed & no. of tests wasn’t his real constraint.
The choke point – real constraint was not at all related to how much tests he gave or how fast he could attempt the questions, the real constraint was not taking look at easy questions ( Ineffective Test Taking Strategies which I will explain in the next article) Shashank was oblivious & not so smart, when it came to solving Quant section, he always started solving questions in a linear fashion, he never realized that most of the easy questions were in the end. He never even bothered to check them.
He missed on easy questions in every single test.
After wasting over 2 months time, energy, Shashank solved the wrong problem, he only increased potential for greater output but not actual output. In the end, he accomplished nothing.
Your potential for success and your actual success are really two very different things.
You can’t spend potential.
Potential has possibility to solve problems but it’s only a possibility. Instead if Shashank would have put his time in removing the real constraint, i.e scanning the whole paper before he could start solving questions in a linear fashion, his results would have been radically different.
The lesson of the story is “Once you identify your constraint and eliminate it, you can instantly ramp up your percentile until you bump into second constraint.”
Removing constraint won’t necessarily get you 100%ile but it will get the best out of you, always remember that.
Correctly identifying & focusing time & energy on real constraint is the only way to achieve breakthrough results. You have to continuously identify and eliminate constraints.
Your ability to get faster , reliable, consistent & breakthrough results come from the ability to accurately identifying constraints and removing them ASAP.
There is no single tactic, universal trick gimmick going to solve your problems. Most of you are thinking all the way wrong. That’s why you are failing.
A couple of years back, I read a book by Mr. Michael Gerber named E-Myth Revisited, there was one chapter ” Working on your Business , not in it”
This statement is massively huge. This is not an afterthought. This is entire change in strategic thinking.
Most people are busy in their preparation but never take time to reflect on their results/preparation.
They never ask themselves these questions
- What I am doing currently to increase my percentile is making any sense or not ?
- Is my hard work leading me to any predictable better results ?
- Which key piece/component is missing in the puzzle which I can find to get better results ?
There are some constraints
Constraints holding you from Achieving Breakthroughs
Find out your constraints here