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Journey of My Failure and What I Learned From it

Have you ever felt completely frustrated and aggravated so you feel like just completely giving up and bailing out on the idea of being successful at what you do?

I sure did. Many times.

There were times where I would check my mock test results and be in tears saying to myself, “Why I am not getting success? What’s wrong with me? How come my friends and everyone around me are making a killing in their mocks and why not me ? ”

My first few attempts at CAT were a complete disaster and utter failure.

Just thinking about it makes me feel sick to my stomach. Even as I write this, those feelings come back.

During the worst of my struggles, I kept thinking about my options.

1. I could go back and get admission into some decent MBA College and simply give up on the idea of cracking CAT and deal with the fact that I can’t get calls from IIMs

Or

2. I could hang in there, continue to work on my speed, knowledge & keep moving forward and continue to seek out answers.

I chose option 2 obviously. Otherwise, I would be sitting at a desk in some mediocre B-school staring out the window regretting the fact that I gave up on my dream.

During my journey of failure, I learnt a lot of valuable lessons.

Some of them I will remember lifelong. You will learn them as you go along with me.

So let’s start by taking baby steps towards my CAT journey.

I gave CAT for three times and I don’t hate to admit that.

My first two attempts at CAT were complete disaster.

When I gave CAT for the first time, it was back in my engineering days. I scored 91.14%ile, so I decided to quit my job to give CAT again and study wholeheartedly.

I studied the whole time but unfortunately I scored meager 83.xx in my second attempt. Even some of my junior friends scored much more than me.

At that point, I felt like a real loser , like in capital letter “L”

I remember, hearing suggestions from people who became overnight advocates on how to crack CAT, so I devised all kind of strategies to avoid that topic that most MBA aspirants would never think of , let alone try.

I labored under a burden of inner agony, maddening frustration and desperation. Sometimes, I wondered to myself how anybody could possibly explain or justify such a long, uninterrupted string of failure.

Despite this I decided to give CAT for the last time in 2011.

At then I was working on some different projects, I really didn’t have time to study, I studied only for last 7 days.

I gave CAT with absolutely no expectations.

I didn’t apply to any B-schools as I was not expecting any calls.

And something unusual happened. I can’t share it just now.

I will talk about it in next instalment.

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