Failure is a distraction – Making sense of the final results of CSE 2023

It takes about 3 days for the Civil Services examination final results to sink in.

Not getting through in the final merit list sometimes feels worse than not qualifying the prelims – for sometimes, it may alter the trajectory of our personal lives.

And sometimes, more than one life.

This is also the time, when you cry, and you suddenly realise that because now you are grown up, you cannot.

In public!

So you cry in the washroom, sometimes in the shower, sometimes in the privacy of you rooms. And sometimes, you just practice absorbing your tears in within your eyes, lest they fall down and people know.

It is worse if you are at home. Your parents look at your face and look worried as they age. And looking at them may make you feel even worse.

If you, or someone you know is going through this, you may share it with them.

And here are some thoughts for the fallen ones – for forumias has always been the community of the fallen.

#1 Cry yourself out.

If you feel like crying, cry. Cry in solitude, cry in the shower, in the washroom, or in the company of friends , family or in the mentor cabin at ForumIAS. But get done with it.

And if you want to really heed my suggestion, goto the mountains for a week, and cry out loud in the mountains.

They cry back sometimes, and you feel you are not alone – even though you really really are.

Some people may not fully relate to the stakes in Civils that we have, because its not really only our career that is at stake. Given the phase of life and age at which most of us write this examination – there is often more to lose than just-a-job.

For life has taught me that people cry not because they are weak, but because they have been strong for too long.

At this point, you can quit reading this and get back to this post once you are back from you trip.

#2 You matter the most

In the past 12 years, since I have built ForumIAS, I have seen thousands of success stories, some of which I have fully crafted, some of which I have played a significant role, some which I have played a just-a-been-there at the right time role – and some of which I have merely witnessed – but lavishly ( and sometimes wrongly ) been given the credit for.

If you think you want to do something else , you are not wrong – go ahead and do it.
if you think, you want to pursue law – go ahead and do it – there is nothing wrong.
if you think you want to go back to corporate – go ahead and do it, there is nothing wrong.

Remember that what matters is “You”. Everything else is of peripheral significance.
For happiness has little to do with being successful in Civil Services Examination.

So identify what you want to do – what would truly make you happy – be it civils or anything else – and go ahead and pursue it.

That is because when I see some of my students who are much more popular than I am – I see two kinds of them – One – who have success in Civils AND everything else – such as a happy family, a highly satisfying and fulfilling career opportunity where they are working with the bottom-most strata of the society, good health, ( AND a DOG. )

And the second set of students and friends – who have nothing to show, but a few grey hair and a rank in the Civil Services examination.

So go ahead, and decide what you want to do and set your goal once again.

#3 Failure is a distraction

I often meet kids who fail because they fail. Usually in prelims. They don’t do well in prelims mocks – so they don’t study. They don’t study – so they fail in prelims mocks. Then they flunk in actual prelims. And because they flunk in actual prelims, they dont study for the next six months ( as they are not writing mains ) and then they fail again.

Failure – like success – is a vicious cycle.

Whereas If they just did what they should have done, without being distracted by smaller failures – they would probably make it.

But I know that sometimes to make them understand this, it is going to take me two years. So sometimes, I wait for those two years.

It isn’t really that difficult.

Just like you cant do 20 pushups, so you dont do pushups. And because you don’t do pushups, so you can’t do 20 pushups.

Remember, people succeed, not only because they work hard. They also succeed, because they are able to say no to distractions.

If you are clear with your goal, disappointment and failure is nothing more than a distraction. ( This one is for you Ms Saini ).

( Sometimes limited or half success is a distraction too, if you get what I mean. )

#4 Do not make hasty decisions

Failure is no great teacher. I do not romanticise it.

For one, it clouds our judgement. If you are still reeling under failure, this isn’t a time to make great decisions.

We are the consequences of our choices. Success is nothing but a series of good choices with some luck.

#5 You don’t owe it to anyone.

This is the point of time in life where we feel that not only we have failed in the exam, but we have also failed the people around us.

Our parents. Sometimes our teachers and mentors. And sometimes, our friends. And the people who love us, and whom we love back.

Remember, it is your career. You will enjoy the fruits of success as well as failure. No one else will. So you owe it to no one, not even to your parents – if you have that guilt.

For a parent – in the end – wants nothing more than the happiness of their child.

And no, you have not squandered the hard earned money of your parents either. Resources are meant to be used to develop and grow. What good are resources if they cannot be used to develop and grow. Remember, the one loss that you truly have is of time. Not of money.

Because money can always be earned. In fact some of you have chosen to be unemployed so that you can focus on this examination. If you wanted you could have taken up any job.

If you feel like taking up a job, because its your 4rth attempt and want a break, by all means go for it.

But do not take up a job because you *think* you shouldn’t be a burden on anyone – no matter how strongly you think so.

Remember once you move on from the student life to a working life – you will work. All of your life is going to be a working life once you move out.

In fact, you will be working till you die – or worse – retire! Treat your self with some empathy right now.

And here are some action points for you

1. Now that the score card is out, identify areas on which you need to work. Then write a diary note. Perhaps send a scheduled mail to your future self – setting it up for June 17th morning ( or 18th ). Remember, the perspective that you have now will be lost over weeks and months.
2. There is an element of luck in all fields of human endeavour. There are no guarantees in life. We can only maximise our chances. Thomas Edison wasn’t lucky. It took him a 1000 experiments to invent the now outdated light bulb. Charles Goodyear  ( of Goodyear Tyres fame ) ? Not so lucky. He ran thousands of experiments adding right proportion of sulfur to rubber so that it would not melt immediately on heat – necessary for using rubber for tyres – noting down the numbers. After hundreds of trials, when it didn’t work – he threw a sulfurised rubber on the stove and walked out out of frustration. When he came back, he saw it did not melt. Problem? he hadn’t noted down the amount of sulfur he had added. If you are going to go ahead and write the Civils, remember your actions should maximise your chances. That all you can do in a competition.
3. Seek a professional / mentor help. The best mentor is a sibling in the service. The second best is anyone you trust and who has exposure to the exam and seen a few hundred – if not a few thousand people like you. What maybe an insurmountable problem for you, may be a molehill for him / her. Nothing beats experience.
4. Make a list of things you plan to do. And do them. After the Mains.
5. Be a go-getter. Never let go of something because its inconvenient. Don’t study a bad book, because the good one will require you to travel across the city. In short, get out of your comfort zone and do what needs to be done. This is war.
6. Lastly, don’t play Russian Roulette. If this time, you have not done well in Paper 2, and done fine in paper 4, does not mean you will focus so much on Paper 2 that next year the scores are reversed. In short, do not have blind spots.
7. A good peer group helps. It pulls you up. By corollary one negative person around can pull you down.

And if you have been a part of ForumIAS, and you appeared for the Interview, and either did not make it to the list or made it to the list, but did not get the desired rank, fill this form and I will try my best to see what I can do for you.

https://forms.gle/smkwngzw7EQYZbiWA

I was speaking to Aditya who has secured Rank 1 in Civil Services examination this year. He was with us in MGP last year. So I asked him, which I ask almost all Rank 1’s whom I have so far met – including Gaurav (2013), Anudeep (2017), Shruti (2022) and Ishita (2023). I asked him, given his success, what is the one quality which he felt he had which sometimes others around him did not have, or had less of it.

And what he said is worth a million dollars. He said – “Sir, if I am not able to achieve something, then generally instead of giving up, my resolve becomes stronger to do it. Then I put even more effort in doing it. I use this in sports also.”

Why this is profound is because, when I had asked the same question to Gaurav Agrawal few years back – what made him successful – he said ( after the initial blushing ) – when  fail at something, I lock myself up, and get behind it like crazy. Matlab, I feel that with this effort , If I am not able to achieve it – then I will have to increase te effort. Then the choice is twin – either increase the effort or not pursue it altogether.

“But Gaurav”, I asked, “does that not means that you have to be very very honest with yourself?

“Ah, yes. Thats one thing I can say about myself. And that is I am brutally honest with myself.” he said.

You can connect the dots.

Remember, In any competition, talent is always on both sides of the cutoff. But winners are those who don’t give up.

A caterpillar becomes a butterfly when it wants to fly so much, it would give up being a caterpillar.

Nothing worth having comes easy.

और एक आखिरी बात याद रखना ,

हमारी  लाइफ में न , रायता कोई भी फैलाये , साफ़ खुद ही करना पड़ता है |

Until next time,

❤

Neyawn