What Achieving Difficult Goals Really Looks Like
If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you…Whatever good things we build end up building us.
Preamble
I hate exams. Perhaps my time in medical school has something to do with it. For most years, we were always writing one exam or another.
When you failed an exam, you wrote it again a couple of months later. You went on to the next class if you passed it. If you failed it a second time, you repeated the whole year. If you repeated that cycle one more time and failed, you were out of medical school.
In my first year, we did botany. I disliked the course. To avoid failure, I slept with the course material under my pillow. I read a bit of it every morning. I finished with a B at the end of the course.
When I did my postgraduate, I only chose courses that were assessed via research essays and not exams. Yes, academic writing is another kettle of fish, but hey, writing has always been my first love.
Compulsory courses, statistics, and epidemiology were assessed via exams. This gave me some sleepless nights. By the course end, I finished with another B.
Epiphanies and realizations
Several people were successful in medical school cos they learned concepts again and again. It became second nature.
Sometimes they became geniuses cos they put in the hours. In some other cases, there were people who wrote those exams again and again until they became concept geniuses.
They weren’t born that way. They worked their way to the genius life.
When I met my boss, I felt he was an excellent clinician. He never wasted time making diagnoses. Recently, he reminded me he had been doing this same thing for over 50 years.
He told me: “if you want to crack your exams, keep learning and relearning your concepts, it’ll become second nature.”
My drive test
To drive in North America, you need a license. To get a license, you need to pass a knowledge test and a road test. The pass mark for the knowledge test is 16/20.
My knowledge drive test has been on my vision board forever. Some people put timelines beside their goals. I didn’t. I just wrote the goal down.
As I stared at this goal and started practice tests, certain things got embedded in my subconscious. I became conscious of road signs and road rules. I also became conscious of conversations about people who lost their licenses or conversations around cars.
That’s what visualization and practice do.
So to put it simply:
I wrote the goal clearly on my vision board.
I downloaded the driving test practice app.
Every other day, I dedicated half an hour to practice on the drive test app.
One day I went to a drive test agency to make inquiries about the drive test schedule.
When I felt ready, I took a trip down and wrote the test.
I scored 14/20.
I went the next day and redid the test
I scored 15/20.
I took some time off and made some inquiries and downloaded a different app.
I practiced it daily
I have booked another test.
I intend to take the test until I score at least 16/20.
I don’t exactly have another choice if I want to drive in North America.
Every attempt at practice and more tests reinforces my knowledge of driving. It’s not going anywhere.
No one will know how I achieved this genius unless they’ve passed through it or I tell them my story.
In Summary
Based on my experience, most goals worth achieving start with writing them down. Visualization matters.
Then next is to make inquiries on what steps need to be taken. If you like, write these smaller steps down and tick them off as you achieve.
Keep going. Pace yourself. One day, you’ll eventually run through it. When you do, pat yourself on the back and either set the next goal or take a chill pill.
I am going to implement this same strategy for my board exams. It’s already on the vision board. It’s study time again and again.
I have purchased some practice tests. I intend to buy more.
One last thing:
You aren’t in a race with anyone. Leave the Joneses alone. They have their own problems!
Update:
I finally passed the knowledge driving test on the 6th try with a score of 18/20. I couldn’t be happier. Practice pays off. This week, I am making inquiries about schedules in a driving school nearby. It’ll prep me for my road test.
Thanks to Jason Edmunds.
“Always handwrite your goals instead of typing them, there’s something energetic about actually handwriting your goals….what you focus on expands. You’ll be amazed at how things just start popping up all over the place once you set the intention for what you want and how you want to feel.”- Elizabeth Rider.
