Practical Positive Thinking 3 - Passing Professional Examinations

At the grand old age of 30, when my son was born, I decided to study for a professional management accountancy examination in England, my country of birth. I knew it would be tough, and spread over between two and a half, and five years; five stages of examinations, totalling 18 in all. Each exam had to be passed in a stage to get through to the next stage, and history showed that you needed to be in the top 35% to pass each one.

I knew would be competing against mostly young graduates, fresh out of university and in peak learning mode. As for me, I had never been to university, had never been an academic success, and had got low grades in most subjects at school. How on earth could I not only compete with, but beat, about 2000 out of 3000 other students; not just once, but 18 consecutive times? On the surface, it all seemed unlikely.

With my history, it would have been difficult enough just to scrape through each examination, and my immediate reaction was just that: scrape through. However, I soon realised that was the wrong way to approach it. After all, I was older and wiser now, than when I was a teenage student. I quickly shifted my mind into positive thinking mode. Maybe it was even more than that: ultra positive thinking mode.

I decided I was not going to “scrape through” the examinations, nor even “pass”; instead, I was going to get 18 grade “A”s. Despite knowing some of the subjects would bore me to tears, especially Business Law and then Company Law, it seemed that a switch had been thrown, and I ahd a surge of confidence. From that moment of decision, and for the next two and a half years, I thought not of scraping through the examinations, but only of getting the top possible grade for each one, even those subjects I hated. As each examination came around, in batches of 3 or 4 every 6 months, I did not approach each examination with trepidation. Instead, I homed in on each examination with positive assurance.

Did I get 18 grade “A”s? Not quite, I think it was 16 A's and 2 B's, which for a non-academic like me was not bad. The point is, by adopting such a positive attitude and thinking of nothing but success, I qualified at first attempt, with never a doubt along the way. I am quite sure that had I started out on the first of 18 examinations with a “maybe I'll scrape through” attitude, things would have been very different.

Can I prove that success was due to positive thinking? No, but I know for sure it was an important part of that success. The other key factors were my natural determination, improving my memory, and having the motivation of our first child to support. however, strip out the positive thinking element, and I very much doubt the outcome would have been the same.

Practical Positive Thinking 4 - Overcoming The Jobless Chasm

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