The 2 Ps of Success

Let’s paint a scenario:

There is a boy, let’s call him John.

It is mid-afternoon and he is currently sitting in a large hall with fifty other people, or thereabouts. Complete silence fills the hall interrupted only by the sounds of pen to paper and the occasional sigh, whisper, and exclamation.

He takes a glance around only to see people’s faces scrunched up from the effort of concentration, some scratching their heads in confusion, others biting the tail end of their pens deep in thought and most nerve-racking of all, the glowering eyes of the invigilator, staring right at him.

The whole place feels uncomfortable and unnecessarily hot given how big the hall is.

As his attention falls back on his script, beads of sweat tickling their way down his chest, it dawns on him that it isn’t the examination hall that is unnerving. He is afraid. How?

John doesn’t scare so easily, especially for exams. Given that he writes a lot of tests and exams, he is somewhat immune to exam jitters. He also does well in exams.

While he might not be a trailblazer, he isn’t a slouch either. He finishes among the best in his class. His parents expect nothing less.

He doesn’t know what failure is, and yet, as he looks at his script, what is staring back at him is failure.

He wants to do something about it, anything. But it is too late now. The exam is over, and the scripts are being retrieved by the invigilator.

As the invigilator leaves with his script, his heart keeps sinking.

Not only because of the inevitable outcome of the exam but because he knows the reason for the expected result.

He knows why he will fail.

I don’t know about you, but I feel for John.

But what do you think is the cause of John’s inevitable failure?

It can’t be exam jitters; he doesn’t get exam jitters not when he has written so many exams.

It certainly isn’t because he is a little dull. He is among the best students in his class. That has to account for at least above-average intelligence.

It isn’t laziness or not working hard enough either. It takes hard work to be among the best in a class. I know this firsthand. So, what is the cause of his misfortune?

Now you (and John) can make excuses for his failure, “his classmates aren’t smart”, “he was full of himself”, etc.

But the truth is the determinant of his failure or success was the level of preparation he had and his frequency of practice.

Preparation

We all know what preparation means so I am not going to bore you with the details. But I want to make some things clear.

The more you want something the more your preparation should be.

It’s simple, but not easy. It’s one thing to do last-minute preparations for something as trivial as talking to your crush, for instance.

But it’s a whole other ball game to prepare for something as important as a job interview, promotional exams, or a presentation to the board of a company.

These things require more time and detailed activities. It’s a simple formula.

The better your preparation the better your execution. That is, the greater your preparation the greater your results.

Greater preparation = greater execution.

Another thing to note is,

You can spend time preparing but prepare amiss.

You can take time to prepare for something, but you have to make sure the preparation is relevant to that thing. You have to also take time you check if the preparation will take you to where you want to be. Take it from me.

I have gone for exams with confidence only to be let down by wrong preparation. It’s a bad feeling.

You don’t want to have that feeling. And if you have been there then you know what I am saying. (And just maybe, maybe, I am John.)

Practice

You have heard the saying practice makes perfect. But I changed it up for myself.

Practice makes, almost, perfect. (I know I am trying to sound smart but indulge me).

Nobody is perfect and nobody can be perfect but shoot for the stars and you will land on the moon, right?

I also tried to take the pressure off my shoulders by adding the word almost. Being perfect is impossible.

With all this being said, you still have to practice. Practice and preparation are interleaved.

Preparation without practice is bound to fail. It is just not even sensible to prepare without practicing.

Imaging preparing for exams without practicing past questions, or without doing practice questions.

Or preparing for an interview without practicing mock interview questions or practicing mock interviews.

Or preparing for a presentation without practicing your delivery, the presenting part of the presentation.

It sounds absurd to me.

If you really want to succeed, you must learn to practice. And with preparation, the frequency and accuracy of your practice go a long way in determining your level of success.

To wrap things up,

Success comes to those who are prepared for it.

There is nothing much to add. And while I would have loved to add more actionable steps and points to aid proper preparation and practice,

I don’t want to unnecessarily prolong this post. But I promise to release posts on it.

But in the meantime, you can read my last post here.

Till the next post.

If you agree with what I have said clap for me. (It means a lot).

But if you don’t agree tell me why in the comments. Much love.