Civil Services preparation is a long process. Most of the students invest their exciting youthhood closeting themselves behind four walls and focus on their studies.
The most common problem which most of the students face is their thoughts start wandering while they are studying and trying to focus on the subject. Most of the aspirants face problem in concentrating on their studies due to various familial, relationship distraction, hormonal temptations and work related anxiety. Controlling the hormonal arousal is not always under aspirants control. Some satiate themselves by finding the right partner. Some others manage with porn. Some other with a high degree of super ego composition in their personality become the victim of guilt feelings and do not know how to channelize their energies. Many of them could be seen queued up outside Ravindran sir's cabin seeking advice on how to better concentrate on their studies? I do not know how many of them find a satisfying answer.
The remedy to the problem of concentration lies in the root-cause analysis of the problem. One must thoroughly understand the problem in order to devise a game plan to convert this problem into a productive push towards the goal.
Some general recurrent thoughts are:
1. Whether I would be able to clear the exam or not? What if I fail?
2. Imagining the sexual encounters with known and unknowns beautiful
3. General unnecessary thoughts of aggression, frustration and violence
4. Worry over familial responsibilities
5. Feelings of jealousy and competition against some friend
6. Guilt over wasting time in unproductive fashion
7. Sadness over getting poor ranks in the test series
8. Shame over failing in the exam
9. Doubt over one's abilities
10. Anger against roommates or friends for not doing their work or disturbing your studies
11. Despair over not being able to perform as per demand of the examination
12. Constant worry about future
13. Frustration over making a wrong decision or difficulty in accepting the change in life
There might be some other emotions or feelings which may dominate individual's mind. Sometimes a combination of these thoughts intrudes in our mental sphere taking our concentration and attention away. This has serious repercussions on our preparation process.
Firstly, It pushes us towards winner's mentality to loser's mentality. Instead of preparing for success, we start preparing for failure. For example, those who came with a dream of becoming IAS, now aim for SSC or Bank PO examinations.
Secondly, We are not able to capture the full content with such recurrent thoughts running in the background. We are not able to reflect on the text and our critical thinking takes a beating.
Thirdly, We take more time to study the same text thus we lose our pace. This further results in squeezing time from our share of rejuvenating activities. Thus setting a vicious cycle which transports us to the world of depression, despair, and other negative emotions.
Therefore, it is essential to identify these thoughts and nip them in the bud before they take over your persona and become part of your personality. But now comes the big question, "how"? Overall, these set of strategies could be divided into various heads.
Most of the intrusive thoughts are of sexual nature. To deal with this situation, One can follow a multi-pronged strategy. Firstly, accept the fact that given your age and natural process of hormone formation, such kind of thoughts is very normal. Everyone be it rank 1 or rank 100, have similar kind of thoughts in their mind. We are all humans. Secondly, release your energies in whatever way you can. Watch porn, masturbate, have sex or whatever. But do not unnecessarily repress your energies. If you can control, then that is the best. But don't repress it. If we repress it beyond a limit then it resurfaces in other forms of personality. For example, we start avoiding opposite sex. We loose our aesthetic sense. Instead of looking in the eyes, we start looking at female boobs and exhibit many other similar pervert behaviour.
Secondly, change your reading style. Feel the subject. Just ask yourself a question. Do you have these thoughts when you are watching a movie or talking to someone? Usually no except when the movie is some nonsense Bollywood masala. The reason being, all your senses are so engaged in watching the movie. The same should happen with your subject. Feel it. get immersed into it. Animate it. Talk it out. Write it down.
Thirdly, Meditate. This is something practical in the long term. There are no magic wands. No change is going to happen over night. But it is tried and tested method. All the high rankers are people with immense mental concentration. This way we can channelize our sexual energies into a more productive sphere. I have written a separate blog on meditation also. In short, it is about convincing your self and reading your mind-body coordination.
Second common distraction or worry while studying is anxiety about the future. For this,
Firstly, "believe in yourself". Create a magnetic field around yourself with the belief that you are going to crack this exam come what may. Believe that god is on your side and he has asked only one thing from you i.e. smart work. and believe in miracles.
Secondly, supplement this belief with other processes like introspection, schedule management, disciplined behavior and other things.
Thirdly, If one is so concerned about the future then he can settle in his plan b and prepare for the exam along with the job. I have written about plan B actions in other blogs.
Third common distraction is the problem with roommates or environmental setting.
For this, be assertive. Say upfront. It has following benefits.
Firstly, we learn to deal with such tricky situations and become more balanced over time.
Secondly, You would be better able to focus on the subject.
Thirdly, You can easily distinguish between your wellwisher and unconcerned.
Fourth, for the jealousy feeling one should accept the fact that while we all work hard, the ultimate selection is driven by destiny. So "Jiska hona hai, uska hona hai". No one can stop an idea whose time has come. So share your knowledge. Learn from others. Draw inspiration from your colleagues. No need to feel insecure.
This exam is like Tapasya. It is also an opportunity of self-purification. So for all other negative thoughts, one-word answer is "Be positive and kill the negative emotions". Feel like a monk. Be like a monk.
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