“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” – Maya Angelou.
When taking an exam and or any type of test, the fact that you took the test says a lot.
Pass or fail; you had the encourage to lean forward and start the process of actually learning.
Whether you passed or failed, you produced a result.
You never failed in life; you simply produced a result. What are you going to do with those results?
You can learn from those results, which lifelong learning is all about.
Everything is an opportunity—an opportunity to learn from past mistakes and the opportunity to learn from past successes.
Essentially, successful people understand how to take the results of a past examination, relationship, business deal, competition, etc., and produce better results.
Comprehensive Examination (Comp Exam)
I’m taking the Comp Exam in January 2022, an examination to move on in the PhD program. The learner goes from Ph.D. student to Ph.D. candidate; then moving on to the dissertation.
The dissertation course allows the student or candidate to move forward the Ph.D. program.
If I have not already discussed the dissertation, a dissertation is a written document summarizing research.
In other words, it is the final step of a Ph.D. program and the culmination of a student’s doctoral studies.
Can you believe a kid who repeated the third grade, struggled through middle and high school, and took several remedial courses earlier in his undergraduate college studies is in the final stages of the Ph.D. program?
Nevertheless, life is filled with obstacles; however, I never looked at those struggles in grade school as obstacles or the times I had to take the ASVAB three times to get into the military.
Obstacles in life or not obstacles, they are learning opportunities. Essentially, going through some adversity allows you to get the answers to the test (i.e., answers to your problems, issues, etc.).
For instance, I took the ASVAB two times in order to learn what I needed to do to pass the test on the third attempt. Of course, I wish I could have scored high enough on the first attempt at the ASVAB.
However, the results in the first attempts tell the story of what I needed to do in order to get the results I needed to have a career in the U.S. Army.
Fundamentally, it’s a mindset where obstacles, roadblocks, examinations, or whatever you wish to call them are simply opportunities to learn in order to get stronger, faster, smarter, and tougher.
In essence, your mindset is the only thing holding you down or back. Change the way you think about your situation and move forward in your job, business, relationship, career, and life.