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I wanted to write this post for those of you searching for some motivation or hope on passing this exam. My CPA journey began 5 years ago… Yes FIVE full years. Through those years, I’ve encountered all the struggles, the difficulties, and the heartbreak of another 71. Well, I found out this month I finally passed the exam. In sharing my story, I hope that some of you that read this will learn from my mistakes and use that knowledge to get this exam done and finally over with.
As I stated, my journey began 5 years ago back when I was about to graduate from college. I was a pretty good student with an above average GPA. I had an offer lined up at an accounting firm; life was looking good. I spoke with a couple of my future colleagues and many of them suggested that I start knocking parts of the CPA down. They told me it’s hard to study after a long day of work, and since your graduating, you still have that “study mode” mentality. So I thought to myself, well that makes sense. Since my final semester in college was pretty easy, so I decided to go ahead and study for BEC. I scheduled my test a couple weeks after graduation, ready to knock it out. Well as it turns out; there’s a lot of parties and distractions near graduation time, and I didn’t get that much time to study. Time flew by and I had one and a half week before my exam and I didn’t even open the book. I decided, OKAY, CRAM time. I should have mentioned this earlier. I am the ULTIMATE procrastinator. I have gone through my life up until now procrastinating at everything (exams, projects, papers, etc.). Once that switch clicks as the deadline neared, I go into full focus mode (other procrastinators will know exactly what I’m talking about), and perform the task at hand. Why should this exam be any different I thought?! So I did just that. Crammed everything I could in a little over a week (No time to do even a single question and gave it my best shot. I decided to wait for the score before moving onto my next exam.
Few weeks later, the results came in and I got my first 71. Two thoughts came into my head when I saw that score. The first was: Darn, I was so close, I wish I studied more. The second and MUCH more dangerous thought was: Hey, if I can get this score with over a week to study, imagine what I can do in 2 – 3 weeks of study. Spoiler: I WAS WRONG. WRONG WRONG WRONG. More on this to come. It’s now around June, and I had the beautiful sunny weather outside. I had a choice to either enjoy my very LAST summer vacation or I could reopen my BEC book and try again. Yeah, I choose to enjoy my summer. This was probably the one of my biggest regrets I have in my entire life. If you just graduated and you’re reading this, and debating whether you should enjoy summer or study of the CPA; stop reading right now and go study. Once you start work… guess what, you’re never going to have a 3-5 month block of time off to solely dedicated to study for your CPA exam. If you can knock out a few parts, if not pass the whole exam, it will make your future life infinitely better. If you don’t believe me, keep reading. I wish I could tell you I did something worthwhile during the summer I took off. I wish I could tell you I had a memorable experience as my last hurrah. But I can’t. I wasted away those few months and didn’t do an ounce of studying.
The days flew by, and before I knew it, I was starting my new job. I wasn’t too busy at first and I figured, what the heck, I can study later. Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months and I still didn’t even touch my books. After a few months, I finally decided I was going to sit down and study for the exam. After a few days worth of studying, things started to picked up at work. I thought to myself well this is odd, I’m not even in busy season yet. I figured this to be an unusual occurrence and decided I’ll go back to studying after things calmed down. Then busy season hit, and sure enough, I was busy once again. The summer will be better, I told myself. To no one’s surprise, I was busy during the summer too. This cycle continued on and on for years. I’ll skip ahead and tell you my realization that occurred to me in year 4. I was NEVER so busy that I couldn’t study for the exam. The truth was that I never WANTED to find time. Now before you go and say, “that’s not me, I want to pass the exam and I put in the effort” I want to just make something clear. I did “study” during these times. I’d crack open the book, watch some lectures when I got home, and practiced questions when I was done. To be honest though, I was exhausted when I got home. Any weekends, I wanted to relax, watch TV, play some games. I DIDN’T want to study. In my head I made excuses saying that I deserved to relax etc. Then came a week or so before the test and I’d cram really really hard to try to learn the topic and end up failing by a couple of points. THIS STRATEGY DOES NOT WORK WELL WITH THIS EXAM. There is an excellent TED Talk that discusses the issues with procrastinators when there’s no hard deadline given to them. I know at least for me and I’m sure for many of you that this is one of the major obstacles with passing this exam. There just isn’t that pressure to light that fire and ring the alarms to get it done. Those times you do study for the exam, you might have given it maybe 75% of your effort at best. You think to yourself after you fail, if I only tried harder I could definitely pass. The issue is that you never give it that 100%.
So those of you that have found similarities to my story probably want to know what was my solution? How did I overcome my procrastination? What is the secret? In the past I have always searched for motivation for many of my actions. Especially regarding this exam, I was trying to find reasons to push myself. This included Money, Promotions, feeling a freedom etc. Clearly it didn’t work for years. I finally read something online that changed my life and mentality completely. Someone on a thread asked, how other people kept themselves motivated to do something they didn’t want to do. I will paraphrase the number one response: Motivation is one of the most unreliable feelings we have as humans. It drives us to perform a task in short bursts and comes and goes as it pleases. Motivation is easy because it requires no effort to obtain it. In fact, sometimes after being “motivated” for a short period of time, you end up being UNMOTIVATED after it goes away. A much better alternative to motivation is discipline. Discipline is always reliable. Force yourself to study every night. While you’re waiting in a line, practice questions on your phone. When you’re driving to and from work, listen to the lectures. There is time if you MAKE time. Discipline is hard work and takes time to get used to it, but that is my “secret” to passing the exam. Let’s be honest, we all would rather go on youtube or catch up on the latest episode of game of thrones. But you have to build the willpower to overcome that feeling, and get yourself to study instead. It took me 4 years to realize this, and I’m writing this to save everyone that’s in a similar situation the time. It’s a test of discipline and patience. Listen, it’s not fun. I didn’t enjoy studying by any means. That’s not what discipline is about. It’s about being able to perform tasks you dislike because you have the willpower to do so. From my personal experience, the hardest part is starting that study session. Do whatever it takes to get started and the rest should come. Put in the time, put in the effort you WILL pass, I promise you. I hope this helps some of you get back on track and I wish you all the best of luck.
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