More than anything else, the foremost cause of anxiety at the JEE level seems to be peer pressure. The human mind has a tendency to set benchmarks or yardsticks with which a person judges his or her performance and actions. And since we are surrounded by our friends much of the time, we automatically tend to use their performances as the yardsticks with which we assess ourselves. Subconsciously, a person always compares achievements of those around him to his own. And therefore, anxiety occurs when a person gets that nagging feeling that he’s being left behind. When he starts to think that he’s failing on the yardstick that he’s given himself.  

I’m sure most of you must have encountered this state of mind sometime or the other. It could occur in a variety of ways. You might feel that the person sitting next to you is almost about to finish his syllabus while you seem to have just made a beginning. You might be concerned about the fact that your best friend studies more than ten hours a day while you are barely able to manage three. In fact, you might even feel that you are just not smart enough to enter IIT because you’ve seen what smart people are like and you are definitely not in the same league as they are.

Well, all this happens. And it happens in one way or the other to everyone. And it is definitely a problem. One could perform to his full potential only when one is free of anxiety. Although totally eliminating all forms of anxiety is nearly impossible, one can still mould his frame of mind in such a way that anxiety has a negligible effect.

The best way to do so is to think of the whole peer pressure issue like this. You have to appear in the exam on your own eventually. No matter how good (or how bad) the guy sitting on the next bench is, it will have no bearing at all on how well you can perform in the exam. Writing an exam is an individual effort. Thus, logically speaking, it is a waste of your precious time to think of how others around you are doing.

Your aim should only be to strive towards your own perfection. Your only purpose should be better yourself with each passing day. Your only competition should be with your present self, with the single motive to improve yourself.  This is the most that you can do. And it is the best that you can do.

Gita says “Karma kar, fal ki iccha mat kar”.  Translated, this means that one should only be concerned about one’s karma or work or journey (or whatever you’d like to call it) and not its outcome. You would do really great if you follow this principle with your full heart and apply it to your everyday life.

Manan

(Next time we’ll talk about something more practical . Probably time management issues.)

Comments (10)

am said:

	u al r superb. pls continue wid ur advices.
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April 11, 2008
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Sony said:

	I bless d day wen i was introduced to dis site...
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December 29, 2007
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varnika bhardwaj said:

	thank you for reminding me gita's mantra karam karta ja fal ki iccha mat kar.I am sure to get select in IIT JEE
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December 06, 2007
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darshan said:

	i wish that i had seen this article atleast 5 months back....
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December 01, 2007
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PRAKHAR MITTAL said:

	Sir i just want to say 1 thing that it/s my luck that i hav found ur site & i am associated with it.U always solved my problems & help the aspiring IITians.May god Bless u all
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November 18, 2007
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shubhanshu tiwari said:

	Saying that you all are greatest of all will be insult to you all as you all deserve much more than being greatest.
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November 14, 2007
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チロークン said:

	Found your site yesterday itself. Must say I'm impressed! There are people who actually think like me You guys rock! With that kind of a mindset, it's no surprise you made it into IITD!!
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November 04, 2007
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Gaurav Yadav said:

	i m 4m ur crash course . LOCUS IS GR8
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October 29, 2007
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Gaurav Yadav said:

	Sir i m in IIST trivandrum now and its great 2 b associated with ISRO . 2day i was searching 4 locus on net and i found ur site so i thaught 2 write something . LOCUS IS REALLY GR8
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October 29, 2007
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mehak gupta said:

	you people are just too good!! your students must be so lucky..
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October 23, 2007
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