Cherry Blossoms

Before 2017 ended, I made a decision to re-take my CAPM (Certified Associated Project Management) exam after my failure from the previous tests in 2015 and 2016. What I learned years ago had dissipated when life kept on moving. I wanted to study and get this certification because I know it will benefit towards my career progress and growth.

I started thinking about how and what to study for so I did the studying without attending any seminars. The cost was high and expensive that I decided to learn on my own purchasing test guides and exam samples. Life also continued to revolve when I left my old position to take on a new opportunity to become a Project Coordinator for our Commercial department. Learning a new position from the old position is difficult along with my need to focus studying for my certification. Of course, learning to balance family, friends and work was the biggest task I could ever do. I managed to turn down a lot of invites from close friends to meet them for drinks, food or dancing. I haven’t even posted anything on my blog during this time of withdrawal. My life consists 80% of my day working full time and 20% going home to rest, eat and study. During this difficult time, I managed to always keep myself fit by dancing, strength training and yoga to keep my sanity intact. It helped that my friends were very understanding. Also, as a person gets older, it became a challenge to grasp when studying for educational textbook materials.. For 3 months, I held my fort down and learn the materials for this exam to the best of my ability.

The day came and I took the exam. I took it and got my result the same day. The result was a: FAIL... *wincing*…. The one word that shakes everyone to the core… This is not the word you want to see when you did your best and worked for it.

I sat disappointingly at the waiting room… My body was tense and sore because of the stress that is building up. I knew I studied for this test and learned its contents ferociously. But then the sense of fear took over and made me think I failed because my efforts wasn’t enough…

I went home and sat with a blank look and thoughts on my face. I texted a couple of close friends to tell them the news knowing that I have support and encouragement. As much as I appreciated and being a positive person all the time getting these compliments from my friends, the encouragement didn’t help. I went home, had some wings and pizza, put on Game of Thrones and my head was running 100 miles per hour. I walked in there confident I was prepared to take the exam. I wrote the exam for the 3 hours it was scheduled for and even went back to check on some questions I had doubts of answering. I was starting to tense and ache more and more which meant my body was really punishing me for overthinking of what had gone wrong. The ache and tension lasted until the next day.

On the day I failed on my exam, I thought to myself a few things after I got home: I have 2 more times to try again. However, my time is limited as it has an expiration date with when I should take my exam. Also, experiencing this failure made me determined to try again (despite being exhausted and sore from stress pain). I was knocked down and I need to get back up. I guess I am not a meek and obedient type of girl where I could curl in a ball and sleep all day in bed although that was what I wanted to do. This set back made me realize life comes at you unexpectedly and how you react from a certain event determines how you deal with it. I have had a lot of failures in my life I have not expressed or shared because I was ashamed by what people will think or say. I realized this was not a healthy thinking path to be on. I realize it is more important to share and speak to everyone that the feelings we feel after failing at a task are called uncertainty and impatience.

When these words pop up, I remind myself this is a temporary setback. If there is something we want to pursue, we shouldn’t stop doing it no matter how long it takes. We need to move forward (which can sometimes be difficult to do, but we need to do it) and remind ourselves that when we fail at a certain thing, we are not less of a person we are becoming to be. So, after a whirlwind 48 hours, I decided to try again and register to retake my exam because this is the life I want to be on…

Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be. – “Grandma” Moses