Overcome your FE exam Obstacles

You’ve most likely seen or read about all these FE exam study tips. I know I share a lot of these on my YouTube channel and blog. “How to Pass Your FE Exam on the First Try”, “How to Study to Pass the FE Exam”, or “The Secret to Passing the FE Exam”

When time requires them, these tips are needed. They can frame our thinking in the right direction. They can give us the motivation to start studying. But this motivation is short-lived. It is not enough to get us through the required months of consistent studying.

But why is this so?

Simply put, any study tip or motivational advice we acquire is meaningless unless we put in the hard work in our day-to-day lives. From this point of view, hard work involves the iterative process of failing regularly (especially in the beginning), accepting these failures as a way of growing, learning from these failures, and adapting to the situation at hand with a long-term plan in mind. 

Let me share a recent experience I’ve had with a student of mine.

I’m currently working with a student who has been struggling to pass his FE exam for some time. We’ve talked about a lot of different ideas and study tips that can help him structure his learning and improve his focus when studying for his FE after work. Some of these include: planning his study session for the day; developing a long-term plan with his family in mind; and creating an appropriate study environment where he’s not easily distracted. We recognized it was necessary to gradually begin structuring his work/life routine with these ideas in mind for the next three months.

He was pumped, charged up, motivated, and ready to get started with the DirectHub course! With this high self-confidence, he was on top of his studies for the first week. Unfortunately, it all went downhill from there because these tips were just IDEAS. 

Our discussion motivated him to study for a week, but the deliberate work was not taken to the point where he’s changing his lifestyle and thinking.

So, what exactly happened? Why did things go downhill after he was so motivated to study the first week?

• He relied only on external motivation to get through the first week.
• He wasn’t pacing himself by slowly covering the material with plenty of breaks between each study session because he wasn’t in the right environment (physical and social).
• He had no long-term plans that were discussed with his family or the company for which he worked.
• He was studying for his FE exam at random times, not prioritizing studying at set times.
• He was easily distracted by studying at home at the kitchen table, with the TV on and the kids playing.
• He was rushing through the course material, not prioritizing learning the fundamentals by covering each topic one at a time.

You will undoubtedly face similar challenges as you begin and continue with your FE exam preparation. To overcome these challenges, motivation will not help much. You will need to do some serious reflecting. You will need to think about the obstacles you’re going to face. You will need to plan ahead with alternatives to overcome them. How will you adapt? How will you keep going? What alternatives can you try? What small steps can you take to make sure you’re staying on track?

It won’t be smooth, but you can change your daily routine. You can try things out, and the more you try, the greater the likelihood that you will continue to stay on the right path. A path that’s just right for you. Again, this won’t be easy! Because you’re changing your lifestyle and pattern of thinking. But you can definitely do this with deliberate, conscious efforts.