it's OK if the best advice doesn't work well for YOU!

i was wrong about getting advice, 4 years ago. but after a conversation, i completely changed and this is a retrospective essay on it.

4 years ago, i was studying for the university entrance exam, called “konkur” in iran, and i was thinking that i should receive more pieces of advice, as much as i could to be in the most productive situation possible.

but a conversation changed me forever and now, after more than 4 years, i can see that this advice is really true. the advice is that "don't worry, it's completely ok if the best advice doesn't work well for you." said our school's consultant.

so in this essay, i want to write about that great advice, which didn't work well for me, and some results of it.

i was always surfing the consulting pages, top students' experiences, and almost everywhere i could find good advice, even when i didn't have a problem and everything was somehow good. during these readings, i've encountered a piece of advice in which people were saying that in order to have better performance in exams, you should divide questions into hard, medium, and easy ones (to answer the easy ones first and medium ones second, etc.) and you'd better answer lessons in a personalized order.

it's really rational, good, and working advice that you can receive from people whenever they're talking about ways to perform better in exams. but it wasn't working for me at all. i tried to implement it many many times and every time, i was reaching the conclusion that there was a problem in my implementation because the advice was too good not to be wrong. after several times of trying, i not only couldn't reach an optimum performance but also was performing very badly at exams! so i went to our consultant to ask him about this frustrating situation.

i told him: "i don't know why, but i can not implement this advice in my exam process and after every try, i receive worse results".

he said: "what was your strategy to perform well in exams, before reading about this advice?".

(i was shaming to talk about it. because i didn't have any strategy. i wasn't dividing questions into different levels. i wasn't using a specific order to answer the question and right at that time, everything, unbelievably, was going well!)

but i said (to our consultant) that "i wasn't using any specific method and everything was good." he told me:

"almost all of the advice is for MOST people, not exactly for you and it's OK if the best advice doesn't work well for YOU! ignore it and do your work."

this happened to me at that time, but i saw many many similar situations after that time. for now, i see pieces of advice very differently and want you to see them in this way. never forget that you know much more than almost everyone on this planet about your life and YOU should decide. you should decide about your being and doing and you're responsible for the result. so see yourself, your knowledge, abilities, and information, significantly more important than almost everyone IN YOUR LIFE.

but after all of these lines, i'm open to new conversations and even new pieces of advice! :) you can find me at sina80mor@gmail.com.

sina
may 21, 2024