“The amount of material is enormous! It’s so much! Too much! Where do I even start? I need to do something!”

Have you already caught yourself in an avalanche of panic thoughts regarding your professional exam, desperate to do something, but not knowing what to start with?

 

This post will help you

• start in a structured manner

• calm your nerves

• take action

• and exit the panic mode

 

Step 1: Eat it one bite at a time.

I know so well how it feels. This exam seems so big, like an elephant! All your professional knowledge will be tested during this examination and being anxious is totally normal. You will probably be getting panic attacks on a regular basis, so it’s crucial to teach yourself to calm down and get back on the productivity track.

Every time these thoughts and feelings come, and you find yourself paralyzed, ask yourself the following question:

How do you eat an elephant? 

And the answer is:

One bite at a time!

Now ask yourself the next question:

Which bite can I eat right now?

 

Step 2: Plan it out

In order to be able to take action, every time you feel anxious or overwhelmed, make a plan.

Prepare a step-by-step plan of all the subjects to cover, together with the list of the reference materials, which you want to use to study these subjects.  Put the exact dates and the chapters to study, together with the number of pages per chapter. Include time for testing yourself at the end of each chapter in the plan. 

Every time I was starting to feel anxious, my thoughts running full speed on the panic track, I would redirect them to my plan and force myself to work on the next step laid out in the schedule. I would focus on one particular assignment. One tangible accomplishment. Anyone can read five pages, even twenty, and answer a couple of multiple choice questions, right? I can too. This would take my attention off the rest of the material, and calm me down.

If you want to see my exam planning template with the resources I used for studying and chapter layout, you can enter your name, e-mail address and download it here: 

Leave this field empty if you're human:

ACVP Study Plan.pdf

 

For this one big thank you to my friend Virginie Piccicuto, who put the template together. If you are planning to study for the ACVP board certification go on and join her study group on Facebook.

 

Step 3: Take action –  action always beats inaction.

Ok, you have a plan, all the chapters laid out in detail with the corresponding page numbers. Fantastic! And yet there will be days when you did not manage to study quite enough, or not at all…It is demotivating, but stay positive. You can still do something. Remember, any action beats inaction, you can still take a quiz with a couple of random test questions and practice for half an hour. Maybe it will motivate you to do some more today, but if not, no worries! Doing something is 100% better, than doing nothing, so pick a little something you can do right now, and like Nike says, just do it!

 

Step 4: Take baby steps

Like in every discipline, no one becomes an expert overnight. Take baby steps, instead of killing yourself. Design your study sessions as a mixture of repetitions and new material. This will keep you motivated. The repetitions will make you feel like you are advancing, as part of the material will already be familiar. The new parts will keep you challenged and the struggle to master them will make your brain more plastic and absorbing with every study session. Remember to maintain the balance. Too much repetition will prevent you from moving forward at speed, and too much new material at a time may overwhelm and demotivate you.

 

Step 5: Take care of your body

Very, very panicked? No chance to calm down by working the plan, not even to quiz yourself with a couple of questions? Again, keep calm. These days happen too. Go for a run! Hate running? Take a walk, a bike ride or do a short yoga routine. (For example this one for concentration and mental focus.)

You may not have time for extensive workouts during your study time, but don’t give up all activity. Physical activity helps you clear your head and regain energy. It’s like a mental shower. The endorphins produced during exercises will help cancel your fear and prepare you to start over tomorrow.  

After the exercises just go to sleep. Time to reset the system. Every system needs a restart every now and then, to maintain performance. The on-off method solves 90% of computer problems. Whenever necessary, apply to yourself!

Exercise, sleep, start over tomorrow.

 

Step 6: Expand your comfort zone gradually.

Expanding your comfort zone is crucial for your success, but push yourself gradually. This is a marathon, not a sprint. No chance to finish it in the given time limit without training. You need to push yourself a bit every day. Enough to continually advance, but not too much, not to damage yourself.

 

Conclusions

Many people before you have succeeded. This means it is all doable.

• Take one baby step at a time.
• Take one bite of the elephant at a time.
• Take action, because it always beats inaction.
• Exercise and sleep well, to have the energy to
• Gradually push yourself outside of your comfort zone.

Before you realize, the elephant will be eaten, and you will be ready to take the exam.

I wish you the best of luck!!!

Leave this field empty if you're human:

“Why, why, why do I have to cram this stuff that has nothing to do with real life? I will forget it the moment I leave the exam room, no doubt about it! Really, how important for my professional success can it be, that one hundred goats had 102 tumors , and that you should not feed your tadpoles (yes tadpoles) with spinach (yes spinach), because you will damage their kidneys? Maybe if you are a professional frog breeder, it is important, yes, but who of us is? Not me…”

These and similar thoughts were running through my head during my exam preparation phase as I was covering more and more relatively unimportant, but yet so bizarre material, that it would for sure appear on the test. I bet everyone who has been there and struggled severely, going through vast amounts of ridiculous material, can relate to that.

So why are we doing this?

Why do we put so much energy and effort into passing these professional exams?

Sure, we all know the obvious,

that obtaining a professional certification will

• Increase your competences
• Increase your professional prestige
• Grant you a higher salary (at least it should, most of the time)
• Secure your job
• and give you competitive advantage over non-certified professionals

All of the above bullets are self explanatory, but…

Is this enough to torture yourself  with practice tests?

Maybe you already have enough professional experience, and the certification will just be a piece of paper adding another title to your name? How much can your salary change? Maybe you run your own business, so you yourself are taking care of your job security, and it has nothing to do with some certification? All these benefits are so intangible before getting certified, so why bother?

Why is it important?

Let us reverse the question and ask ourselves: in an area outside of my expertise, would I rather use services of a certified or a non-certified professional? The answer seems so obvious – a certified professional is (or is supposed to be) more highly qualified. This is why professional certificates were introduced in the first place.

A certificate is an officially documented guarantee of professional qualifications.

It assures, that the professionals holding the certificate acquired a level of competence necessary to provide the best and safest services. Of course I would like to use services of a certified professional! Who wouldn’t?

I know it, everyone knows it, it is all logical. So do we all follow through? No! The resistance to spending so much time preparing for what sometimes seems like just a piece of paper is there for everyone, for those who voluntarily take professional exams and those who don’t. So there must be something more to put oneself through this effort, some personal motivation, something that will keep you going when you don’t feel like it at all…

What is your motivation?

Why did I want to earn my professional certification, even though I was already working in a fast growing veterinary practice, where I was a partner from the beginning?

To me my professional certificate was my KEY TO THE WORLD..

Since I was twelve  years old, I wanted to become a veterinary surgeon, but I also had another dream. I wanted to be location independent. Independence of location meant being able to pursue my professional career any place in the world. I desperately wanted to combine veterinary medicine with mobility worldwide, and the only way of doing it, was obtaining qualifications which were recognized all over the world.

What does that mean for a veterinary surgeon from Poland? Usually having to repeat all the university finals, if you want to work outside of Europe in a setting other than academic research. I couldn’t allow myself to repeat my studies, but I was planning to specialize, and I chose to specialize on an international level, decided for pathology and sought accredited residency centers, none of which was located in my country, so I went to Germany.

Later, during my efforts to enroll in the residency program, I remember driving with a friend who was about to start her preparation for the exam. She already completed her three year long residency program, and was eligible for the exam. She was telling me about her plans for studying and how challenging it would be, and I was jealous…Jealous, that she was ready to face the challenge I so much wanted to prepare for.

At that time, I was still uncertain if I will be admitted to the program and I wished so much to be in her place. It all turned out well and I got to where she was. I had to struggle with my own exam preparation, but it paid off and now I have the qualifications confirmed by an internationally recognized certificate which will help me achieve my goals.

Regardless whether I continue where I am, search for other opportunities, become a freelance consultant or decide to open my own company, this certification will always be a proof of my professional competence to the outside world, and I am proud I got it.

This is my key to the world. There is still a long road ahead, even after you open the door, but now I have access to it and can start the journey, wherever I want.

What is it that keeps you going?

What doors will open for you once you are certified? What makes you go through the piles of notes and stacks of books of difficult material when you least feel like it? Let me know below!

• How often did you study hard, mastered your material during your study session, but could not recall it on the test?
• How is it possible to be fluent and know your subject almost by heart and not be able to recall it a stressful situation couple of days (weeks) later?
• Have you ever felt totally confident about a subject after reading it a couple of times but you couldn’t answer the question on the exam?
• Did you feel something was easy and intuitive while you were reading, re-reading, making notes and highlighting it, but writing an essay on this subject didn’t work out that well?

If you recognized any of the above situations, keep reading!

Read more

As studying intensely while working full time is challenging, and may cause a temporary decrease in your work performance, you very much need your boss to advocate for your examination within the company.

Exclude conflict of interest

If there is a conflict of interest, meaning your boss does not recognize any value and is against you taking the exam, there is probably no point in trying to convince him/her. In that case you usually have two choices: either you try to take the exam anyway and keep it as a secret, or you don’t take it while working and consider taking time off or switching to another job, depending how important the exam is for you and your future development. Read more

If you are thinking of or currently preparing for an exam, you are probably not interested in my exam and my experiences so thoroughly described in the previous post. You have YOUR OWN EXAM to pass. To start immediately with structure and plan which you can follow until the exam day  I described the following nine steps for you to follow in order to succeed:

Step #1: Prepare the list of subjects to cover for the exam

You need to write down all the subjects you have to cover for the exam and estimate how much time it will take you to cover each one of them. Once you have an idea, write down the exact dates, by which the particular subject/ chapter should be learned. Once you have that in written form, attribute to each subject the references/ documents/ books you will need to read, to master the subject eg. particular chapters in the book of your choice, private notes, other files, with the exact number of pages you have to read. Having prepared that, you should know how much time it will take you to get through the entire material. Read more

I am a lifelong learner.

After my ACVP exam (board certification for the American College of Veterinary Pathologists) I was so relieved – regardless of what the outcome would be – because finally I could take a break from constant learning!

I didn’t want to spend every free moment revising and reviewing flash cards.

I was happy not to dial in and plan my day around skype calls with my study partners twice a day (due to time differences, I would have to dial in at 7.00 AM for my first call). I was fed up with getting stressed over every additional hour that I had to spend at work, because it meant less studying for that day, and a lower probability of passing the exam. I was under constant tension between work obligations and studying. Continue reading “Let’s start studying!”