GMAT Mantra

#mastergmat with GMAT Mantra

What exercise is to the body, meditation is to mind

Rakesh has been preparing for GMAT for last two months but he was not able to find time to study. He tried to study at different time slots but he was not able to do so consistently. When ever he start studying, he was not able to focus because other things were going on in his head. Rakesh came up with a brilliant idea last week. He wanted to study when his mind is completely free and he has maximum energy. He started studying the moment he wakes up. He kept his laptop and study material next to his bed and the moment he waked up he started studying. He did not get out of bed. He studied for 45 mins and then got out of his bed. He did that for one week consistently. His productivity at work was also better. Through out the day he has a sense of achievement which kept him focused on whatever he did. Do the most important thing first in the morning to get a feeling of achievement and this feeling will let you focus on everything you do in the day #gmat #gmatmantra #gmatprep

Ajay has joined a top GMAT coaching institute 3 months back, his classes are over, but he does not see any improvement in his confidence level and accuracy he gets in the questions. I asked him how he practice questions. Out of 10 questions that he practices, he gets 4-5 questions right. For wrong questions, he seeks explanation from other sources. He never solves wrong questions himself. He believes that it is better to invest time in doing more questions rather than investing time in solving wrong questions. I asked him to practice less questions and invest at least 30 minutes on each question that he got wrong. If we spent time on wrong questions, we build up resistance against our urge to give up on question quickly. This resistance builds up patience and patience will improve accuracy and confidence builds up from consistent results #gmat #gmatmantra #gmatfocus

Very rarely I come across students who are genuinely interested in learning GMAT quant and verbal. I could see a sense of curiosity that we see in a child about learning a new skill. Such students are not bothered about the score they get on GMAT. For them learning is fun. They are never in a rush to get over with the syllabus. As a teacher, I love working with such students. Even if such students fail to get their target score in first attempt, they start working again on GMAT with the same enthusiasm as they had in first attempt. Probability of such student getting their target score in second attempt is very high Majority of other students are only interested in getting score quickly. I see a sense of impatience. I rarely see them having fun while learning. Students focused on score fail to get their target score. Even when they attempt GMAT for multiple times, they fail to score high. #gmat #gmatmantra #gmatprep #gmatfocus

A student called up yesterday Student: I want to score around 650 on GMAT Me: Why are you not targeting 720+ on GMAT. Student: I cannot afford fees of top B-schools Me: But most top B-schools provide scholarships Student: I will not get the scholarship because my profile is not good enough Me: Let B-schools admission committee decide that. Sometimes our self image is so weak that we don't believe that we deserve the best. The best way to improve self image is to try for the best without letting the results affect your actions. #gmat #gmatmantra #gmatprep #gmatfocus

One of my students did not complete his homework. He told me that while doing homework, he faced a lot of difficulty in solving questions. He attempted 40% questions and left others unattempted. He told me that he studied for 2 hours but once he could not solve questions further, he stopped studying. He had two day to complete homework but he just studied for two hours. This reminded me of a common human behavior. When ever we face some difficult situation, either we leave that situation or we fight to overcome the difficult situation. Those who fight will succeed in achieving their goals and those who leave, rarely achieve their goals. When we leave something in between, we think that we are doing this only in this case but actually its a habit. Habit of quitting in difficult situations. This habit of quitting will reduce our self esteem. The best way out is to tell yourself that does not matter what happens but I will not give up on anything that I start till I achieve the results I desire. The persistence to follow through gives a big boost to our self image and mostly our satisfaction level is dependent on our self esteem. #gmat #gmatmantra #gmatfocus #gmatprep

Do you feel confused in the morning About what to study during the day And When to study Along with teaching, I have to work on marketing, content, exercise, spending time with family, what to eat, and so many things With so many things on the plate, it becomes difficult to concentrate on one thing for an extended period of time. I had this assumption that I can work on anything at any time during the day And I use to fail miserably. I use to do the most difficult task at night when I will be free And I rarely follow up on the plan. I never thought that I need will power to focus and patience to do a difficult task. And I never thought that my will power and patience are minimum at night. And when I fail to follow through on my plan, there use to be a self doubt and guilt next day. For last few months I realised the importance of will power and patience to do a difficult task. The most important aspect to learn anything new is the ability to handle failure. And to handle failure I need energy. Then I simply changed my entire thought pattern. I started scheduling the most difficult task around 10 am. I have maximum energy at 10 am. I have time block of 1.5 hours, where I lock myself in the room and work on the task. This habit of allotting 1.5 hours 5 days a week helped me achieve more than in one month than I achieved in one year When you plan to study for GMAT, don't tell yourself that I will study all day long or When ever I feel like. First figure out a time slot of 1 to 1.5 hours for 5 days where you have the best energy level and invest that 1.5 hour to study for GMAT. And don't think about GMAT beyond that time. Don't plan to study for GMAT all 7 days. Our mind needs a temporary break from the routine to stay consistent. This may look easy but focusing for one hour on one thing will give you an output that you cannot get in 5 hours invested with low energy. #gmat #gmatmantra #gmatfocus #gmatprep

To prepare for GMAT is same as preparing for any other skill. To train for something, the first habit we need to master is the ability to allocate a 2 hours time block and the ability to work on that particular skill for 2 hours without getting distracted. When we want to learn any new skill, there will be lot of uncertainty and a lot of failures that will create a lot of self doubt. To fight with with that self doubt, we need to cultivate a habit of locking ourselves in a room and to force ourselves to take action towards the thing in which we are failing. Here the biggest problem is overthinking. When we fail in something, we doubt our capability to achieve success. In self doubt, we spend maximum time inside our head. Though we spend hours in the room alone, we spend maximum time in thinking, or reading some articles or listening to some videos. We spend time in motivating ourselves. But by the time we feel motivated, our mind gets tired and we don't feel like studying. And when we don't feel like studying, we tell ourselves that I will wake up in the morning and study and we fail to wake up early because we don't have a habit of waking up early. Maximum time of most students goes into this vicious cycle of motivation and demotivation. If we can break this habit of motivation and demotivation, we can easily get over with GMAT in 3-4 months and we can easily score 700+. And the overall journey of preparing for GMAT will be enjoyable. But if we fail to break this habit of overthinking, we will suffer throughout our preparation and sometimes this suffering can last for few years. And even after spending 2-3 years in the preparation, we don't get our target score. Become Action Biased. #gmat #gmatmantra #gmatprep #gmatfocus

In GMAT prep, study what is required. #gmat #gmatmantra #gmatfocus #gmatprep