It’s just been a few weeks that the State Public Service Commission conducted the much-awaited WBCS examination. Civil Services in India finds its roots in Charter Act 1853, with Satyendranath Tagore being the first civil servant of our country. This exam is often labeled to be an exam testing resilience, patience, strategy, and calmness of both mind and body along with hard work. This exam is often blatantly labeled to be “so god damn tough” that young minds fear risking a year of preparation and even if they do the negative comments from surroundings dampen the spirit.

Today’s article on civil services preparation is from a clinical psychologist’s viewpoint and not from an aspirant or a motivational speaker who is trying to induce positivity towards attempting this exam.

Once a candidate or an aspirant has decided that she/he will prepare for such a competitive exam what often acts as a hindrance is a lack of motivation because the procedure is very time-consuming. Well, any procedure involving studies is time-consuming and perhaps emotionally draining cause of the uncertainty that lies- whether one will clear the exam or not and also with the desired rank or job post! Civil Services or any other competitive exam requires most importantly “Motivation Regulation”.

Given below are components of Motivation Regulation. If we aren’t aware of the components our mind is gradually processing, we will not be able to re-direct ourselves towards reaching the goal.

Research highlights that those who are internally or intrinsically more motivated, are better able to set both short-term and long-term goals, better analyze their progress and monitor their behavior thus enjoying the process of growth and achieving the desired goal.

By internally motivated I mean-

• appearing for an exam because of some personal passion or desire
• not believing every hearsay, especially the negative feedbacks
• believing in oneself that he/she is capable enough to achieve the goal
• having a “won’t quit or will not give up” attitude
• balancing expectation with reality
• being consistent or persistent with a dash of discipline in the everyday schedule

If you can identify a few more intrinsic motivational factors add them to the list and repeat it yourself to get a better closure.

A few motivational regulation strategies [following those proposed by Schwinger et al. (2009)]-

• Modify learning tasks to be a little more interesting like if you are studying the 1857 war of Independence, try to imagine Rani Lakshmi Bai and Hugh Rose battling in Jhansi.
• Along with this, build a personal connection or relation to the study material like watching more videos related to the study context and developing more interest.
• Engage in an imaginary talk at times: as if you are teaching yourself or teaching an imaginary group of students and then analyze yourself.
• Master performance-approach self-talk: where you are talking to yourself about your progress with each mock test, be it a linear growth or negative sometimes.
• Avoid negative assessment of your performance, even Dhoni and Tendulkar did not score a century in all their matches.
• Set small rewards after achieving the short-term goals like watching a movie perhaps after weeks of studying.
• Also, break learning goals into smaller immediate goals which become easily achievable (technically calling it proximal goal setting), like breaking the economics chapter of Five-Year Plan into three halves: one part understanding the kinds of planning in our economy; secondly learning the 5YP in a list or chart where the Years are mentioned and the Model name / Commission involved is mentioned; thirdly going to the inside story and highlighting the essential factors/ points. See if you follow this, you will not just have comprehensive learning but will feel more accomplished too.
• Minimize external or environmental disturbances.

– By Priyanka Paul, Clinical Psychologist