Have you ever had a big dream? Did you pursue it or let it go because of the circumstances you were in? Do you want to know how one can dream big and with the power and motivation to dream big could actually change their life?

Many of the toppers we know overcame failure in some form and with the help of a never-give-up attitude.

The journey is always from failure to success, starting from a point where you are down eating the dirt to flying high with the wings of success.

This is a short story of Dr. Kumari Ritu, NEET PG 2020 AIR 94, PGIMER 2019 Rank 102 who tells us how life threw stones at her, and how she converted all of them into milestones. She helps us understand how we allow our fears to stop us from achieving all that we want from our lives.

A Rocky Start

Dr. Ritu did her MBBS from Bangalore Medical College. Even though her preparation in 2nd year by joining a pre-foundation course, she admits that she was not serious about her preparation back then.

“I was going to classes and taking down the notes. But I didn’t solve much MCQs. I realized this blunder later.”

She came from an internship with a strict routine and surmounting pressure of work. In the preparations that she could manage to take, she secured a rank of around 19,000 in NEET PG 2019. Initially, she felt that its quite “ok” but she realized that she can do better when she came to know that her own batchmates scored a very good rank.

New Beginnings

Though it was evident that she will take a drop, she decided that she will not her drop year be a waste.

She pledged to either get selected either in a central institute or score a rank under 100 in the next NEET PG.

A fresh start. This time, she didn’t join any coaching. With a little help from her friends & roommates, she made her own customized color-coded notes.

Maintaining a Healthy Study Life Balance

Unlike others, apart from the mental work that all aspirants do, she made sure to do physical work as well. According to her, it’s of prime importance especially when you are sitting for one year. During her preparation routine, she devoted 1–2 hours on a daily basis to the gym or yoga which helped her to remain cool till the very last.

“One good thing I did is that I subscribed to Pre-PG in the month of April. Initially I used to get around 300–400 Rank in the daily tests.

But with time, I became more and more competitive. Earlier I focused to get within 200 then gradually I started focusing to get in within the 100.”

She attempted every test as if she was writing the real exam. According to her, there were two important advantages of writing daily tests.

First, the tests helped her remain updated with the most Frequently Asked Questions.

Second, they kept reminding her of the competition where even one question can change the rank drastically.

Value of Continuous Revision

Traditionally, mistakes are seen as a negative concept and are defined as lacking success. Dr. Kumari Ritu, on the other hand, tries to put this into a positive spin in her preparation. She also offers some insightful thoughts on how an efficient revision strategy can help her propel to success.

“In Pre-PG, every subject test gets repeated in around every two weeks. I was revising subjects for the tests, so I did not quite lose touch with any of the subjects.

Moreover, in revision tests of Pre-PG, whatever questions we do wrong we have to face them again in daily tests. So, we are kind of accustomed to those questions because of the regular and repeated revision.

I realized how important this was for me when I compared myself with my friends, who were not into such a pattern of revision.”

The value of her strategy shows up on her PrepDNA improvement.

Try Again. Fail Again. Fail better

“Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.”

-Richard Branson

Dr. Kumari Ritu had her intention focused on AIIMS PG. She had completed her first phase of revision by the end of August, second by the end of October, and the third one just before AIIMS.

However, things did not go according to her plan and even after dropping the year and studying hard, she got a rank of around 3,500.

She was quite depressed about it for a week but eventually managed to get herself back on the track and had started focusing on her PGI exams. Her PGIMER rank was 102. Good but not good enough to get her in the branch that she wanted.

The Final Battle/ Polishing the Weapons

Dr. Ritu decided to make some modifications to her strategy for NEET PG 2020 because of her AIIMS PG rank. This time, she started doing more MCQs focusing more on high yield and recent ones that she was solving from Pre-PG.

In the last 20 days, prior to the actual NEET PG exam when almost every other aspirant loses their mind, Dr. Kumari Ritu made sure to keep her cool during this critical time.

She changed her study timing from 10 hours/day to 13–14 hours/day, studied with a particle strategy, focused more on eliminating her mistakes, and finally cracked the exam with an under-100 rank.

In her quest for success, Dr. Ritu credits her parents for her success who have been constantly supportive since the beginning of her education.