Keep going, keep growing - ABG and Me By K Mary Archana, XIMB

 How you overcome challenges to achieve your ambitions in life so far?

This is the story of a girl named K Mary Archana. Ever since she was young her parents instilled in her the importance of education in life. She saw her parents work hard all day just to give her the best possible education, one, that sadly they never had the privilege of receiving. Seeing this she was even more determined to repay them not monetarily but by giving them what they truly desired for her, to get good grades and do well in school. Slowly, she also started daydreaming of wearing fancy suits to work, addressing a group full of strangers, leading and managing them. To turn her dream into reality, she started concentrating more on her studies and was pretty decent in her academics. The only problem was that she would always score fewer marks in English. She knew that if she ever wanted to become a CEO, she needed to have exceptional communication skills, especially in English. So what did she do? She started asking people for help. Everyone gave their views. She considered their suggestions and altered them to suit her interests. She started by reading novels, nothing too voluminous but simple novels from genres like paranormal, fantasy, and even romance. Because she knew she liked these genres, and that would compel her to start reading novels. And it did. Initially, she used to write every word that she didn’t know, find the meaning, and constantly memorize the cumulative list of words. She also started watching English shows and movies, first with subtitles and gradually she didn’t need them. Soon enough her grades started improving, she wrote better essays and was even appreciated by her teachers. She realized that not only had she improved her English, but she genuinely enjoyed the process of penning down her thoughts. But just as she was discovering her passion for writing, she had joined her Intermediate college. It was a whole other universe, where people hardly communicated in English preferring their mother tongue and those days she had to study for almost 17 hours a day. So, there was hardly any scope for her to write essays or even talk in English. Afraid that she would lose all the communication skills which she had worked so hard for, she forced herself to continue speaking in English even though no one else in her college did. She even encouraged her other friends to cultivate the habit of speaking in English. She didn’t want to let go of her habit of reading, but she also didn’t have time to read them, so she started listening to audiobooks. She listened to them while studying, traveling, and any other time she could think of.  After intermediate, she took up engineering. Now that she had a little more time on her hands, she wanted to rediscover her passion for writing. So, she started applying for essay competitions online and eventually, her hard work paid off, and she won the 5th prize in a national essay writing competition. She also completed English certification courses from Cambridge University. For a short while, she even wrote for a student newspaper. Her journey continues here in XIMB as she enhances her communication skills to hopefully become a CEO one day.

Well, this is my story. The biggest obstacle that I could see in my path of becoming a CEO was my lack of communication skills. So what did I do? I decided to overcome my limitations. I grit my teeth together, worked hard and through sheer determination overcame it and realized that hard work is the key to overcoming challenges. Overcoming my challenges was neither an easy nor a short process (In fact I believe it is still ongoing). I was stubborn about not letting my challenges inhibit me. I did not see the results of my hard work instantly, but that didn’t deter me. I patiently waited, knowing that as long as I relentlessly work at it and did not give up, the ultimate victory would be mine. I also realized that after every challenge I faced, it made me better in some way, not only had my English improved, but my entire perspective had changed and broadened. I had become more confident. Sometimes just overcoming your challenges, not only solves your problems but brings additional benefits that you might not realize yet. Even if that doesn’t happen, it would be a hell of an experience, and a story to tell for sure. After all, isn’t life made of such experiences?

#XIMB #ABGLP_WOO_ME