It's OK if You Failed

You are not Alone

I get 3-4 emails weekly from people who have failed the exam one or more times. People on post to Facebook if they pass. No one posts to Facebook if the fail. You are made to feel alone. No one talks about it. People fail and it is a big secrete. I told my wife the moment I finished the exam “I think I did OK, but I easily could have failed.” That wasn’t false modesty. That was the truth. I felt like I knew a lot of stuff on the exam, but I also felt like there was enough borderline stuff that I could have failed. You are not alone!

You are not a Failure

You failed the test. You are not a failure. Let me repeat that. You failed. You are not a failure. My favorite definition of success comes from Earl Nightingale.

Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. If a man has a goal and is moving toward it, he is a success. If he isn’t, he is a failure.

By that definition you can move from being a failure to a success in a matter of moments. Your goal is to become a practicing physician assistant or perhaps to keep practicing as a physician assistant. Don’t lose sight of that. That is a worthwhile ideal. A worthy goal. If you are moving toward it you are a success!

Please don’t forget that you made it through PA school. That was no small feat!

Confidence

This is probably the most important component of you attaining your goals. You need to have confidence. Obviously if you failed the exam your confidence is shaken. Studying will help, but there is so much more you can do to rebuild your confidence. You need to build up success and a series of wins in other areas of your life. The easiest example of this is in the area of exercise. If you failed you have 90 days before you can take the exam again. You should spend some of this time starting to run or walk or whatever. Small success in other areas of your spillover and build overall confidence.

Some other areas you can build in are relationships, financial habits, relationships or spirituality. Other things you can do to build small wins are things like make your bed everyday, get up earlier everyday, go to bed on time every day, write down three things to accomplish the following day and actually get them done no matter how small. Check out the Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. He’s got some amazing stuff and creating positive habits builds confidence.

Check out Stephen’s article at thepalife.com on confidence. It is amazing! He talks about how simply holding your body in different positions can raise testosterone and lower cortisol or just the opposite depending.

Create a Study Plan

I’ve really been beating a dead horse with this one. You Need a Study Plan! Simply creating and executing a plan will go along way to building your confidence. I can’t stress this enough. Pick a book. Pick a course. Decide how many practice tests you’re going to do. Decide how long this is going to take. Then complete that plan. It can be flexible, but start somewhere. SIgn up for the email list and get my 54 study tips. Pick 10 of them and use them!

Two Main Takeaways

1) You are not alone!

2) You can fix this!