What It Takes to Pursue Your Interests
Anyone who knows me knows how much I love organizing things. I’ve got a yearly plan for myself, and every month I take some time to reflect about how I’ve been achieving my goals and adjust accordingly. Aside from that, I’ve gotten used to the habit of creating to-do lists daily to set my direction for the day. Because of this, I ended up enjoying planning projects and events, too.
The way I see it, planning projects is just like organizing a lot of things, and organizing how those things are organized from a bigger perspective. It’s fun for me! So it made sense that I enjoyed something as technical as project management. That’s also why, after taking my minor in project management and experiencing the “real world” way of planning events, I set off to get a certification as a Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) this 2020.
The Journey
I gave myself around two months to study for the exam. If I had more time, I would have wanted to go through the actual PMBOK book (the official source used by the Project Management Institute where the certification test is based from), but I didn’t, so I resorted to enrolling in an online course instead to refresh my memory about the project management concepts. After which I put in some time to memorize as many concepts, ITTOs, and formulas as I could, before answering mock exams.
That’s really it.
I allotted 2–4 hours almost every day to finish the online course, and then I spent 1–2 hours everyday reviewing for the exam. I wish I could share that it was a smooth, easy ride, and that I enjoyed every moment of it… but I didn’t. Quite frankly, there were days I wanted to skip my study period (and quite a number of times when I ended up actually skipping them!). Learning technical concepts isn’t the most exciting thing to do, but I guess that’s what I learned throughout my journey: Pursuing something you’re passionate about or interested in won’t always feel good, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not meant for you. Whenever I experienced those slumps or down days, I dealt with them as best as I could, whether that was to rest or to still push myself to study. At the end of the day, however, I continued to study anyway. Ultimately, it’s still a commitment, and deciding to follow through even when your feelings say otherwise will make or break that commitment.
The last few days before my exam were quite memorable. It’s worth noting that, as I studied for the CAPM, I was also leading an event for my church community — it was a total of eight sessions we had to attend, five of which I had to lead together with a small team of seven. As one of the heads, that meant I had to oversee the sessions, basically prepare the script as we hosted it, understand where our attendees are and get to know them, and hold meetings to evaluate and plan our next steps. Every night, I’d be occupied with these sessions or meetings, often lasting until 12 midnight or 1 in the morning.
The Friday before my Saturday morning exam at 5:45 AM, it just so happened that it was also the last day of my church event, and it was a three-hour closing event. I found out also that there was another international prayer meeting that was apparently happening from 10 pm until 12 midnight as well, and I practically spent the day before my exam praying and basically not studying. At that point, I was averaging 61% to 66% in my mock exams, and I was reading all about how the safest benchmark to assume you’d pass the exam is to score around 80%. Add that also to how, if you literally tested me about the project management terms or gave me some tricky formula-related question, I’d struggle to give an answer right away. To put it simply, I still felt unprepared. It was so apparent that time was running out, and at that point, I knew it would be pointless to pressure my brain into retaining new information. Talk about stressful!
And so, I spent that Friday attending those two church events, quite honestly focusing less on the topic but more on how I would probably fail and retake the test. By the end of the international prayer meeting at midnight, I’ve come to terms that, in the end, I’ve done all I could given the time I had. If I failed, then I would just retake it the following month. I would deal with my sad emotions for a few days, and make plans to study again the next month. But tomorrow, I’d just do my best and see where it takes me. I spent the next hour skimming through my notes for a final review, and set my alarm for 5 AM the next day.
Exam Day
I woke up at 5:30 AM (surprise), quite hastily did my morning routine, and walked straight to my laptop wearing the first decent-looking shirt I saw in my closet. Since it was an online exam, I spent the first 15 minutes calming myself while doing some of the verification tasks like taking pictures of my room, showing proof of my driver’s license, and opening my webcam. Long story short, I finished in around two hours, and felt like I guessed quite a good number of the test items. I didn’t dwell on the questions I knew I wasn’t going to know how to answer anyway, and tried my best to remember the terms I studied for the past few months. I relied a lot on my gut and test-taking skills (pretty much the process of elimination and common sense), did one round of review, and submitted my results.
The whole day, I felt… okay. I knew I wasn’t going to perfect that exam, I knew I had such a good chance of failing it given my mock exam results, but I also knew I did the best that I could, so I felt at peace. As the hours went by, I began to accept the fact that the worst that could happen is that I’d get a rejection email, and then I’d have to retake it. My initial fear of being judged by people if they find out that I failed was quickly replaced by a more positive thought that told me that, at least retaking it would give me more things to do and keep me busy for the next few weeks. And I managed to reason out that failing this test would be fine, considering how I had my church event take up most of my time to study anyway.
Fast forward to the end of the day, and I remember clearly that as I stayed in my room and scrolled mindlessly through Facebook on my phone, I received an email notification from the Project Management Institute (PMI) congratulating me for passing the exam. I read the email twice to make sure it wasn’t sent to the wrong person (yup — it had my name there, so it was addressed to me). Upon checking the results and the breakdown of my score, I also found out that I not only passed, but I also scored “Above Target” on 12 out of 13 areas. What a surprise!
Lessons Learned
And so, as I look back at my rather quick journey, here are some things I learned which I feel can apply beyond project management test-taking:
Focus only on what you can control
I knew that the most I could control for the exam was how well I prepared for it, and how confident I felt before taking it. So that’s what I did — even if I only had an hour a day to study, I stuck to it. Not only that, but I also looked for ways to be a smarter test taker; I may not be able to control the exam questions, but I could learn how to answer questions smarter. Instead of dwelling on how unprepared I felt the day before, or how the chances of me passing were very slim judging by my mock exam results, I refused to focus on that and paid attention instead to the fact that I did the most that I could given my circumstances. I forced myself to remember that I still studied almost everyday, and I wasn’t coming to the test blind.
I realized that you have to put in effort to let yourself approach life in a more positive light; once your mind entertains negative emotions, you can fall into an endless spiral of fear and anxiety, blocking your mind from being able to focus. It takes hard work to train your mind to focus only on what’s within your control, but once you get the hang of it, it’s going to free your mind and make you more focused and intentional about how you deal with what happens to you.
Small steps can make a big difference in the end
Even though studying for an hour a day felt like such a tiny, insignificant task when I was preparing for the exam, looking back, that’s probably one of the smartest things I did that allowed me to pass. It certainly didn’t feel like I was making any big progress during that time, but without me noticing, those short bursts of studying piled up and allowed me to learn concepts without the time pressure and stress. Pretty soon, I noticed that I could easily answer some questions because I was familiar with some of the terms that I just kept reading and memorizing during my study sessions.
I know that some people work better cramming everything a few days before the exam date, but there’s really no need to put your body under so much stress and sleep deprivation if you start earlier and take your time. And besides, although cramming may actually let you pass the exam, it’ll just be much more challenging to retain all the concepts you memorized, because your brain will forget them as soon as the test is over.
Yes, small steps can seem very “boring” and normal, but they don’t just make a big difference. Small steps create effects that last.
Allow others to journey with you
One new thing I did when I first decided to aim for a certification was to share with some of my friends that I was studying for this exam. I usually keep to myself when it comes to these things, since I don’t want a lot of people finding out, and I don’t want to deal with the pressure of people expecting me to pass. I tried something different, though, and shared with my friends that I was going to take the exam as soon as I scheduled my test date. Admittedly, I felt very self-conscious and scared of being judged if people would find out that I failed. It felt very uncomfortable telling people about a goal that I wasn’t even sure I was going to achieve. But I continued anyway, and I learned that your victories feel much sweeter when others are there to celebrate with you.
I remember that rush of excitement I felt the moment I got that email, and all I wanted to do next was to tell all my friends about it. I mean, they listened to me as I stressed over the exam, and they encouraged and supported me until I had to take the test, and so it felt right to share my success with them.
As someone who constantly goes from one achievement to the next, I’m learning that it’s just as important to cherish the moments you accomplish with people who care about you. When I look back at this experience may years from now, I think I won’t just remember passing the certification exam, but I’ll also remember that I was blessed enough to have people to celebrate it with.
What’s Next?
After passing the exam, the certification will last for five years before I have to re-apply for certification again. I can’t really say what will happen from here on out, but I’m quite excited to see what I can do with this new knowledge, and to see how I can be of service to the many different spaces and communities I’m involved in. Maybe a few years from now, I’ll write about what I’ve been able to do as a result of my certification.
With that being said, if you’re ever considering studying for this exam as well, feel free to message me if you have other questions. My journey was also made much easier to go through with the help of people who were kind enough to share with me their own process and their own experiences. I’d love to pay it forward and do the same. Good luck!
