Category: Articleship

  • How to manage time – A CA Student’s Handbook

    How to manage time – A CA Student’s Handbook

    Here is the question every CA student can associate himself with – “How will I manage CA studies, office, college, CA classes together?”

    Quite a justified query. Articleship is no facile task.

    You have to “manage” (allow me to explore this word later) your office work, clients, colleagues, CA classes, studies, friends, social media, college et cetera altogether.

    Whoa. Seems like a mountain to climb!

    I don’t think so.

    Quite frankly, as an Article, I didn’t realize that I managed so many things until I was writing this blog. On the other hand, social media is full of memes and other content reflecting that life as an article is nothing but retribution.

    As candidly I may put it, it is no punishment. Nah. Articleship is just a hard teacher. It makes you go through life-changing experiences and then says “Manage to survive or you won’t manage to survive”.

    The principle of life is that every problem has a solution. Even the most daring goals can be achieved if you have the determination to do it.

    If you really want to come out from articleship into CA as a polished professional, you cannot keep cribbing about life.

    As the saying goes, there is no need to do different things to be successful, you just need to do things differently.

    And this is what Articleship teaches you. Management.

    I won’t take you back to our textbooks by defining management in the words of George Terry. Instead, let us look at management from the view of an Article.

    Difficult to manage time for learning and maintaining contacts together? Network with people and engage primarily into technical conversations with them (don’t forget that you have the license to learn – You are an Article). This will ensure that your contact list keeps growing, but not at the cost of your learning curve.

    Difficult to manage graduation studies and CA Final together? Most of college graduation studies form the preface of what we study at CA Final. So next time you think you are ‘forced’ to study B.Com., just read one chapter in the book assuming it as a prologue and move on to read the CA Final portion as well to get in-depth knowledge on the topic. Meets the purpose?

    The situation is different for each of us. But then, the dictum remains the same – “Manage to survive”.

    Don’t waste the best years of your life going with the flow of the crowd.

    You have to find out ways to make things work. And all of this can only be brought about by keeping your head down and working hard.

    This is why our profession invokes high respect from the society. Apart from the tough academic content in our course, the structure is such that hardwork and sincerity is imbibed in every individual who has fully undergone the course.

    To sum it up, articleship is not a cakewalk. Not at all. It is your perspective that matters the most.

    Thank you for reading!

  • How to ‘boost’ your confidence – the simplest guide

    How to ‘boost’ your confidence – the simplest guide

    man sitting facing monitor

    A question I get asked quite a few times – how do you boost your confidence?

    Having been a national-level public speaker, I can share a bit about my experience with gaining confidence to address thousands of humans at once.

    First things first, confidence is intrinsic. It is within you.

    Others may give you motivation and assurances, but confidence essentially comes from within. Not from your Dad. Not from your better half. But from within.

    The beautiful corollary is that confidence cannot be shattered by external forces too.

    Read that again.

    We have heard so many people say that their confidence got shattered by “not landing that dream job” or “failing that exam” etc. But that is an incorrect analysis. Confidence is entirely an emotion inside you.

    With that clarity, we come to the question – How to boost confidence?

    The answer is simple and plain (so simple that most people will ignore this).

    Practice.

    Practice!

    Practice!!!

    When I gave my first speech at a national level, it was to a crowd of 2000 CA Students. Mind you, CA students have boring lives already. They don’t take shit from public speakers.

    I remember I had prepared the entire speech well.

    But my legs were still shaking.

    I did manage to deliver the speech well because I had felt confident beforehand.

    Next speech was in Kolkata. I realised my legs weren’t shaking anymore.

    When I stepped off, I wasn’t sweating profusely like last time.

    It got better.

    By the 6th time, I was extremely comfortable on stage addressing a crowd of 3000+ students.

    By the 7th time, I was effortlessly controlling the atmosphere in the podium.

    That is the simple key to boosting confidence – PRACTICE.

    You are scared of that upcoming exam? Take a mock test.

    Scared of that job interview tomorrow? Practice in the mirror.

    Scared of talking with unknown CXO level people? Practice with strangers in your building.

    Scared of anything? Practice!

    Thanks for reading.

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