This past month has been a big mental health exercise for me. Last summer, I was overcoming the despair of failing an exam. After going through the 5 stages of grief, I got back up, worked harder, and practiced more to prepare for the exam. In between, I also had a period of great opportunities and successes at work. So I did the exam again and honestly felt good about it – thinking I did much better this time around. I felt this way until I got the results and found out I failed again. This was more crushing than the first time because I had put in a lot more effort this time around and was more confident. But that might have been it – maybe I was overly confident. And just not know enough.
I had to go through the 5 stages of grief all over again. I talked to my colleagues about it, ran through the scenarios with seniors. I have since dissected and deconstructed both exams and played it over in my head and see how I could make them better. I need to learn how to play the PACES game well – learn more, strategize, perform. More training. Keep going.
It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.
Most people working in healthcare have an inherent degree of resilience programmed into their system. I think I am pretty resilient – otherwise, I wouldn’t make it this far. In medicine, the quote “it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon” is embedded in our heads – from medical school until one day, we will end up saying it to our juniors. Choosing this career, I’m in it for the long run – I wake up everyday and I am still running the race. Some challenges are harder than others and I find that challenges against myself are more difficult to overcome – I can say that I don’t feel 100% better because ultimately, the only way I could really gain my confidence back is by passing the exam.
Another heartbreak and a hard decision to make as a consequence is to not run the Tokyo Marathon AND I missed the deadline for deferring my place to 2024. The next exam is the 14th of March (Tokyo is 5th of March). I had already booked 2 weeks of Annual Leave (now using it as revision time). If I was who I was 10 years ago, I would still go ahead with it, but the more boring and attempting to be sensible me tells me to sit this one out. And I don’t think I’ll fully enjoy being in Tokyo and running a race with a big PACES cloud looming over my head. I’ll try my luck again next time – I’ve signed up for the Tokyo Marathon Foundation Virtual Runs, which are good for training anyway. I have since readjusted my training plan.
So Tokyo is out (for now), London it is.
Reach for the Seven Stars 