Practice Makes Perfect A Pass
When approaching the CFP® exam there are usually two kinds of people. People who think they are going to pass the exam with flying colors, and people who think they need to study every second they are breathing. I’m here to tell you that neither of these are sustainable approaches. In the famous words of Bruce Lee, “after a long time of practicing, our work will become natural, skillful, swift, and steady.”
Being a collegiate basketball player, I approached the exam as I would if I were about to play in the biggest game of my career. I apologize in advance for all the basketball analogies coming your way. The months leading up to the exam were filled with preparation, hard work, sacrifice, and belief. The first step was preparation. Before a collegiate game, you and your teammates have to watch film on the other team, focus on your weaknesses to try and improve, and come up with a game plan to get that win in the score column. Similarly to the CFP® exam, there is a lot of preparation that goes into it before you get to work. You must take the time to find the right review program for you, talk to your employer about flexibility around studying, blocking off time on your calendar to make a promise to yourself as well as to let others know that you are taking the time to study, and set expectations with your loved ones that you are making a sacrifice in the short-term for long-term success.
After we’ve prepared, we move onto the hard work. In the basketball world, that means shooting free throws outside of practice, feeding your body the nutrition it needs to perform at a high level, stretching to avoid injuries, and challenging other teammates at practice to get better. The CFP® exam is the hardest test that I have ever taken. I don’t say that to scare you, but I’m telling you so that you can take it seriously and pass on the first go around. When studying for the CFP® exam, I was putting in 6 hours a day outside of work. I’d get up and go to a coffee shop for 2 hours before work, study for an hour over lunch, and go to the local library after dinner until it closed. It was HARD work. I’m not going to lie. I felt defeated at times. Others told me they were ahead of me in the books or they were understanding certain concepts better than I was. You need make sure that you zone all of the noise out and focus on YOUR journey. It is VERY hard work, but it is COMPLETELY worth it. I also want to mention that you have to make time to do the things that you enjoy. You are not going to pass if you are burnt out by the time that you sit for the exam. Make sure that you reward yourself by going to get dinner with your spouse, maintaining self-care by getting the hour massage, or not missing your kid’s soccer game.
One of the most important pieces of advice that I can give you is to believe that you will pass this test. Before a basketball game if we didn’t believe that we were going to win the game there wouldn’t be a reason for us to show up. I don’t know how many of you know women’s basketball well, but we played UCONN my freshman year of college. UCONN as a team is the holy grail of women’s basketball. They had won 4 national championships in a row. Our team had 5 new freshmen and a lot of injuries. And no, we didn’t win, but we had a belief in ourselves that said, “why not us?” Anyone on any given day can do what they work hard to achieve. No one is going to get 100% on the exam. There are questions that have a better and best answer, are being tested for future exams, and that you didn’t fully understand while studying. You have to believe that you have prepared yourself well enough to overcome those questions. People who pass the exam get a pass on the screen and not a percentage of questions that they got correct. People who prepare for sports games, just as equally want to see that win in the score column, not the number.