I did the thing.

TLDR; 5 years, a week with an unholy amount of stress, and I finaly did the thing. If I can do it, then y'all can as well.

Myself (23)M with combined ADHD/ADD never medicated. Over the last 5 or so years I've participated in martial arts, and a year ago I managed to reach brown belt. Now this probably comes as no suprise but outside of the weekly 1 1/2 hour class I don't really do much practice. I might spend a minute runnig through a kata or two but that's it.

Now at this point it should be noted there was one other brown belt in the class, we tested at the same time and both started within a week or so of eachother. He quite obviously practices at home, and it shows. Last week was the black belt test.

Now I had more then fair warning. The date was on the calander for a year. October comes around. Do I ramp up practice? Do I push to read the material? You can all guess what the answer to that is. I spent the two days before the test in a mad frenzy of reading, practice and review. I felt like there was no way I was ready. We aced the damn thing. Oh I was nervous. More then I've ever been. But both myself and fellow testee passed with flying colours.

Despite ADHD. Despite not enough practice. I achived something most people never will. If I can do it through all the stress. You can do it. YOU can ace that exam. You can nail that interview. Even though we deal with so much every day, if you want to do it. You can. And you might fail the first time. You might fail 10 times. But you can do it. It's not the 2 days before that makes the test. It's the 5 years of dabbling and practice that prepares you. Go. Do the thing.

Submitted November 02, 2018 at 02:26AM by MossTheGnome https://ift.tt/2CXSS2t