“Success comes from taking the initiative and following up… persisting… eloquently expressing the depth of your love. What simple action could you take today to produce a new momentum toward success in your life? ” - Anthony Robbins

I failed. Yep, you read it right. I failed, not one course, but two courses which is definitely a setback, but I digress. Of course I didn’t really mean the “you fail at life comment” literally, but I’m sure some of you can relate to this experience where you walk out of an exam (or anything else “important” in life for that matter) knowing that you failed. It’s the feeling of self-perceived complete and utter failure that overshadows all other aspects of your life bringing it to a screeching halt. (more…)

So it’s only 4 days till I write my Corporate Tax final and quite possibly my last final of my “storied” career in undergrad.  I realize that I’ve been ‘deathly afraid’ of this final because it could potentially mark the end of something that I’ve been so used to for 75% of my life… being in school.  What I’ve learned through these last 36 days up until now is that I’ve been making far too many excuses for not “manning up” and like the Nike slogan.. “Just Do It!”  No overly complicated plans with a 20 step process to success or anything of that sort.  Just simple daily reflection to keep myself in tune with what NEEDS to be done in order for me to move on to the next phase of my life… Graduation and embarking on a career in Professional Accounting.

Reading self-improvement blogs like zenhabits.net,  listening to Tony Robbins CD’s, and going through old journal entries, and most importantly having my support system of friends as well as my girlfriend talking me through it has kept me in check of not falling back into a victim/self-sabotage frame.  I’m grateful for their feedback and

I’ve recently gotten approval for my Letters of Permission to take Accounting Theory and Corporate Taxation at York University in case things don’t work out as a contingency plan, but I realize that might also be subconciously acknowledging that I will be extending my studies for at least a summer.

I’ve simplified my approach to productivity and “Getting Things Done” to just two steps:

• plan my 3 “Must Outcomes” when I wake up and ask myself my morning questions
• Stick to those must outcomes and attach a deadline for each of those.  That’s it.

Anyway, back to studying for Business Combinations… I’ll learn what I can and have fun doing so.

I’ve been putting my articles on hold for the time being so that I can fully focus on “first things first” being my studies so I can graduate and grow from being a student and transition to being an fully fledged “adult”.  Scary, but responsibilities are awaiting me and I can’t avoid it any longer, so I have to take it head on.  Furthermore, my Fitness updates are being put on hold until I’m done.  I’ll probably figure out a way to remain active while in full-throttle study mode.

My efforts in prepping for finals is still taking a backseat due to assignments coming due. I’ve been able to squeeze in a little bit of studying here and there in order to understand Joint Ventures as well as Variable Interest Entities & Segment disclosures, but it isn’t the ideal situation where I can take massive action in order to fully understand the “why” of what I’m studying and map out the relationships of what I’m learning now and connecting it with previously learned concepts in order to get a “bigger picture understanding” of the materials with respect to business combinations.

For Corporate Tax, I’m still clueless as to what the tax sections mean, due to the challenging comprehension issues posed by reading “legalese” in the Canadian Income Tax act. I’ll be looking at it more in depth than ever when the weekend swings around. As my business combinations textbook states, “while studying the trees, we must not lose sight of the forest,” which clearly reflects my situation.