Fear of failure is very natural, so there is nothing to be ashamed of. To help you, try answering this questions
If i fail, will my life significantly change for the worse
Will i suffer physically or financially?
Will i have the opportunity to take the exam again?
Will this failure be looked upon negatively down the line?
I failed L1 when i took it the first time, and i went on to pass all 3 exams after that. Bottom line you need to look at the heart of your anxiety and address its root cause. That is the only way
Like many things in life, the failures or successes that you think are so important to you, may not be that important to others at all.
Think about it, if you have an older brother who is taking the Microsoft Certificate whatever that is required for his IT job, and he tells you he failed his exam. What would be your reaction? “That’s too bad. Try harder next time! You can always retake it” - and that’s about it!
You wouldn’t think more into it even if it’s your brother, let alone a friend!
So, please please please everyone, not just you, don’t think about your own life is the “talk of the town” for people around you. The truth is, if you fail the exam, the world moves on, your friends and family, will not even react to it for more than 3 minutes (unless you keep crying in front of them). Don’t give yourself too much pressure on how to explain it to them.
As to how to deal with failure? you just do, because there will be more failures ahead of you, with work, with relationship, with life. You can’t really react too much on all of them because you won’t have the energy!
But luckily, it’s like a bad odor, your senses will become numb eventually and if you look around, most people fail the same exam, most people have been rejected by a job application, or somone they like… and life always moves on after.
Stress about failing is natural. CFA exams are all pretty tough and only get tougher as you progress through the program. Failing doesn’t mean you’re stupid; it means you probably didn’t put forth enough effort or the right kind of effort. On average, I believe most candidates fail at least once. Unfortunately, most people outside of the CFA world don’t understand the difficulty of the exams or the time required. People who have gone through the program themselves understand and appreciate the effort.
How to deal with failure? Think of it this way, if you fail L1 your first time, it’s a wakeup call. Either you’ll wake up and decide that the program isn’t for you and you’ll quit or you’ll decide to give it another ago and try to be better prepared. You’ll get another shot in six months or so. If you pass and didn’t really learn what you should have at L1 in terms of the required effort, etc, then you might fail at L2 or L3, in which case you’ll have to wait a full year before another chance and wait even longer for your results.
So, Greenman MAYBE could have worded his initial post differently (though I’m a proponent of tough love, so I ain’t mad at him), but it’s important to remember - Finkid came onto a forum filled with finance professionals (both aspiring and practicing) to discuss the first in a set of finance exams.
SpareTime, I certainly appreciate your position and the effort you’ve made in this thread, and while your methods of positive reinforcement in lieu of tough love may work with your students, the stark reality is this: most of finance is a cut-throat industry that will chew you up and spit you out if you expose a weakness.
Finkid hasn’t picked the best outlet if he’s someone who knows he can’t handle comments like Greenman’s. His comment was true in my experience, as the stress was significantly greater at L2. I’ll report back in June about L3.