Don’t Worry – Be Happy, But Stay Hungry!

WARNING! Not a technical post! More a motivational note for myself

Just a post to update you all on what the heck I’m doing! There are so many great things I should be posting here, but boy it’s so hard to find the time to do it!

So how have you all been? I hope doing well and achieving your dreams and goals as planned for 2011. I’ve been on the slow and steady, but I’m still on the path.

I took the SWITCH exam this past September (2011) and I failed. I failed because I didn’t prepare properly, got nervous as always and kept my eye on that silly clock in the top right corner! The exam wasn’t difficult, but the format of the questions and answers got me in the end. I forgot where I read this, but someone said that the Boson ExSim helped them “read” the questions in a particular way that helped largely when they took the exam. I think that sums it up well! The real honest mistake I made was being fooled by the different questions on the exam, the slightly different format, my nervous nelly self and boom! FAIL!

I’m not angry or disappointed at all. The lack of consistent study, labbing and commitment are coming at a very worthy price though. The price of being busy doing something I love every day, and that’s my job. What I do today will help me fulfill my long-term goal tomorrow. I’m learning and working with infrastructure that will help me with my CCIP and CCIE. So yea you can use the 1 step back, 5 steps forward concept here

I’ve mentioned it before and I’ll say it again – we must be happy with our jobs. We come and go from it each day. If we hate our jobs, we’ll more than likely be very disappointed with everything else that goes on around us. I’m happy for now and for this reason – I’m OK with prolonging the certification process. This does not change my personal agenda and goals that must be reached! The key though is to remain hungry and don’t ever become too comfy or naive with the job and the real-world. Love my job, but never foolish enough to put everything on it – always have a plan B. Educate yourselves, stay fresh in studies, technology, etc. In case something goes wrong you’re ready to recover from it.

I’ve been studying since my last post at a very slow pace and I don’t plan on stopping until I pass! I hope to meet at least one of my goals for this year and get this SWITCH out of the way. It seems to be my weakest area and it’s also the area I work least with in-depth. I do feel like I’m going to plow right through TSHOOT!

Where to from here? Onward! of course! I still listen to podcasts daily, read articles and blog posts from some of the coolest and most intelligent networkers publishing their bits on the internet (thank you!). I’m thinking I may take another shot at the SWITCH exam in December – let’s see how that goes.

Until the next time – take care!

Cheers!

LBSources