All I can say is that, for a long time, I thought I had lost my intellectual capability. I believed that straining myself—reading for hours, doing excessive work, sleeping late, and waking up early—would fix everything. It didn’t. Instead, I ended up completely burnt out.

Accepting the fact that I was declining wasn’t easy. I hated myself, and I couldn’t understand what was happening. I tried over and over again, but I wasn’t patient enough, and deep down, I wasn’t truly willing to change. As a result, things kept spiraling downward. Eventually, I reached a point where I gave up and decided to simply see how things would go. Little did I know that in giving up, I was giving myself the chance to see things from a different perspective.

When you go to an optician, they prescribe glasses based on your eye condition. In the same way, you can’t use your friend’s prescription because your condition is most likely different. Life works the same way. Yes, you can receive advice, but if you haven’t experienced it yourself, you’ll probably doubt it and choose to go your own way. That’s why YouTube has millions of self-help videos, yet not everyone is thriving. Sometimes, experience is the best teacher—and that’s exactly what happened to me.

Through this experience, I learned that patience is key. Even if your academic performance drops, try implementing a different routine—whatever it may be—but remain patient. Systems take time to work; results are never immediate. Keep pushing.

Planning is also essential. Go through your book, look at the table of contents, identify the areas you feel weak in, and plan how you’ll work on them. Don’t start with huge chunks—start small. Yes, it may feel slow and tiring, but it’s far better than trying to stuff an entire textbook into your head at once.

Once you understand something, review it consistently—at intervals. Trust me, it helps. Most importantly, give it time. Rome wasn’t built in a day (P.S. we aren’t talking about Rome).

That’s it for this week. Have a good one.