CCNP/SELF STUDY Motivation

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone could share any study motivation tips.

Ive started studying for the CCNP route exam but am finding it difficult to manage around work.

I find that after a couple of weeks into a study schedule I get burnt out by tge distractions/stress from work.

When I was studying for the CCNA i had the same problem, took over a year of on and off studying to attain that.

Im trying not to go through the same c*r@p this time, thr CCNP is much harder and requires alot more effort and dedication.

Im trying to work around a full time job, planning 2 hours on weekdays and 4 hours on the weekends.

Any tips or suggestions that can help me reach my CCNP goal?

...or am i justing being a baby?

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Comments

EANx

Is it motivation or discipline? You have where you are currently and you have a goal. Ideally, you'll get something for achieving that goal so effort = achievement. But then you have the economic concept of "opportunity cost", where every opportunity has a cost and with our limited resources (time, money, etc.) we have to make choices. So the opportunity cost of studying to achieve the goal is that you can't do something else with that time.

It sounds like you're not convinced the achievement for reaching the goal is worth the time spent studying. That's fair if that's the case but make sure it is the case. A 10k raise over the course of your career is certainly worth self-study for six months but if there's no benefit, I can see motivation flag. What will you get once you have the CCNP that you don't have now?

HappyBearIT

What worked for me was taking the exam blueprint and pasting it inside of excel. For each topic, I had a column for book, video, and lab. Once I turn all three columns green for a topic, I marked the topic green. ON the days I didn't fell like doing anything, I considered starting a topic as the ability to turn it yellow. I worked that spreedsheet at my own pace until it was all green, then I did the Boson pretest, and scheduled my exam.

Spiegel

HappyBearIT wrote: »

What worked for me was taking the exam blueprint and pasting it inside of excel. For each topic, I had a column for book, video, and lab. Once I turn all three columns green for a topic, I marked the topic green. ON the days I didn't fell like doing anything, I considered starting a topic as the ability to turn it yellow. I worked that spreedsheet at my own pace until it was all green, then I did the Boson pretest, and scheduled my exam.

That actually sounds pretty cool. Would you mind sharing a template?

thomas_

I’m studying for ROUTE right now as well. Kind of along the same lines as what EANx posted, I like to imagine that I will get a new job that pays 20-30k more once I’m CCNP certified and/or get a job that I like better than my current one. Of course, I realize that the above scenario may or may not happen, but it does help me stay motivated and keep opening the books each night. I try to shoot for one hour of study on the weeknights and 2 hours each day on the weekends. I don’t always reach those targets, but studying a little each day, even 5 minutes, helps me to study consistently.