CCIE R&S Journal: I Want To Be The Best

Hello!

I have found there are very few blogs and less journals out there about CCIE's. Until I found this site. I am looking for like minded people to help me keep my eye on the prize.

My Goal: ATTEMPT THE LAB IN 10 MONTHS

My Study Plan: I am following EXACTLY what INE is asking of me. Preparing for the lab and by proxy be prepared for the written. Study for 4 hours on weekdays and 6 hours on weekends. I plan to read the books semi-outlined by INE, in that I will read probably 2 hours a day, until I've run out of books and then I will use the rest of the time to lab. So once I run out of books I will do 4 full hours of labbing. I would like to extend this to 6 hours a weekday and 6 hours each weekend day. While I am concerned about burn out, I've been in this situation before during my full time work and full time college days, so its at least familiar to me.

My Life: I work from home currently working on all JUNIPER all day every day. I've been in the field of network security with Cisco ASA for 2-3 years and have been in the R&S world with CISCO, specifically their newer command line platform as well as their IOS XE/XR type stuff. Working on Nexus for about 1-2 years. I currently work in my new job on all JUNIPER gear which makes studying a little more annoying, but nonetheless not horrible. Since I work from home I can study before and after my shift fairly quickly and easily.

Concerns: One of the main things I've noticed from stories is that the CCIE becomes longer then you expect, not due to your lack of wanting to study, but due to life stepping in the way. I am hoping that I can do my first attempt in 10 months confidently. I am also concerned if I am attacking this the right way, 4 hours a day, is that too little? Is that too much? Is 6 hours too much? I guess everyone is different.

Current Status: I am currently at the STP marker on the INE track. Doing Lab's in VIRL I've noticed unfortunate inconsistencies with how port-channels and STP works on that software so I may do rack rentals going forward.

Are there any tips? I will be updating daily (including today) to keep me honest with my goals. Is my goal of 10 months insane? Is it possible? I've seen some who've taken years on it, but I believe that is more due to life getting in the way and more important stuff to do then study hours a day on a cert.

Find more posts tagged with

Save $250 on 2025 certification boot camps from Infosec!

Book now with code EOY2025

Button

Comments

Iristheangel

You're kicking butt and taking names, Bardle!

Bardlebee

Iristheangel wrote: »

You're kicking butt and taking names, Bardle!

Labbing everyday I too will be a super saiyan CCIE

Danielh22185

Bardlebee wrote: »

Lol that's what I hear but honestly I'm not too worried. I work from home so I have time to study. I'll be able to fit it in here and there.

I thought the same things... and here I am still finishing NP

. Not to say you can't still study in your situation but it hit me harder than I was expecting. Grind out as much as you possibly can in the now because your time will be extremely precious and rare once that kiddo is there. In hind sight it's only temporary. Once they become more independent around 12-16 months of age you get your sleep back and most importantly time. I still have some difficulties studying even with my daughter now at 20 months old. I basically cannot go study until she is down for bed which causes me to generally stay up quite late but I guess that is all a part of it.

Not trying to scare ya or anything...

Good luck to ya! I'll keep an eye out for your progress.

Bardlebee

Danielh22185 wrote: »

I thought the same things... and here I am still finishing NP . Not to say you can't still study in your situation but it hit me harder than I was expecting. Grind out as much as you possibly can in the now because your time will be extremely precious and rare once that kiddo is there. In hind sight it's only temporary. Once they become more independent around 12-16 months of age you get your sleep back and most importantly time. I still have some difficulties studying even with my daughter now at 20 months old. I basically cannot go study until she is down for bed which causes me to generally stay up quite late but I guess that is all a part of it.

Not trying to scare ya or anything...

Good luck to ya! I'll keep an eye out for your progress.

Haha, you're not alone in people telling me about the same thing. Though I've heard legend of men/women overcoming the odds of children and getting their CCIE with a new born. It's possible, I have to believe it is. Because honestly I might as well quit now if its not. There is simply not enough time to get my CCIE in 4 months, that is impossible. So I have to hope the impossible hope.

I'll definitely use the time I have, but I'm going to hope I can squeeze in time after as well.

Danielh22185

Bardlebee wrote: »

Haha, you're not alone in people telling me about the same thing. Though I've heard legend of men/women overcoming the odds of children and getting their CCIE with a new born. It's possible, I have to believe it is. Because honestly I might as well quit now if its not. There is simply not enough time to get my CCIE in 4 months, that is impossible. So I have to hope the impossible hope.

I'll definitely use the time I have, but I'm going to hope I can squeeze in time after as well.

Oh I'm sure there are cases of people getting that done and I hope I didn't convey it as impossible; I was simply trying to share my personal experience with newborn / study efforts. It all depends on the individuals involved, their current situation, the needs of the new born, etc. I only was trying to speak from my personal experience. At the time I just got my Route test passed and was taking on Switch studies but was nowhere near ready and only a month or two later my daughter was born. I'll admit I let that develop as an excuse to drop off from studying. I also was nowhere near the position you are with being involved with final prep for IE, so I let that factor allow me to digress my studies further. There were multiple times though I tried to pick back up studies but again found myself unmotivated. I simply didn't make the time which I guess is somewhat of a normal reaction to such a major life change.

Take from my experience to not do that

Time will be more sparse but it sounds to me you are in a good position either way.

Bardlebee

Danielh22185 wrote: »

Oh I'm sure there are cases of people getting that done and I hope I didn't convey it as impossible; I was simply trying to share my personal experience with newborn / study efforts. It all depends on the individuals involved, their current situation, the needs of the new born, etc. I only was trying to speak from my personal experience. At the time I just got my Route test passed and was taking on Switch studies but was nowhere near ready and only a month or two later my daughter was born. I'll admit I let that develop as an excuse to drop off from studying. I also was nowhere near the position you are with being involved with final prep for IE, so I let that factor allow me to digress my studies further. There were multiple times though I tried to pick back up studies but again found myself unmotivated. I simply didn't make the time which I guess is somewhat of a normal reaction to such a major life change.

Take from my experience to not do that Time will be more sparse but it sounds to me you are in a good position either way.

Yes sir, took no offense.

Its good to hear experiences. Like I said you're not the first/last person to tell me what you did. Something I have to take in and really think about. I don't blame you man for not having time and losing motivation, that is a real struggle and it'll be something I'll struggle with.

But I'm no where close to the IE I feel like. I mean, maybe I can pull off a close attempt in May if I am super lucky. But I think in general it'll take me 3-5 attempts to pass, so that'll put me in Q3 this year earliest. So, hoping against hope here. You didn't get me down, its good to have that information

Nothing will stop my dreams, my daughter comes first for sure, but I'll get this done one way or another...

Or... you know she could be born and I could realize there is something more to life then my career and say screw it I already get paid well. :P

Bardlebee

DAY 138

REVIEW NEEDED AFTER TODAY AND PAST DAY:
-Lab ERSPAN
-Variance and Unequal Cost Load Balancing Documentation <-- Test out the traffic-shared balanced command.
- Practice aggregate routes/advertise-maps and communities - BGP
- Practice Regex AS-PATH access-lists
- Practice conditional static routing again.
- Auto-RP (Also known as "How do magnets work?")

THINGS I DID:

- Finished "second pass" labs below - 2.5 hours
Almost All Layer 2 Labs
- CCIE Strategy Discussion - 2.5 hours

Total Time 5 hours

WEAK AREAS:
- ODR - WTF is this. Need review/videos.
- Route-maps / IP SLA - Need practice/labbing
- prefix-list/wild card masks - Need practice/labbing
- Reading Comprehension of Objectives - FOCUS!
- Need more lab time on LSA lookups (recursive LSA lookup logic)
- Multicast Routing
- MPLS/VRF In General
- QoS foundations/logic shaping/policing/priority etc

QUESTIONS/CONFUSION/CONCERNS:
- None

TOTAL DAYS OF ZERO TIME STUDYING: 5

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Man, so tired. Only had 6 hours sleep the past two days. Going to sleep like a log tonight. Didn't get the time I wanted in for my labbing as I was in a cool CCIE meeting. Just another day, living the dream.

Iristheangel

LoL. I'm sure Bardlebee is appreciating that picture after our Webex last night!

Shia Labeouf: Official mascot of CCIE candidates everywhere

Bardlebee

#ABL (Always Be Labbing) will be trending soon enough!

Iristheangel

I need to trademark that before it does. Want to make sure I get my royalties :P We should just get matching #ABL shirts and pose for a group pic at Cisco Live

Iristheangel

I give you the official shirt of your CCIE, Bardle :P

Shared Design For Custom Ultra Cotton Tee Gildan

Bardlebee

DAY 139

REVIEW NEEDED AFTER TODAY AND PAST DAY:
-Lab ERSPAN
-Variance and Unequal Cost Load Balancing Documentation <-- Test out the traffic-shared balanced command.
- Practice aggregate routes/advertise-maps and communities - BGP
- Practice Regex AS-PATH access-lists
- Practice conditional static routing again.
- Auto-RP (Also known as "How do magnets work?")

THINGS I DID:

- Finished "second pass" labs below - 4 hours
All Layer 2 Labs
IP Routing Labs

Total Time 4 hours

WEAK AREAS:
- ODR - WTF is this. Need review/videos.
- Route-maps / IP SLA - Need practice/labbing
- prefix-list/wild card masks - Need practice/labbing
- Reading Comprehension of Objectives - FOCUS!
- Need more lab time on LSA lookups (recursive LSA lookup logic)
- Multicast Routing
- MPLS/VRF In General
- QoS foundations/logic shaping/policing/priority etc

QUESTIONS/CONFUSION/CONCERNS:
- None

TOTAL DAYS OF ZERO TIME STUDYING: 5

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Didn't get to 6 hours like I wanted to, dang parents interrupting me. I don't want a social life, get outta here.

Seriously though, I've switched to doing commands in notepad and its making memorization easier. So I think I am going to keep doing that.

Iristheangel

If you're open to weird hours, then it's doable. You just have to be willing to change the schedule a bit and lab a lot later. Maybe take shifts responding to the baby while the wife sleeps and stay up labbing while you do so.

Bardlebee

DAY 140

REVIEW NEEDED AFTER TODAY AND PAST DAY:
-Lab ERSPAN
-Variance and Unequal Cost Load Balancing Documentation <-- Test out the traffic-shared balanced command.
- Practice aggregate routes/advertise-maps and communities - BGP
- Practice Regex AS-PATH access-lists
- Practice conditional static routing again.
- Auto-RP (Also known as "How do magnets work?")

THINGS I DID:

- Finished "second pass" labs below - 4 hours
Rip Labs Mostly

Total Time 4 hours

WEAK AREAS:
- ODR - WTF is this. Need review/videos.
- Route-maps / IP SLA - Need practice/labbing
- prefix-list/wild card masks - Need practice/labbing
- Reading Comprehension of Objectives - FOCUS!
- Need more lab time on LSA lookups (recursive LSA lookup logic)
- Multicast Routing
- MPLS/VRF In General
- QoS foundations/logic shaping/policing/priority etc

QUESTIONS/CONFUSION/CONCERNS:
- None

TOTAL DAYS OF ZERO TIME STUDYING: 5

FINAL THOUGHTS:

I think I've gone through 60 labs the past 3 days. I'm not rushing through them mind you, but I am trying to see if I remember all the commands off the top of my head. So far in my "redo" list there are 20 labs so not half bad.

silver145

Just had a good read! nice thread you have going, keep it up.

Bardlebee

DAY 141-149

REVIEW NEEDED AFTER TODAY AND PAST DAY:
-Lab ERSPAN
-Variance and Unequal Cost Load Balancing Documentation <-- Test out the traffic-shared balanced command.
- Practice aggregate routes/advertise-maps and communities - BGP
- Practice Regex AS-PATH access-lists
- Practice conditional static routing again.
- Auto-RP (Also known as "How do magnets work?")

THINGS I DID:

- TCP/IP Illustrated reading - 1 Hour A Day / Missed 2 days / 4 hours today 2/8/2016

Total Time: 7 hours over the week / 4 hours 2/8

WEAK AREAS:
- ODR - WTF is this. Need review/videos.
- Route-maps / IP SLA - Need practice/labbing
- prefix-list/wild card masks - Need practice/labbing
- Reading Comprehension of Objectives - FOCUS!
- Need more lab time on LSA lookups (recursive LSA lookup logic)
- Multicast Routing
- MPLS/VRF In General
- QoS foundations/logic shaping/policing/priority etc

QUESTIONS/CONFUSION/CONCERNS:
- None

TOTAL DAYS OF ZERO TIME STUDYING: 7

FINAL THOUGHTS:

I went on vacation and I thought that maybe I could still lab/study over there. I was able to last vacation, but sadly this vacation kind of destroyed my forward momentum. Oh well, **** happens I guess.

Today hitting RIP hard, almost finished it then on EIGRP for labs. I am at about 25 labs I have to do over due to not getting the config right the first time. So they are in my "redo" list, which isn't too bad for the second pass, that is about 1/4 to 1/5 of the labs so far.

I lack experience in cisco command line for route and switch, plain and simple. I have 5 years of layer 2 experience, 3 in security (firewall/layer 2 etc) and 2 years in route/switch, but mainly with VLAN's etc, so corner cases like private-vlans mess me up hard. ERPSPAN and RSPAN is also a topic I never used, SPAN sessions I've done a ton of. So I am feeling the lack of syntax capability on my end, so I am hoping these passes enhance that. I use private-vlans in my current place actually but its on a different platform and actually my daily configurations at work are 95 percent on Juniper so it does affect my spin up quite a bit and the application of things I am learning. The concepts are there, its just "how do I config this" sometimes isn't and then other times I'm like "Oh I missed by one freaking command!".

EDIT: Thanks silver for the encouragement. This thread keeps me honest.

Bardlebee

DAY 150

REVIEW NEEDED AFTER TODAY AND PAST DAY:
-Lab ERSPAN
-Variance and Unequal Cost Load Balancing Documentation <-- Test out the traffic-shared balanced command.
- Practice aggregate routes/advertise-maps and communities - BGP
- Practice Regex AS-PATH access-lists
- Practice conditional static routing again.
- Auto-RP (Also known as "How do magnets work?")

THINGS I DID:

- Straight up labbin' RIP/EIGRP - 4 hours

Total Time: 4 hours

WEAK AREAS:
- ODR - WTF is this. Need review/videos.
- Route-maps / IP SLA - Need practice/labbing
- prefix-list/wild card masks - Need practice/labbing
- Reading Comprehension of Objectives - FOCUS!
- Need more lab time on LSA lookups (recursive LSA lookup logic)
- Multicast Routing
- MPLS/VRF In General
- QoS foundations/logic shaping/policing/priority etc

QUESTIONS/CONFUSION/CONCERNS:
- None

TOTAL DAYS OF ZERO TIME STUDYING: 7

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Getting back in the groove takes a bit, hoping near the end of this week its all good. I'm getting schooled pretty hard in RIP syntax, kinda sucks, but oh well. Doing well in EIGRP except for chain-key rotations, which honestly isn't an EIGRP specific thing.

Bardlebee

DAY 151: AT THE CROSSROADS

REVIEW NEEDED AFTER TODAY AND PAST DAY:
-Lab ERSPAN
-Variance and Unequal Cost Load Balancing Documentation <-- Test out the traffic-shared balanced command.
- Practice aggregate routes/advertise-maps and communities - BGP
- Practice Regex AS-PATH access-lists
- Practice conditional static routing again.
- Auto-RP (Also known as "How do magnets work?")

THINGS I DID:

- Almost done of EIGRP - 5 hours

Total Time: 5 hours

WEAK AREAS:
- ODR - WTF is this. Need review/videos.
- Route-maps / IP SLA - Need practice/labbing
- prefix-list/wild card masks - Need practice/labbing
- Reading Comprehension of Objectives - FOCUS!
- Need more lab time on LSA lookups (recursive LSA lookup logic)
- Multicast Routing
- MPLS/VRF In General
- QoS foundations/logic shaping/policing/priority etc

QUESTIONS/CONFUSION/CONCERNS:
- None

TOTAL DAYS OF ZERO TIME STUDYING: 7

FINAL THOUGHTS:

I did it. I disabled my Steam account for weekdays. Well, I asked my wife to change my password so that only she can log on.

I'm not sure if I am going to go insane again or burn out, but I am going to progressively ramp up to 6 hours a day and feel it out. I did fine last time, it was when I was doing 8 hours a day and then transitioned to the written portion that I completely crashed and burned out. Even after the written I feel there is a lot of theory gaps... anyway.

Point is, I'm getting rid of my distractions. I've been told that there have been people who got their CCIE when they had a baby, I am still staying hopeful for that.

I have to. I mean, there is no way I'll pass the CCIE lab by June. So honestly the best I can do is lab till I bleed out of my ears prior to that and maybe, just maybe do an attempt in May to feel it out. After the baby I may be looking at a reduction of 3 hours of labbing a day or something.

I don't know, working from home and my wife will also be working from home post child, I think I am in a unique spot to get more time then others may in my situation. I'm cutting labbing short tonight because I still need to get my sleep schedule back on track. Going to go sleep for 10 hours (hopefully).

Bardlebee

DAY 152

REVIEW NEEDED AFTER TODAY AND PAST DAY:
-Lab ERSPAN
-Variance and Unequal Cost Load Balancing Documentation <-- Test out the traffic-shared balanced command.
- Practice aggregate routes/advertise-maps and communities - BGP
- Practice Regex AS-PATH access-lists
- Practice conditional static routing again.
- Auto-RP (Also known as "How do magnets work?")

THINGS I DID:

- Almost done of EIGRP - 5.5 hours

Total Time: 5.5 hours

WEAK AREAS:
- ODR - WTF is this. Need review/videos.
- Route-maps / IP SLA - Need practice/labbing
- prefix-list/wild card masks - Need practice/labbing
- Reading Comprehension of Objectives - FOCUS!
- Need more lab time on LSA lookups (recursive LSA lookup logic)
- Multicast Routing
- MPLS/VRF In General
- QoS foundations/logic shaping/policing/priority etc

QUESTIONS/CONFUSION/CONCERNS:
- None

TOTAL DAYS OF ZERO TIME STUDYING: 7

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Feeling a lot of energy. People of earth gave it to me. Getting like 25 labs done a day. Awesome.

Burning through OSPF super fast and I am amazed how many labs I could do with no hesitation in syntax. So I am getting excited that maybe I'm not completely bad at this. BGP I think I will be redoing a LOT of them. Thus far these are the labs I've labeled as "redos" due to either not conceptually getting it the first time or not being able to config off the bat. 95 percent of it is syntax misses. 33 Labs to redo below, out of... a lot. So feeling pretty good. My obvious weak points are actually early on which is surprising.

VTP Prune-Eligible List
VTP Version 3
STP Path Selection with Port Priority
STP BPDU Guard
MST Root Bridge Election
Protected Ports
SPAN
MAC-Address Table Static Entries and Aging
RSPAN
Voice VLAN
Private VLANs
Routing to Multipoint Broadcast Interfaces
Reliable Static Routing with Enhanced Object Tracking
Reliable Policy Routing
GRE Tunneling and Recursive Routing
RIPv2 Convergence Timers
RIPv2 Offset List
RIPv2 Filtering with Prefix-Lists
RIPv2 Filtering with Standard Access-Lists (wildcard/mask manipulation training needed)
RIPv2 Filtering with Extended Access-Lists
RIPv2 Filtering with Administrative Distance (wildcard/mask manipulation training needed, otherwise done right)
RIPv2 Default Routing
RIPv2 Reliable Conditional Default Routing
RIPv2 Unicast Updates
RIPv2 Broadcast Updates
RIPv2 Source Validation
EIGRP Key Chain Rotation
EIGRP Stub Routing with Leak Map
EIGRP Filtering with Extended Access-Lists
OSPF Path Selection with Virtual-Links
OSPF Path Selection with Non-Backbone Transit Areas
OSPF Demand Circuit
OSPF Flooding Reduction
OSPF Clear Text Authentication

Bardlebee

DAY 153-155

THINGS I DID:

- Done of OSPF - 3 / 3.5 / 4 hours

Total Time: 3 / 3.5 / 4 hours

QUESTIONS/CONFUSION/CONCERNS:
- I suck at OSPF Authentication syntax and syntax in general. I haven't messed with a lot of knobs in OSPF even though its been my only IGP experience.

TOTAL DAYS OF ZERO TIME STUDYING: 7

FINAL THOUGHTS:

OSPF kicked my ass. Out of all the protocols it was the one where I couldn't configure what was requested. Not right away anyway and that is grounds for a "redo". In total I have about 50 labs in redo status which actually isn't a whole lot, its about 2 days worth of work. I really want to be close to done by the end of this week of my second pass so that I can close out February either starting or being midway into the Full Scale labs.

I'm likely going to refrain from updating daily because there hasn't been any change except me going through the same labs again.

Also I am going to get rid of the "Weak Areas" section and the other sections until I'm ready to tackle those as they are redundant.

Bardlebee

DAY 156-162

THINGS I DID:

- Done of BGP - 5 / 6 / 6 / 4 / 3 / 4 / 4 hours

Total Time: 5 / 6 / 6 / 4 / 3 / 4 / 4 hours

QUESTIONS/CONFUSION/CONCERNS:
- There are about as many lab redos for BGP as there were for OSPF. Dang.

TOTAL DAYS OF ZERO TIME STUDYING: 7

FINAL THOUGHTS:

There has been a lot of frustration at work lately, mainly lack of benefits and being treated right. Its a shame that I am in this stage because I think it would be a bad time for me to jump. If I were closer to a CCIE lab level knowledge (maybe 3-6 months from now?) I would perhaps jump. Right now, I still feel I don't have adequate knowledge in BGP to make a non-lateral jump upwards. A move would be a mistake.

Its been slow going the past 4 days, something has just taken the wind out of my sails. I too often look up the mountain and wonder if I will ever reach the peak when really what I need to do is focus on the next ridge and the next foot hold. Its tough, because you don't see the progress on a daily basis, you just don't. But if you look back 3 months you're like "Wow I improved". Its hard to keep the motivation up, so much of the CCIE is mental and willpower. It takes a lot out of you. I'm also disheartened that this one-off "redo" thing I am doing is taking a lot longer then expected, I had thought I'd be done of my "second pass" by now and I'm not, I just finished the IGP's/BGP's... I have so much more. Maybe if I am lucky I will be done of my "second pass" by first week of march... but then I have subsequent passes to master them! There is no way I am going to make a confident effort for the lab in May at this rate, not one that I wouldn't be wasting my money on just to get a taste.

Going to try and use my frustration with work to fuel my studies this week. See if I can't hit my 6 hours a day goal. I'm out of BGP and as noted above I have a lot of ground as far as not knowing where to start with config on a good amount of them. I know the premise, the whys, but not the commands to perform it. Onward to MPLS.

Sorry my updates are always ranty, I type a lot. Especially what is on my mind. Maybe someone will find this helpful before attempting this herculean effort.

Danielh22185

Hang in there man! I totally understand the felling about work getting you down or feeling like you aren't in the right spot currently. I very often feel I need to venture on to something new myself but try to sit back and count my blessings too before I make rash decisions. Seems you are in a comfortable place at work right now to atleast get the studies done. I also try to do as you mentioned, using our current less than ideal work situation as a boost of motivation. Just keep your head high and know you are doing some amazing for your career will be able to laugh about these current times soon in the future.

Bardlebee

Thanks Daniel, yeah hoping I can look back 3 months from now and really appreciate the gains in my knowledge. I'm scrubbing it up over here on MPLS :P

Bardlebee

DAY 163-170

THINGS I DID:

- Done of DMVPN - 3 / 4 / 3 / 4 / 3 / NONE / 3.5 hours

Total Time: 3 / 4 / 3 / 4 / 3 / NONE / 3.5 hours

QUESTIONS/CONFUSION/CONCERNS:
- There are about as many lab redos for BGP as there were for OSPF. Dang.

TOTAL DAYS OF ZERO TIME STUDYING: 8

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Not a strong week at all, actually pretty weak. But oh well, i've worked through DMVPN and I feel like I am really strong on the configuration of it now. Looking forward to focusing on QoS next and maybe getting a little more time in.

I have about 3.5 months until the kid shows up. People say to get my time in now, but we'll see how much I can get in. There really is only so much you can study before you get burned out.

Bardlebee

DAY 171-180

THINGS I DID:

- Done of Multicast - 36 hours roughly

Total Time: 36 hours
SIX MONTHS UPDATE:

I'm super tired. I stayed up way too late to update this thread, but oh well.

I've lost it, I think. I lost the drive I had the first 3-4 months. Either that or doing 4 hours a day is the norm now and now that its the norm I don't feel it and so anything less then 4 hours feels lazy. Whatever the case may be I haven't felt like I've been pushing myself. It's normal, I think, to go through bouts of loss of focus and conviction of your goal.

Its officially been 6 months. Every day studying. Whether thats 1 hour or 10 and its really hard to look back and not feel like I've grown. I have for sure. But, something missing and I've given this a lot of thought about what that thing is and why I'm not full throttle the past two months.

1) In the first 3 months or so everything is new. Every protocol (well hopefully not every one) and every knob on said protocol. I think what really pushed me, what had me stay up late and give up temptation such as leisure time and video games was I immediately felt the growth. I believe that was a huge driver and indeed early on I felt super powerful as a network engineer, after all, doing anything every day for 4+ hours a day, you'll get pretty great at it.

2) After detracting to the Written I felt like I was going down a different road and while it was brief I haven't been able to pick up the sails on this boat and find a good wind. I think its because I've done all these labs before, I've twisted and modified all these knobs before so the idea of playing with the same knobs for memorization and mastery sake is not as appealing to me.

3) I'm not a person that studies for fun. I do it for my own growth, yes. For my marketability, of course. And definitely to get a better position later in my career of course. But fun, no I can't say I do that on a regular basis. So when I'm not seeing something fresh it's not as appealing.

4) Hopelessness. Well not really. But I touched on this quite a few times, once I have a kid in June I'll get maybe max 4 hours a day if I'm lucky. Part of me says I should do 12 hour days before that happens, the other part knows this journey is going to be another 6 months MINIMUM and most likely 12 more months. So what difference would additional daily hours make? Would it cut my time down by a month or two? In the grand scheme is that really a big deal?

5) Denial. I thought, at least for the first 4-5 months that I could pull this off near 12 months and perhaps I will. But noticing how slow I am going through these knobs and mastering them its setting in. This is likely not going to be done till late this year or early next. Which will probably put this near the average 18 months. Its not a detractor, just disappointment as there are other technologies I'd like to branch out that I am legitimately putting on hold for this.

There are probably more reasons, but I am already very verbose as I tend to be. Its super late so that's a reason for it as well.

So what's next? As I see it I have a few options going forward. And I'm going to write them out here to help me think through them.

1) Give up: Not happening. But it would provide me the chance to study other technologies and have a normal life. However, I'm 6 months deep, I don't want to be another number that tried to fly to the sun and failed.

2) Go full throttle until June: To me, I just don't see this as a positive or a negative whether I do it or not. I'm starting to see the CCIE as an eventuality and not something that needs to happen as soon as possible. I will likely go through study spurts. I've had a lot of people tell me I better study now and get it out of the way sorta thing. Well, that is just not going to help too much, maybe it'll cut off a month of study? But ultimately, 2-3 months of high octane studying will not make me a CCIE any sooner I feel.

3) Just Chill And Study: Admittedly I've been in this mode for a month, but I haven't been chill about it. I don't want to be. I feel if I just chill, then I'll slowly slip into fewer and fewer hours and less and less focus. I'm already feeling it.

So I guess I keep jumping between 2 and 3.

I guess you can tell, this thing is a mental beast and requires a lot of stamina mentally. It's easy labbing/studying every day. But when your goal post seems to move farther and farther, when it seems so far away it is an extra weight on a very long marathon. This is probably where a lot of people stop their journey. But I can't, I won't. Besides, I got really good at Multicast last week, well better anyway. :P

Yes, this is very rewarding to be better at my craft and I am noticing my short comings of my lack of experience in a lot of areas. I've grown so much in my knowledge, but I will no lie. I wan't my number. I've spent way too much time and money on this not to get it.

Most of this is gibberish because I am exhausted but I wanted to sort of throw my current thoughts on paper.

I think I will be changing back to my previous setup and updating daily. I feel I lost some motivation switching to weekly. 4 hours a day is a lot, but if its not focused driven study its pointless, maybe daily updates will help with that focus.

Anywho, I am going to pass out now and wake up to IPv6 labs.

NEW GOAL: Be done of redo's by end of month and starting Full Scale. Lets hope I don't have to move the target more.... but if its necessary its necessary.

Bardlebee

DAY 161

THINGS I DID:

- Almost done of IPv6

Total Time: 4 hours

QUESTIONS/CONFUSION/CONCERNS:
- There are about as many lab redos for BGP as there were for OSPF. Dang.

TOTAL DAYS OF ZERO TIME STUDYING: 8

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Not sure if IPv6 labs are easy or I just hit a latent focus I haven't seen in awhile. I did a crap ton of labs in very little time, so I don't think I'll be redoing any of them because I knew where to use them pretty much immediately and could type them out pretty readily. Not perfectly, but you know that's not too bad either.

Anycast RP
Catalyst IGMP Snooping
Catalyst Multicast VLAN Registration
Catalyst IGMP Profiles
IPv6 Link-Local Addressing
IPv6 Unique Local Addressing
IPv6 Global Aggregatable Addressing
IPv6 EUI-64 Addressing
IPv6 Auto-Configuration
RIPng
RIPng over NBMA
RIPng Summarization
RIPng Prefix Filtering
RIPng Metric Manipulation
RIPng Default Routing
EIGRPv6
EIGRPv6 Summarization
EIGRPv6 Prefix Filtering
EIGRPv6 Metric Manipulation
EIGRPv6 Default Routing

rbaul

Hello Bardlebee! I fully understand your current situation and I admire your perseverance. I feel the same thing when I was studying for my CCIE R&S. Up to now, I haven't passed after failed 2 attempts, but I'm still not giving up to get that CCIE#. I would encourage you to do some foundation lab from INE which consists of Core topics. I believe this will give you a different point of view since you mention that repeating the labs are not appealing to you anymore. Also, if you haven't read this Your CCIE Lab Success Strategy: The Non-Technical Guidebook: Mr. Dean Bahizad, Mr. Vivek Tiwari: 9781470103163: Amazon.com: Books, I invite you to read it. You will learn non-technical strategy from this book which I apply from time to time. I will return to this CCIE journey of mine once I'm done to all the other technologies I need to learn that is needed at my daily job.

gorebrush

It's no good trying to burn yourself out if you're just not feeling it. Nobody ever said a CCIE was easy! I've been trying to get motivated for a number of months to get on with my second one but life is most certainly right in the way at the moment.

I have a set of personal circumstances that right now are hampering any study and it's purely down to motivation being affected by many many external factors. I won't go into them here but suffice to say that sometimes you have to recognise when to sit back, take a sip of coffee and relax.

Take stock, you've already achieved much even if you haven't come close to a lab. As repeated many a time over on this forum and CCIE forums the world over. Marathon, not a sprint.

Finding that groove that enables you to pump out the study you need is a fine art, don't worry if you have a few pauses along the way. It's natural.

If you need any help dude just hit me up over pm

lostindaylight

Nice post gorebush.

I think there is an analog in endurance sports such as running, triathlons or cycling. Specifically, there is a fairly small "sweet spot" of about 80-90% intensity, where you are able to maximize the return on your effort without burning yourself out. Conversely, if your effort level is not high enough, you're simply not going to get the results.

Where the difficulty lies, is that 80-90% produces a substantial amount of psychological stress. It's not easy to make a distinction between what's uncomfortable but beneficial, and where you're really burning matches at an unsustainable rate.

With exercise we have fancy tools to measure and track that, and you let the tools handle it for you. But I don't know if such objective tools exist for monitoring overall life stress and academic workload. Keeping a journal and talking to others like you are seems like a reasonable approach.

It does sound like you may be experiencing early signs of burnout. It's not a poor reflection on your character to ease up for a week and allow yourself to recover. It's actually the intelligent thing to do when you start to experience the symptoms. The deeper you go into the red, the longer it will take for you to bounce back.

Bests,

-lid

d4nz1g

Take a day off, maybe you're stressed. Also, you're human. It's difficult do digest such amount of information.

Relaxing for a day or a couple won't hurt your progress.

We're all rooting for you