Half way into 300 horas This year I have decided to sit in for...

Half way into 300 horas

This year I have decided to sit in for another attempt at CFA level 3. After five years of break and not much else to challenge myself, while planning for 2016, I figured this year will be focused around many things I have started but put off for years. Due to prolonged holidays, I had a slow late start at it back in March, but with structured discipline and broader understanding of financial markets, I am now at half way into 300 hour preparation for taking exam on the 4th of June, while feeling more confident than five years ago.

Key to achieving goals is getting started and keeping discipline of making progress in daily basis, both of which I failed to grasp the impact of in the adolscent years. Often when I get myself doing the same thing after years of break – such as reading the book I read when younger or re-visiting places I travelled to, years ago – I come to realization how I have matured over time. With this instance when I compare to back in 2011, I have noticed tremendous improvement in reading comprehension but also application of one theory to another concept, which I give credit to daily reading books of various topics over the past three years.

Two things to take away from this experience so far. Comitting three hours a day after work into studies irrelevant to my main career may appear to be extreme, but becomes a trivial daily task after awhile. I believe brain is a perpetually optimizable resource with infinite potential. Unlike time or daily decision limits, when one increases the daily brain load by threefold, it will eventually feel normal. This further widens the gap between superstar achievers from mediocre individuals who satisfice. The other is that technique matters; thus it is derived from the same word as to provide technical advantage. One has to continuously experiment with different techniques until he/she finds methodology that works best, while observing own behavior. For myself, monitoring progress with spreadsheets and tracking time series (along with a Kanban board, of course) have been a great motivational boost. As with time value of money, cognitive capacity also grows exponentially with compounding effect.

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