Describe a piece of advice you received that was helpful.

One really helpful piece of advice I got was, "Don’t compare your chapter one to someone else’s chapter twenty." In other words, everyone moves at a different pace, and it’s pointless to measure your progress against other people’s highlight reels. It sounds simple, but it honestly changed the way I look at my studies and my life in general.

This advice came from my older cousin, who’s a software engineer. I received it about three years ago, right after I’d failed an important mock exam at school. I was pretty devastated at the time because a lot of my classmates were getting top marks and posting their results online, and I felt like I was being left behind.

My cousin invited me out for coffee, listened to me rant, and then he shared his own story about struggling at university. That’s when he gave me this line about “chapters”. After that conversation, I started using his advice in a very practical way. I stopped checking other people’s scores every day, and instead I tracked my own progress week by week in a notebook. I set small, realistic goals, like improving five points in a practice test rather than trying to become the top student overnight.

This advice was so helpful because it took a lot of pressure off my shoulders and made me more consistent. Instead of feeling jealous or discouraged, I became more focused and, funnily enough, more motivated. It also changed my mindset outside of school; now, whenever I start something new, I accept that I’m a beginner and I give myself permission to learn slowly. That shift in perspective has made my life calmer, and a lot more productive.