In the last article, we discussed actions that you can take up in your daily routine in order to get a desirable personality for getting recommendation in SSB as well as groom others. This is a follow up of the same article which focuses on daily life activities and actions that you can inculcate in your routine to enhance your chances of getting recommendation in NDA SSB. The points that were described in the last post are applicable aspirants that are going to enter the 11th standard and have made their mind to prepare for the SSB Interview. These points will work on every aspirant without any fail. These articles should be read as a whole as they consist of information that can be applied at any point in SSB preparation and require normal intellect but much larger efforts to implement.

These observations are generic in nature and can be adopted as your lifestyle based actions to prepare for SSB Interview rather than ways to get recommended. The easiest way to clear the SSB is to not think about it 24 hours but to live your life in such a way that appeals most to bring out the OLQs hidden in you. Focus on developing your persona in such a way that it will automatically bring the OLQs without pushing yourself to create a charade of having OLQs. This way you won’t have to act as you will be living that quality and it won’t seem a put up action by the assessor.

Respect People In Authority
It isn’t cool to break rules and disrespecting people who impart your education in the school or elsewhere. Armed forces are standing upon the bedrock of discipline where superior officers and authority are respected and their instructions are adhered to by those in ranks below them. Armed forces act as a cohesive unit where the group acts as one under their commander. Authority keeps people in a single place and it breaks an individual to act as one in a team. While, this may not be apt for civil life but aspiring for armed forces – one should keep this in their mind. I can’t put much emphasis on this fact but a disciplined attitude will provide you with much better insight than the one with an anarchical mind.

Be Disciplined And Compete With Self
The first and foremost thing to inculcate in your mind is to be disciplined even when no one is watching. Self-discipline with consistency is hard to get in a month or two as you need to constantly evaluate your regularity with respect to your goal. Its discipline when you have decided to get up at 5:00 am daily to hit the road and it doesn’t matter if it’s Sunday or it’s raining. You need to make a routine and follow it to extract maximum productivity from yourself plus you should improvise it in the meantime as a single routine can’t last forever and can’t be implemented in different situations.

Different things work for different people as their circumstances and level of grasping things are different. Now, after setting a goal and following your routine you will have to continuously evaluate your performance. People often perform a little good and get satisfied with their performance. You are required to continuously evolve with time and your performance should get better with respect to your previous performance. Nobody is your competition except for your previous self. If you have made up 5km in the past week then focus on increasing the distance and decrease the time of your run. The day you will get satisfied with your performance, you will not move ahead and rather will stay stagnant.

Inculcate Reading Habits
You are required to read a lot if you want to perform better in group discussions and lecturette. When I say that read as much as you can, it doesn’t count your course books. Try to read books and articles from different genres and diverse topics. Your reading will develop a coherent chain of thoughts in your mind whenever you will analyse anything that you are reading. Armed forces aspire to make a scholar warrior and that’s why you should have a penchant to read about a variety of things as it will also help you in clearing written exams too.

If you are aspiring for the armed forces then military history will steal your interest. Newspaper reading should be a daily habit and not a burden. You should know about geopolitical issues, national politics, state politics, defence, and current affairs. Remember, one who reads has a plethora of knowledge and this comes in handy while you are in a discussion. I can’t push you further to read but consider that if you are reading enough then you will be having an edge over others who don’t read.

Be A Quick Decision Maker
You should always be concrete in your decisions and they should be quick. The impact of a decision can’t be predicted with certainty as only time can tell about it but you need to take a decision in a quick manner. A leader always takes decisions pertaining to the functionality of his team and how it will impact them as a whole. Good or bad, that is to be decided afterwards as it can be debated and analyzed about but what matters is that if you took a decision or not. Your agility about taking a decision should be like a commander.

Always make a decision while keeping factors like time, resources, feasibility, and practical relevance of all these factors combined. But, then again decisions are of many types and they shouldn’t be evaluated on the same level. There are strategic decisions for the long term, mid-term decisions, and operational decisions for routine activities. Understand, categorize, and implement which kind of decisions to take in which situation. The feasibility of your decision will determine whether you are capable of acting for the greater good or not. It will also evaluate whether you can act in a functional manner as an individual unit of self or not.

Be An Officer
You must have seen an officer and the way he interacts, sits, and walks in the surroundings. He carries an aura around him and there is a certain charm about his mannerisms. You almost wish that you could be him but you think that you can’t maintain that attitude without undergoing training in the academy. That’s wrong. To be an officer, you will have to believe that you are already an officer as they say, “Fake it till you make it”. You should inculcate the officer like behaviour in your daily routine such as walking, talking, sitting, or doing any kind of activity. But, these alone won’t do as you will be required to adopt the behavioural changes too.

Those OLQs that you read consistently must be abided by you at all times and not just impress people around you. Try to impress yourself and don’t live for others’ compliments and expectations. Bring out the changes in yourself by minute activities as nothing is achieved at once but rather takes persistence and practice. This is the key mantra that I personally believe in as this thing changed a lot in my personality and I can vouch that it will take you on the road to the recommendation. You read about life stories of great officers then it’s better to imbibe the ethos that they believe in and that you believe too.

Mingle With Everyone Alike
Some of us do well among friends but when it comes to mingling with neighbours or relatives, we are a no show. Anyone can interact within their friend circle and be a sport but to tackle the society and relatives, you need to get out of your comfort zone. There are many festivals and functions that are being celebrated on a monthly or yearly basis in your neighbourhood and you must have seen people participating in them with zeal and happiness. You need to be one among them as it will help you in associating with strangers freely by which you won’t be hesitant to put up your views when you will show up in your SSB interview. For example, if Durga Pooja Pandal is being set up by people in your colony then you should go ahead and volunteer to take any work in hand.

These sorts of works and responsibilities should be taken by you in order to develop your personality and to become a social influencer as well as a leader. Here, we have to take an initiative and responsibility to do a certain action. You will not realize it but you will groom yourself for the SSB in this way and will become socially desirable by others. Liveliness should be your forte as armed forces don’t require grim and dull people. You should have the ability to live to the fullest even in the darkest of the situations as being a leader people will look up to you for inspiration.

These small habits can change a lot about how you function in your day to day life and how you behave with people around you even when no one is watching or is there to be impressed. In some way or another, these minute changes will leave a deep impact of your personality on people around you and they will be able to tell about the positive changes that are happening in your personality, my friends did.

You can follow these tips to make yourself a better and suitable candidate for NDA SSB Interview. But to clear the written exam for NDA is a humongous task and the competition is fierce. Then what should you do to boost your performance in written exams? We all know that this is an excellent time to try new things that technology has brought at your steps such as Online Courses.

Taking NDA Written Online courses will not only give you access to full-length quality lectures but will also provide the facility to take standardized mock tests for comparative study and growth. You can take multiple quizzes after each lesson in order to ensure the full understanding of the subject along with creating your own customized lesson plans. You can check out the course content along with other important specifics at SSBCrack exams. You can also access them through the SSBCrack Exams app available in the google play store.

Jai Hind