Finding True Purpose Beyond the Exam: IAS Abhijeet Yadav's UPSC Journey

February 18, 2024

3 Minutes

IAS Abhijeet Yadav

Introduction

Many people dream of success in the civil service exams, but Abhijeet Yadav's story stands out for its unique inspiration. Despite not passing the exam after six attempts, his journey is more about self-discovery than just achieving a title. He constantly questioned his reasons and pushed beyond his fears, believing in his own strength. Instead of becoming an IAS officer, Abhijeet found meaningful answers and learned a lot about what he truly wants in life. His experience shows that sometimes, the journey itself is the real victory.

What and Why: Abhijeet’s Constant Questions

While doing IIT, Abhijeet was surrounded by fellows who were doing UPSC. Seeing them, he also gave two attempts and couldn’t even clear the prelims. For these two attempts, he didn’t even know why he was doing UPSC. After failing for the first time, he gave the CA exam and got admission into the Faculty of Management Study, University of Delhi. However, in two months, he realised he didn’t want to do that. Therefore, he left the MBA and got a job. This job taught him a lot. In this job, he worked with the collectorate of Alwar, who once gave him 200 highly able students to teach and told him that if he successfully did that, he would assign him 500 students. Here, Abhijeet discovered that he wanted to work in something that educates a larger share of people. He got his answer to what he wanted to do.

In 2016, he left his job and started preparing for UPSC, clearing prelims after two failed attempts.

Four Steps to Clearing UPSC

Abhijeet suggests four ways to clear the UPSC exam. These are:

First, the aspirant should know why they want to do UPSC. Moreover, they should also believe in themselves.

Second, planning is very important; therefore, make a plan for yourself.

Third, execute that plan on a daily basis.

Fourth, repeat the plan consistently.

However, these steps will be continuously disturbed by fear, uncertainty, and self-doubt, which we have to avoid.

Failures—a Friend

In 2017, Abhijeet finally cleared the exam and got a 653 rank. His family rejoiced, but destiny had other plans. He was not allotted any service for some reasons. He also filed a case in the Supreme Court, popularly known as Ketan vs. Union of India. In these times, he faced a lot of social pressure and mockery. This was the point when he lost trust in himself for some time.

However, he bounced back and took the exam again in 2018. He missed by one mark in his final exam. Abhijeet, by then, understood that UPSC was not his cup of tea. He got a job after 50–60 applications. The job helped him restore some confidence in himself.

The Last Attempt and the Motive of His Life

In 2020, an IPS friend of Abhijeet motivated him to try for his last attempt, and he couldn’t even clear his prelims. However, Abhijeet started working on YouTube and started building his own company, Pencil. The motive of the company was to build and provide tools for educators to teach online. Here, he realised that he ended up being involved in the education space in some way only. This was what Abhijeet always wanted to do, and he finally did that. He emphasised never giving up and getting afraid of failure.

For IAS Abhijeet Yadav's tips on how to crack UPSC Mains like a pro, click here.