Biggest Challenge and how I overcame it

Growing up, I always looked up to my father who himself is a civil engineer from one of the top regional colleges. I always wanted to be like him and make him proud. At that same time, there was so much hype about IITs among the people. People treated them like celebrities (I guess things are not much different today). So, I made up my mind of trying to get into one of the prestigious college. My mother enrolled me into IIT coaching class at 8^th standard. Yes! four years before the actual exam. Even in school, I and my friends used to finish lunch early in break, so that we could read the chemistry and physics bits from weekly magazines of the library. After my 10^th, I moved to another city for better coaching classes. These next two years were very challenging. As I became more focused on achieving the goal, I had already given up my hobbies and also made no friends in these two years as everyone was competitor for me. But this all had a psychological cost. Despite of doing all this I failed miserably in the exam. I had not experienced anything like that kind in my entire life. It was such a setback. I was so depressed and ashamed. It lasted for quite a few days. But eventually with support of my parents and brother and friends, I came out of it. I decided to work on future and not look back at the past. I also made into a decent engineering college. After that I even landed a decent job. I picked up on all the things that I had given up in those two years. I started doing painting again, was a part of college's art club and won 3 prizes for painting, played table tennis and made friends for life. Looking back I realize that all the failures have eventually helped me grow and discover myself. I may not have taken huge leaps and bounds, but I think I made a good start and here I am today starting yet another journey from one of the most prestigious management institutes of the country.