Losing Motivation for UPSC? Real Stories for the Days You Want to Quit
If you're reading this at 1 am with a half-finished polity chapter open in another tab, hello. This one's for you.
Let's begin with the number, because you already know it and pretending otherwise would be insulting. In the 2025 cycle, about 9.4 lakh people applied, about 5.8 lakh sat the prelims, and 958 were recommended. However you cut it, most serious, hardworking people who attempt this exam don't get through.
So if you're tired, nothing's wrong with you. This exam tires people out, and that's a normal response to it.
People who kept going
We've collected a lot of these stories on the site. These are the ones I'd send a friend having a bad week.
Manoj Kumar Sharma. You've probably seen the film. Failed Class 12 in Morena, drove a tempo, slept on the streets in Delhi, worked at a library, walked dogs for ₹400 a month, and cleared the exam on the final attempt. Final attempt. Think about the pressure of that one.
Ummul Kher. Born with brittle bone disease, with 16 fractures and 8 surgeries behind her. She moved out alone after Class 8 so she could keep studying, and paid her way with ₹100 tuitions in a Delhi slum. AIR 420.
Pranjal Patil. Lost her sight by the age of six, then listened to her UPSC textbooks through screen-reading software at high speed. Cleared the exam twice.
Govind Jaiswal. A rickshaw puller's son from Varanasi, who studied with earplugs in a room next to noisy generators. His father sold his last plot of land for it. That detail has stayed with me.
Rinku Singh Rahee. Was already a provincial officer in UP when he exposed a scholarship scam and got shot seven times. Lost sight in one eye. Then went and cleared UPSC.
A warning, though. Don't read these and conclude "they had it worse, so I have no right to feel bad". That's not what they're for. Your exhaustion is real even if nobody shot at you. The point of these stories is that the people who made it weren't superhuman on every single day of their preparation. Nobody is.
And people who took a different road
This is the part coaching institutes don't put on their hoardings.
Anubhav Dubey didn't clear UPSC. With friends, he opened a small roadside kiosk in Indore selling tea in kulhads, and Chai Sutta Bar has since grown to over 400 outlets.
Khan Sir had his own failure, at the NDA physical tests, and ended up teaching small batches of aspirants in Patna. Today he's one of the country's best known teachers. Then there's Roman Saini, who did get in at 22, and resigned to help start what became Unacademy. So even the service itself isn't the only way to serve.
Everything you've learned for this exam is still yours. You can read a dense report and write a clear answer under pressure, and you've got a decent idea of how the government actually works. Plenty of employers would value that, and it won't disappear if your name's not on the list.
Three things for this week
Sleep, properly, for two nights. Bad mocks and bad moods both look a lot worse when you've been running on four hours.
Write down a Plan B, with a date on it. Decide how many more attempts, and what you'd do after. A lot of aspirants avoid this because it feels like giving up. Usually it's the opposite. Once you've got a backup, this attempt stops feeling like life or death, and you can actually think in the exam hall.
Talk to someone who isn't preparing. Aspirant circles are wonderful and also completely mad. A friend from outside will remind you that there's a world where nobody knows what CSAT is. If it's gone beyond tiredness, and you feel hopeless most days, please talk to a doctor or counsellor, or to someone you trust. That matters far more than any attempt.
Then, when you're ready, open that polity chapter again. It'll still be there.
If a story here helped, send it to someone else who's preparing. They're probably having a rough week too.