Success in Court Reporting – The Grind, The Grit, and The Breakthrough

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Success isn’t for the weak. It’s for those who push past exhaustion, doubt, and pain when everything inside them is screaming to quit. If you’ve chosen the path of court reporting, you already know this is not a journey for the faint of heart. The long hours of practice, the frustration of missed words, the aching fingers from endless drills—these are all part of the process. But here’s the truth: The struggle is proof that you are on the right path.

Court reporting is a career that demands perseverance, skill, and mental endurance. Many start this journey, but only those who refuse to give up make it to the finish line. If it were easy, everyone would do it. The difficulty is what makes it worthwhile, and it’s what separates the committed from those who simply wish for success without putting in the work.

The Grind: The Daily Battle

From the moment you begin your training, you quickly realize that learning stenography is not like any other skill. It’s a language, an art, and a discipline rolled into one. The expectation isn’t just accuracy—it’s speed, efficiency, and mastery under pressure. And that takes time.

Your daily grind consists of:

  • Speed building – Pushing your fingers to move faster than your brain tells them they can.
  • Drills, drills, and more drills – Repetitive practice to develop muscle memory and accuracy.
  • Transcription practice – Learning to convert shorthand into readable transcripts at lightning speed.
  • Mental stamina exercises – Staying focused for extended periods without losing concentration.

There will be days when the progress feels painfully slow. Days when you wonder if you’ll ever get past 120 words per minute, let alone 225. But remember, every small improvement is a step forward. Each struggle is proof that you are growing.

The Grit: Overcoming the Mental Blocks

Doubt will creep in. It always does. The voice in your head will whisper that you’re not fast enough, not smart enough, not talented enough. You’ll watch classmates speed past you, and the comparison game will make you question everything.

But here’s where grit comes in. Success in court reporting isn’t about being naturally gifted. It’s about resilience. It’s about showing up every single day, even when you don’t feel like it. It’s about refusing to let frustration take over.

  • Accept that failure is part of the process – Every dropped word, every mistake is an opportunity to learn.
  • Adopt a growth mindset – Believe that with time and effort, improvement is inevitable.
  • Surround yourself with motivation – Connect with those who uplift and inspire you. Find a mentor, lean on classmates, and read stories of others who made it despite the odds.

Those who succeed in court reporting aren’t the ones who never struggled. They are the ones who pushed through when struggle seemed unbearable.

The Breakthrough: When the Impossible Becomes Possible

Here’s the thing about breakthroughs—they come when you least expect them. After months of grueling practice, when you feel like you can’t possibly keep going, something clicks. The strokes start to flow effortlessly. Your speed jumps. Accuracy improves. And suddenly, what once seemed impossible is now your new reality.

Breakthroughs happen not because you wished for them but because you earned them. Every time you resisted the urge to quit, every time you practiced for “just five more minutes,” you brought yourself closer to success.

The Moments That Matter

  • The first time you hit your target speed.
  • The moment you pass a test you once thought was too hard.
  • The day you realize you can take down words in real-time without freezing.
  • The pride of transcribing an entire conversation with perfect accuracy.

These are the moments that make the journey worth it.

Keep Going, Keep Grinding

The road to becoming a certified court reporter isn’t easy. It’s long, it’s frustrating, and at times, it feels impossible. But that’s exactly why it’s worth it. If it were easy, everyone would do it.

So, when your fingers ache, when your mind tells you it’s too hard, when you’re on the brink of giving up—keep going. Because the moment you think you can’t go any further is the moment you are closest to your breakthrough.

Success in court reporting isn’t just about skill; it’s about determination. It’s about embracing the struggle, knowing that every ounce of effort you put in today is paving the way for the incredible career that awaits you.

Push past the exhaustion. Silence the doubt. Embrace the grind. Your breakthrough is just around the corner. Keep going—you’ve got this.

Published by stenoimperium

We exist to facilitate the fortifying of the Stenography profession and ensure its survival for the next hundred years! As court reporters, we've handed the relationship role with our customers, or attorneys, over to the agencies and their sales reps.  This has done a lot of damage to our industry.  It has taken away our ability to have those relationships, the ability to be humanized and valued.  We've become a replaceable commodity. Merely saying we are the “Gold Standard” tells them that we’re the best, but there are alternatives.  Who we are though, is much, much more powerful than that!  We are the Responsible Charge.  “Responsible Charge” means responsibility for the direction, control, supervision, and possession of stenographic & transcription work, as the case may be, to assure that the work product has been critically examined and evaluated for compliance with appropriate professional standards by a licensee in the profession, and by sealing and signing the documents, the professional stenographer accepts responsibility for the stenographic or transcription work, respectively, represented by the documents and that applicable stenographic and professional standards have been met.  This designation exists in other professions, such as engineering, land surveying, public water works, landscape architects, land surveyors, fire preventionists, geologists, architects, and more.  In the case of professional engineers, the engineering association adopted a Responsible Charge position statement that says, “A professional engineer is only considered to be in responsible charge of an engineering work if the professional engineer makes independent professional decisions regarding the engineering work without requiring instruction or approval from another authority and maintains control over those decisions by the professional engineer’s physical presence at the location where the engineering work is performed or by electronic communication with the individual executing the engineering work.” If we were to adopt a Responsible Charge position statement for our industry, we could start with a draft that looks something like this: "A professional court reporter, or stenographer, is only considered to be in responsible charge of court reporting work if the professional court reporter makes independent professional decisions regarding the court reporting work without requiring instruction or approval from another authority and maintains control over those decisions by the professional court reporter’s physical presence at the location where the court reporting work is performed or by electronic communication with the individual executing the court reporting work.” Shared purpose The cornerstone of a strategic narrative is a shared purpose. This shared purpose is the outcome that you and your customer are working toward together. It’s more than a value proposition of what you deliver to them. Or a mission of what you do for the world. It’s the journey that you are on with them. By having a shared purpose, the relationship shifts from consumer to co-creator. In court reporting, our mission is “to bring justice to every litigant in the U.S.”  That purpose is shared by all involved in the litigation process – judges, attorneys, everyone.  Who we are is the Responsible Charge.  How we do that is by Protecting the Record.

5 thoughts on “Success in Court Reporting – The Grind, The Grit, and The Breakthrough”

  1. Hi. I am currently teaching theory students and I am also the editor of The Transcript, NY State Court Reporter’s Association quarterly digital magazine. I would like to ask your permission to (1) include this article in the upcoming edition and (2) to also share with my students. Thank you for your consideration of my request.

    Nancy Silberger

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