It reminds of a 3rd year undergrad I met. She complained about the difficulty of getting a research assistant position because there's lots of competition and she had to fill in lots of forms and applications. Since getting into grad studies require some kind of RA experience, she was getting anxious for not having one at the end of her third year. The disheartening part though was she never actually applied to any of these positions. She just assumed they were too hard to get.

It's like praying to God to win the lotto but never buying a ticket. How do you expect to win if you don't have a ticket?