Compassion - From Overachiever to Achiever
As I play my sixth round of Mahjong in the Sun category with a score of 2:06 out of the allowed 3:27 for full points, I’m contemplating a recent moment of personal disappointment.
Regarding scores, I’m an overachiever. In life, I often apply the same principles.
It’s not to say I am ever in competition with someone else. I’m always truly ecstatic for my first-place classmate or for those who came in first place in their numbers at work. After several years I finally signed up for an extracurricular language course that follows my interests and would prepare me for future endeavors. Enrollment is only open twice a year and the class accepts about twenty-four students in a course session with two sessions per semester.
Sun Category Level 7 – 2:27/3:09
I truly enjoyed my classmates, our instructor, our projects, and the instruction. It was informative, fun, and challenging at times even though I already had a basis for the language. Throughout the course, already having passively self-studied the language for five years was beneficial and I received full marks all the way until our final exam.
On the final exam, I missed two or three questions.
Sun Category Level 8 – 2:12/3:06
This left me with a score of 99/100 for the course. Scratch that – I passed the course with a super high score of 99/100!
As quickly as I could correct my sentence equaled the same length of time that I was disappointed in myself. I could have studied more. I could have chosen not to second-guess that one question where none of the answers looked right to me. I could have gotten a higher score. I could have passed the course with full points.
But I didn’t, and that’s okay!
Studying education to pursue a career as an educator and working in employee training helped me realize that while I taught patience, practice, and failure as a journey to success, I didn’t hold myself to those same standards.
Sun Category Level 9 – 1:13/2:54
Instead, even when I received high marks, I continued to tell myself that I could’ve done better. The truth is, better is in the future, not in the past. Better is something we consciously create with our knowledge, our skills, and our experiences.
I’ll do better on the next test.
I’ll do better on next year’s review by improving my instructional strategies.
I’ll create a better cheese dip by cutting down one ingredient and adding more of two others.
Whatever it is, improving is always a possibility, but one of the first steps is to not bog ourselves down with the past. Scores aren’t the end-all determining factor of achievement in self-fulfillment. When they do count, there are always steps for improvement. So, take heart in your efforts. Then, consider what went wrong, seek guidance from those with more experience, understand the parameters of where change will lead, and enjoy the challenge!
Have compassion for yourself by moving from being an overachiever to an achiever.
This has been Gold Talk!
Comment below if you consider yourself an overachiever and how it has affected your growth in life or your career. How has having compassion for yourself changed your life?
Or, do you have any advice on making cheese dip creamier?
Sun Category Level 10 – 1:42/3:06