I heard a speaker share the following advice from Dave Basham:
“When you truly want to improve, I suggest not trying to please everyone, because that is not possible. Please yourself. Decide what you want to do and how you want to do it. You will then easily be able to evaluate yourself. You will feel it when you don’t accomplish what you wanted. You will feel it when you nailed it. Realize that you will rarely nail it. Evaluate if you were overall successful in your attempt. As time goes on, you can raise your standards of what is a success. Settle for gradual improvements; they accumulate.”
I just finished my comprehensive exams this past week for my Master in Communication degree at Bethel. By far, this all-day exam was the hardest requirement I have yet to meet on an academic level. The relief of walking out of the testing center at the end of the day was insanely huge.
One of the reasons I was incredibly stressed is that the expectations I hold for myself are incredibly high. I love Basham’s philosophy in the above quote—re-evaluate your definition of success and realize that gradual improvements accumulate. Nailing it is not always the ultimate goal. All those little things add up. All those little things count. All those little things accumulate into successful differences.
