Grading Life — The Story behind Satisfactory
Take yourself back to elementary school, or even highschool. Just remember a time when you had report cards.
To give context, there’s a part of your report card where you get graded for your learning skills. The grading system lies on a scale from “Needs Improvement — Excellent”. Satisfactory is the level that’s right after Needs Improvement.
If your life had to be rated on that scale, what would you rate it?
Let’s think about that.
Looking back at my life, I haven’t really done anything legit. I haven’t really done anything that makes me totally unique from any other human being in the universe.
Once I realized this, it made me feel pretty shitty to be honest. 15 years of my life have gone by, and I haven’t really done much with it. I get that some of that isn’t in my control, because when your 1 you can’t really do much, but when I look at the past 2–3 years, I haven’t really impacted other people with what I’ve done.
Then I tried to figure out, why is that? Most of the time, it’s just because I thought, You can’t do it. Christina, you’re 16. Let’s be practical here.
When looking back, I regret this attitude so much.
Complacency is my enemy.
Settling
I have high standards for myself. When it comes to work I produce and title as mine, I always make sure it’s really good content and great quality. I often think it’s just something that I was raised with. My parents set high standards for themselves, and that trait translated to me as well.
But, when it comes to doing new things, or doing things that are different to what I’m already doing, that’s where complacency wins.
The culprit for me is settling for things. I settle for the 90. I settle for 5 hours of work a day. I settle for comfort.
Comfort
I love comfort. If I feel comfortable in a place, I love it. I will stay at that level or in that environment until you kick me out.
This is another downfall.
When someone feels comfortable in a place, they rarely ask for more. Some deem it as being “thankful”, but it can often be the downfall to growth.
It’s just a question of asking more for yourself. What can you be doing to grow? What more can you be doing?
When you feel comfortable, ask yourself, “What’s the next step?” This is how we grow. This is how we make our own tests for ourself.
This is how we grow. Constantly putting ourselves in uncomfortable situations is key. Otherwise, how are we ever gonna’ learn?
Simplicity
When something is easy, we end up doing more of it or continue to do it because it doesn’t take much energy.
This can be the death of us. Comfort and simplicity work hand in hand. The more we do something, the easier it gets, and the more comfortable we get.
This is often the reason for people keeping the same job for 10–20 years. It gets easy for them. They master it. They become comfortable.
When something becomes easy for us, this is the crucial time where we need change. I know change can be hard, but that brings in the discomfort. Embrace the discomfort. Realize that after going through this change, you’re going to grow, whether you’re successful at it or not.
These 3 areas of my life is where I needed change. I realized that I was just comfortable where I was. I wasn’t really pushing myself too much. I would write ambitious goals and think that I was gonna’ grow 10x, but that wasn’t the case.
In my experience, the excitement > action.
I’d be excited to write all of my goals down and organize my ideas, but when it came to actually putting my head down and doing work, I started to get lazy.
I would think, “I already have school. I’m doing enough outside of school. I did enough today. Let me take a break.”.
That’s a terrible way to approach life.
Why would you suffice with being satisfied?
That’s when I realized that I am not growing.
If I was truly growing, I’d be producing something every day.
If I was truly growing, I’d be crossing off 10 of my goals everyday, running out of goals to cross off.
If I was truly growing, I’d be going to bed tired every night because I worked so hard the previous day.
The trick to avoid being complacent, is always thinking about your growth.
This is something that’s easier than it sounds.
Thinking about your growth will ultimately change your life from satisfactory to excellent.
Think about you. How can you grow, even in a place that might not be optimized for growth.
How do you do this?
Create forcing functions for yourself. Put yourself in uncomfortable situations. Take on challenges. Go into areas where you don’t know anything.
Let’s talk! If you have any thoughts on this topic, swing me an email at christina.a.vadivelu@gmail.com!
Connect with me on LinkedIn as well 😉: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christina-vadivelu-0b498b193/
