Confession No. 2: About That Holiday Homework...
I am not a big fan of competition. I'm ridiculously competitive, but I abhor competition. Particularly when it's the high stakes, all-or-nothing kind of competition. So the VCE system? Not my gig.
For those of you who don't know, the VCE (Victorian Certificate of Education) is the system under which the final two years of high school are run in my state. At the end of the whole ordeal, we each get a score (referred to as an ATAR score) that determines which courses we're given entry into at a tertiary level.
The kicker? The entire system is bell curved. That means your ATAR score is entirely dependant on how everyone else in the state goes. Essentially, it's a giant competition. And a very high stakes one at that.
So, to put it mildly, I am finding the whole situation more than a little difficult.
Which leads to some... questionable decision making.
Confession time: I haven't touched any of my holiday homework yet.
The questionable decision making is as follows; for some reason, my thought process upon being faced with compulsory and important competition is that if I just don't try, it's okay when I fail.
Basically, my line of thinking is that it's much worse to try hard and do poorly than it is to just not bother and crash and burn. If I expect a low result because I give it minimum effort, it's okay!
Which would be fine, if I actually followed that line of thinking through. Instead, I think that right up until the night before everything is due, when I suddenly panic and rush to finish everything because "oh my God I need the best marks possible!"
It tends to run in circles.
So here's my question(s): am I the only one who does this? Can I stop doing it? If I make a commitment, here and now, to do my homework the minute I get it, will I stick to it?
Answer: probably not. Realistically, I still have a life. I still have a job and dance and sometimes I just want to come home and watch Friends and eat ice cream after I've had a crappy day. But to get where I want to be, I need to break this particular line of thinking.
I need to be less afraid of failure.
This isn't going to happen overnight. In fact, it will probably be an issue I face all my life. But I've been afraid of many things before, and I've conquered all of them. There's only one way to do it; face it.
So really, my commitment isn't to do every piece of homework as soon as I get it (which is just unfeasible). My commitment is, instead, to deconstructing the idea that if I just don't try, it's okay when I fail. My commitment is to face my fear of failure. My commitment is to learn from my mistakes.
Hopefully, it's a commitment I can follow through on.
Always,
Your resident teenaged disaster
For those of you who don't know, the VCE (Victorian Certificate of Education) is the system under which the final two years of high school are run in my state. At the end of the whole ordeal, we each get a score (referred to as an ATAR score) that determines which courses we're given entry into at a tertiary level.
The kicker? The entire system is bell curved. That means your ATAR score is entirely dependant on how everyone else in the state goes. Essentially, it's a giant competition. And a very high stakes one at that.
So, to put it mildly, I am finding the whole situation more than a little difficult.
Which leads to some... questionable decision making.
Confession time: I haven't touched any of my holiday homework yet.
The questionable decision making is as follows; for some reason, my thought process upon being faced with compulsory and important competition is that if I just don't try, it's okay when I fail.
Basically, my line of thinking is that it's much worse to try hard and do poorly than it is to just not bother and crash and burn. If I expect a low result because I give it minimum effort, it's okay!
Which would be fine, if I actually followed that line of thinking through. Instead, I think that right up until the night before everything is due, when I suddenly panic and rush to finish everything because "oh my God I need the best marks possible!"
It tends to run in circles.
So here's my question(s): am I the only one who does this? Can I stop doing it? If I make a commitment, here and now, to do my homework the minute I get it, will I stick to it?
Answer: probably not. Realistically, I still have a life. I still have a job and dance and sometimes I just want to come home and watch Friends and eat ice cream after I've had a crappy day. But to get where I want to be, I need to break this particular line of thinking.
I need to be less afraid of failure.
This isn't going to happen overnight. In fact, it will probably be an issue I face all my life. But I've been afraid of many things before, and I've conquered all of them. There's only one way to do it; face it.
So really, my commitment isn't to do every piece of homework as soon as I get it (which is just unfeasible). My commitment is, instead, to deconstructing the idea that if I just don't try, it's okay when I fail. My commitment is to face my fear of failure. My commitment is to learn from my mistakes.
Hopefully, it's a commitment I can follow through on.
Always,
Your resident teenaged disaster
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