Believe in yourself! your work doesn’t determine your worth
My adult years have quite literally been a deprogramming of equating my work with my worth. The honor roll student was baked in deep. If my work wasn't absolutely perfect, my worth was on the line. That's way too much for anyone to bear. And it's not even true!
I know the exact moment when I decided I need to make a change and see myself differently - although I had no clue at the time HOW to do it. It was the end of my first year of grad school. I was in the Ivy League because, duh, "worth." I was taking my last final exam, in "Biometry II," a fancy way of saying Statistics II. It was "open notes" - but our notes were two jumbo sized binders. We had to know the equations and our notebooks cold to be able to complete the exam in the time allotted.
Somewhere midway through that final exam I panicked. I couldn't remember a thing. I flipped through the jumbo binders and didn't recognize anything I'd written in them. The exam questions seemed to be written in a foreign language. The equations looked brand new.
It felt like my world was crumbling. If I failed this exam, what would that say about ME? I was worthless if my work was without merit. That was a fact reiterated and reinforced throughout my years of schooling.
Fear of failure in any work
I cobbled something together and put it on the exam. I have no clue what I wrote, but I know for sure it wasn't good. I was in a full-on panic attack as I burst out of the aging building into one of many quads, heart racing, nauseous, sweating, dizzy. Tears started heaving their way out of me, so I ducked behind the building to a quiet garden that no one seemed to ever travel through.
At first, I sat down and cried. I felt sad and disappointed and ashamed.
And then, in an instant, I got really, really angry.
Why the hell was I crying?! Over an exam? Give me a break!
In that moment I realized I was 100% OVER caring around how I did on exams. And, although I couldn't have articulated it in that moment, I was OVER feeling like what I DID determined how I felt about myself - and what I firmly believed others felt about me. There had to be a different way to live because THIS way was not sustainable. Besides, living like that seemed to be *seriously* missing the point.
It's been 21 years since that day. I continually, gradually, make strides to internalize the lesson and live it more fully. It's a lifelong unlearning.
Oh, and that Biometry II class? I never saw the final exam grade, but I got an A+ in the class. You've got to be kidding me. Seeing that I did "well" despite doing so physically and mentally poorly only fueled my desire to unhook work and worth.
I'm so grateful for that stinking exam.
Our work does not determine our worth. Thank goodness.