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Nothing
Have you ever gotten through a week and felt like you accomplished nothing? Sometimes, even if I was super busy and productive, I get to the end of a week and feel like I have nothing to show for all of my busy-ness. This past week was one of those weeks for me. All week I felt like I was constantly doing things or working on something. Whether that was work for my internship, work on my apartment, or work to prepare for the school year, I kept myself really busy all week. But at the end of the week, I didn’t have much to show for it, and that was really disappointing.
I think it is human nature to look back and analyze a week by its few largest accomplishments rather than its total number of accomplishments. And for many people, including myself, I think we judge a lot more than just our weekly success by these large accomplishments. I constantly find myself assessing the success of my life off of a few large things rather than stepping back and recognizing the value of small things I accomplished too. Now I don’t want you to misunderstand me, I am not saying that success should be determined purely by the quantity of things done either. But when I look back at my week, and my most successful accomplishment was reorganizing my closet, I feel disappointed. But when I think in that way I am neglecting the 100 other small tasks that I completed - all of which create a very productive picture when looked at together.
I have always been a quality over quantity type of person. I want to make sure everything is done well and to the best of my ability. And it is common for me to judge my own success by only my biggest or highest quality successes. But, as a 20 year old college student, my greatest accomplishments really aren’t all that great in the grand scheme of things. This is when I think it is important to start looking at quantity. Yes, maybe I haven’t solved any of the world’s problems or had any single major successes, but I have had lots of smaller, personal successes that do still have value. And, having several areas where I feel successful in life feels good - even if each of those successes is small. So at the end of the day, it is possible to have quality accomplishments that are small.
So that is my challenge to you this week: remember that even small accomplishments are valuable. Don’t get me wrong, quality is still important, but I think it is healthy to sometimes take a step back and look at all of the smaller accomplishments you’ve had. Whether that is managing to keep your room relatively clean, consistently following a new routine, or simply completing a to-do list, I think it is beneficial to look at the range of smaller accomplishments that we’ve had in life instead of always focusing on the few big things that we are striving for.
Stay Motivated,
-Dan
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