The Danger of Expecting Excellence

Excellence is a tricky thing. We want students to strive for excellence, don’t we? I know I strive for excellence in my life. Most of the time that is a good thing, but lately it has become a problem. None of us can be excellent at all things. As an adult juggling the demands of being a mother, wife, home educator, graduate student, teacher candidate, homeschool collaborative leader, and part-time art teacher, I have been running myself into the ground trying to do all those things with excellence. My expectations for myself have been too high. I have placed too much value in getting everything right the first time instead of realizing that it is okay to be where I am and take one step forward. I am working a developing more of a growth mindset for myself.

I saw it in one of my students this week, a very similar mindset to the one that I am trying to leave behind. She was extremely anxious about beginning her drawing of a map of Colonial America because she was afraid she wasn’t going to do it well enough. She didn’t feel that she had the skills to make it looked like the real map and therefore struggled to even begin. Perhaps her self-confidence was shaken because she was asked to do a task way outside her comfort zone. I get it, I have been there quite a bit recently. I have been asked to do many things outside my comfort zone. The interesting thing that I am realizing is that they are outside my comfort zone because I don’t think I can succeed at them immediately. I can’t be excellent right away. And I am not good at failing. I can tell a student all day long how important it is to take risks and that failing is a great sign that you are learning, but when it comes to me failing, YIKES- that is scary.

This past month has really helped to put me in the shoes of my students and I think I am making some progress towards letting go of excellence all the time and learning to work from where I am at and move one step forward. Growing in increments is way less painful than huge growth spurts that cause growing pains and leave stretch marks.

I am realizing how important it is to choose where I strive for excellence wisely. To have realistic expectations for myself in areas where I am growing, and recognize that am moving forward in these areas. Lastly, I want to be sure that I continue to put a higher priority on relationships in my life than getting everything right. Maybe in the end it isn’t the danger of excellence, but the danger of unrealistic expectations.

Do you struggle with unrealistic expectations in yourself? In your students? How can we encourage our students who struggle with the fear of failing? How can we encourage ourselves not to be paralyzed with the fear of failing?