"Not everyone can be like you," my friend was being really kind to me when she said this... I took over the challenge of doing a Fellowship in Management (FPM) to take my research work in a more organised path. I have been toying with an idea of research for over 8 years now, never really getting any close to the real thing till now.
Goes without saying that FPM involves deadlines, classes, tests and reports and of course the real research work. This is in addition to my business of coaching and training and my teaching work at an EMBA program. So I kind of have my hands full! but not really so! I have designed all my plans around my convenience. I don't have any external prompts driving my decisions.
Let me explain how this works...
1. I am not concerned about the marks I score, not certainly in comparison to my classmates. I'd rather get 100% on all papers, but in case I can't, I accept it as a handicap and try to consider my purpose of joining the course. And that is to complete my research. The marks will do nothing to augment or restrain it. So I am good!
2. I am not concerned with writing the best research paper. Because that is relative. I am concerned with writing a research paper which addresses my reason for taking up my research. And that has to do with uplifting women to a greater social equity. And I measure my results only with the ability to cause it. That objective is clear in my mind.
3. I am not interested in being present in all classes, but I am interested in learning all there is to learn. That keeps me away from the live classes and takes me into the mode of reviewing the recording of the classes with a faster playback speed!
4. None of my classmates are my competitors. They all have their own purpose for attending the course and I just want to follow my purpose.
5. My research is related to my work, so basically when I am working on my business, I am also in some way researching!
6. My overbearing passion is one. And that drives my every act. This keeps me levelled and unperturbed with small setbacks.
In short, I am good... thank you.
Now the question, why can't others be like me?
Because they worry about results in comparison to others?
Why should they? All my fellow scholars have attained some fantastic successes in their lives. I wonder if they ever recall these successes when they compare!
Because they want to match up?
Why? They can't be matched anymore. And I would have assumed that they have figured this out by now! But somehow our system keeps us away from the truth.
So now I want to look at what really causes people to compare and to pull themselves backwards unknowingly but most certainly!
The constant comparison: We forget that we are aiming our comparison to a bunch of people who are shoulder to shoulder with us... but there are others, so much more accomplished, that we cannot even think of comparing with them, unless that is, we stopped comparing altogether!
The constant desire for more... there has to be a clarity about what we need more of, often it is just a desire for more, with no clarity of what exactly we need more of. So that takes us into the path of asking for more of everything... more of entertainment, more of food, more of fashion, more of knowledge and more of money. And that becomes a balancing act. There will be areas where we cannot have more of... so we compensate ourselves by saying, 'oh ok so what, I have more of these other things'. The bad news is that we often don't get more of what we need most of! Because obviously there is a higher level of challenge involved with those aspirations! Well that leads to mediocrity and we learn to accept less of everything, while blindly seeking more of everything!
Huh!
And Double Huh!
The thing is, I wasn't always like that! But the toll that constant comparing took on my sanity, was not worth it. For once I felt like a total failure and for the other, no one was interested in what I was awesome at, because obviously they could not beat me in that! This is a lesson learnt from life! And it is working for me... Don't compare, don't compete.... just go for the real thing... life as it is, for you and for me!
