I'm a B+ Person (mostly)
How being comfortable with being good instead of great all the time has saved my mental health
See, it’s not that I don’t want to excel.
Being an A+ person probably has its perks.
Gold medals at the Olympics,
shooting off into space to discover some unknown resource beyond,
or always having a tidy home, with a clean and clear to-do list hanging on the fridge, doesn’t sound so shabby.
Being an A+ person seems to come with accolades, opportunities, and success that outmatch the progress of most people.
But for me, the sacrifice of being an “A+ always” type of person in today’s world of hyper progress, hyper glorification of power, and expectations of complete self-sacrifice doesn’t make all that work seem any more meaningful.
And while that may be my observation now, it hasn’t always been so clear.
I can vividly remember the time in my life when I really, really, really wanted to be A+.
I wanted to be loved by my teachers,
make the highest grades,
be the best at all the things I tried, and be “something”
(whatever my idea of “something” was).
I received some accolades, some purpose, and somewhat of a direction…
What I mostly got was the development of a panic disorder, quitting A LOT of things, and unfounded perfectionism.
Yet, as I have lived and grown, I have learned that maximum effort does not always yield maximum reward. Through reflecting on my efforts, I have seen that striving for A+ perseverance builds a kind of resilience and depth of focus that has never come naturally to me.
So rather than fight it, burning myself out, and wishing I were different.
I’ve adapted.
The panic has subsided,
the perfectionism is much quieter now,
and I’ve adopted the practice of putting in real, meaningful effort in the areas that matter to me.
Allowing myself the freedom and admiring the beauty of loving lots of things regardless of how good I may or may not be at them.
I’ve been able to spread out without spreading so thin.
And when I do reach my edge, I am learning to let go even more to remain intact.
So, this looks like accepting the B+ sometimes rather than fighting for the A+.
In graded terms, that looks like
making sure the work gets turned in, even if it’s a tad late.
making sure I understand and comprehend the content, but not obsessing over taking notes on it all,
and citing my sources with a few formatting errors here and there.
In life, that means
more openness in allowing others to lead; stepping back sometimes
allowing things that can be solved tomorrow or in a week to be solved then, instead of RIGHT NOW
admitting that I’m wrong a lot of the time
translated to not holding on so tight to things that are not that important.
Fight like hell for the things that are <3
Using as much of my time and effort on the things that truly, deeply light me up and the rest of what’s left for pretty much everything else.
It is certainly not a perfect formula, and I’m not sure there ever could be, but wow, giving myself permission to just “be alright” at things like cleaning bathrooms or turning in low-weighted graded assignments with just a smidgen less effort is FREEING.
And plot twist…
The reason I added “mostly” to the end of this article’s title is because the more I allow room for B+ effort, the more I have found myself giving A+ effort to things that are in greater alignment.
It looks like actually reaching out to my professor about a grade because I really care about the class, or tweaking a graphic for a client ten times to make sure it represents their brand just right, because it’s an honor to create for them.
It’s the ability to increase effort and desire to succeed without the impending burnout.
It’s the breaks that pump when I reach the edge of what I can give.
Allowing myself to be B+ a lot of the time has made space for building something I never saw possible, and this article you are reading is a part of that.
Sitting down each day, no matter how messy or bad or relatable or late at night my writings are, I sit down, and I write.
Each day is becoming a little clearer, a little more succinct, a little more creative, and I am a lot more pleased with my work and the efforts it takes to create something worth sharing.
If you enjoyed this writing, know that every share with a friend, like, comment, and subscription (it’s free), helps me continue this work and is tremendously meaningful to me. Thank you for being here AND for being YOU!