It’s Not Your Job TO DO GREAT
My daughter gets pretty worked up before tests.
She studies for hours, gathers information about the type of questions that will be covered and often reviews information that is not on the study guide, on the off chance it might be included in a bonus question.
Her goal is to get 100%, and she seems to only be mildly satisfied with marks above 97%.
Let me be clear, this behaviour has nothing to do with mom and dad, neither of us has ever suggested that she should be striving for 90s and we certainly weren’t achieving these types of marks at her age.
Now, I will also share that it’s not fun being around her when she has a test coming up.
She is stressed out, hyper focused on only one thing and runs the gamut of emotions from the highs of “I’ve got this” thinking, to the lows of “I don’t know anything, and I’m going to fail”.
There are highs followed by lows - both of which seem to come and go quickly and without much warning.
Recently, I’ve been talking to her about what IS HER JOB and what IS NOT HER JOB, as it pertains to tests and performance.
As best as I see it, what is her job is many of the activities she’s already doing. For example,
reviewing the material
doing practice questions
checking in with herself to determine what to do next
showing up and being present
When she stays focused on doing what she knows or wants to do in the moment to prepare herself for the test, all is fine. There’s no inherent pressure in the 'doing'.
Pressure only arises when she creates an expectation for a result she wants in the future, that is not up to her.
That is, she only gets tripped up when she tries to do things that are NOT her job to do.
It’s not her job to get a ‘great grade on the test’, because that’s not something she can DO now.
And the simple fact that she can’t “do” that now, keeps her ruminating on the thought; “I’ve got to get a great mark”, “I’ve got to get a great mark”, “I’ve got to get a great mark”, … (say that 10 times fast!)
She gets stuck here because there’s no solution to this thought.
When she tries to use positive thinking to help convince herself that she’ll do great, it doesn’t stick because the nature of thought is that it’s fleeting and mostly random, and so at best this strategy only works momentarily.
Sooner or later the positive thoughts are followed by other more pressure-filled thoughts and the cycle continues.
So how do we resolve this predicament? How do we step into effortless performance?
Well here are a few insights that have helped me.
By the way, please don’t take this to mean that I don’t also experience the pressure of performance, because I do, this is simply where I look when I become wise to the fact that I’m creating pressure to perform.
It’s ok to get caught up in wanting to do great. Don’t try to change it (not your job!), simply look in the direction of what is underneath the pressure. Get curious about the nature of pressure and allow your process to unfold on its own terms (the terms are not up to you). In my experience, all of our innocent “trying” often adds to the stuckness, rather than help shift it.
Consider that it’s not up to you to PERFORM. It’s not up to you to achieve success (whatever form that might take for you). It’s not up to you to do great on the test, write the book, reach the goal, get the promotion. Focus your effort on what IS up to you. What do you KNOW to do, and WANT to do, now. That IS your job. Go do that.
Thoughts are fleeting, which is why you can’t solve thinking problems with more thinking. If the nature of thought is that it is random and transient, and you can only feel pressure when you engage with pressure-filled thinking, then whatever pressure or stress you are experiencing now, will only last for as long as the thought lasts. Have you noticed that no one ever has remained stuck with only one thought! It’s simply not how thought works. If you find yourself feeling pressure, know that it’s going to pass, and you don’t need to DO anything for this to happen, it happens on its own - it’s part of our design.