A conversation with a friend (who I'll refer to as "C") and my housemate about the their experience in year 12 inspired me to write this. After reflecting on my own experience through school and university and drawing upon what I observed over the years from my candidates and those I know, I've come to the conclusion that we expect way too much of ourselves. Parts of this great expectation comes from our culture, our upbringing, our social groups, society and our own personal drive. But how healthy is it? And at what stage in life did we get this notion that we have to achieve beyond expectation to validate ourselves?

Just from general observation over the years, I've noticed that there is a much higher academic expectation among ethnic families.  Asian families in particular, seems to place too much emphasis on academic achievement as setting the precedence for future success in all areas of life.  This places enormous pressure on kids, some just accept it and do what they're told, others will rebel and push their families away.  Some will take it to the next fatal step.  We've all known of someone or heard of someone who has broken under the pressure of being in year 12 and has gone out to hurt themselves.  Throughout high school, I envied my non Asian friends and their parents' open minded approach towards their education and academic achievements (not all of them mind you).  They're parents seems to nurture their creative/musical/sporting talents as well and had the "do your best" attitude.  Which I think is healthy and nurturing.  Meanwhile my Asian friends and I were made to feel like intellectual lepers if we didn't achieve our parents' bench mark in physics, maths and chemistry.  I couldn't give a sh1t about carbon chains, I was more interested in daisy chains.  Nonetheless, I soldiered on with my parents wishes.  As did the majority of us.   Some of us had a single minded drive to achieve what we set out to achieve in our final year of high school. "C" is an accomplished Organisational Development specialist with a Masters in Organisational Psychology.  In her final year of high school, she witnessed a classmate shoot himself.  This was two weeks before final exams, and she blocked out the event, focused on her exams and dealt with it later.  I asked her how she did it as something like that would've completely traumatised me.  She said she had to get good grades to get into the course that she wanted.  This wasn't at the insistence of her parents, she's just incredibly driven.  After exams though, she had to deal with what she witnessed and it did take a lot out of her, but she never lost focus of her goal.

Coming out of school with this expectation of us, we were conditioned to expect just as much from ourselves.  Then it became a competition among kids the same age in the community and that again set the bar a little higher at university! Some of us kept going not to prove anything to anyone else but rather to ourselves because we were aware that not being a doctor, pharmacist or engineer didn't mean that we were losers.  Often the ones who chose to study things outside the acceptable norms among our parents and their friends (Marketing, HR, Beauty Therapy, Photography). I look at my Australian friends who have achieved outstanding success and never had unnecessary pressure on them and I truly envy them. What they have achieved came from the drive within themselves and the support of their parents.  They're parents recognised and nurtured the talents they had instead of lived through them academically.  As we get older, we become accustom to these expectations and the trend continue.  Most of us end up expecting a lot from ourselves because we feel we have to validate our decisions to our parents and peers.  Even socially there is always an underlining expectation to achieve a certain status quo.  I'm sure none of your good friends expect anything of you except the normal good friend stuff. But you have a certain drive within you to achieve the goals you set for yourself. 

As adults we (whether we like to admit it or not) place enormous strains on ourselves with our expectations.  We expect ourselves to be outstanding at what we do, be a good partner, be a good friend, be a good boss, be a good parent, be a good son/daughter, we spread ourselves and our time thin.  At what point did we feel the need to excel at EVERYTHING?  When does this pressure stop?  It's beginnings are ambiguous, and the end seems to be nowhere in sight.  I'm beginning to think though, that it stops with us.  It stops when we focus on ourselves and not focus too much on other people's opinions and expectations of us.  I read somewhere once that success is a journey not a destination.  I think those of us who set massive self expectations have forgotten about the journey and just focused on the destination.  How many of you have overlooked what your career, not fully appreciated all those people you've met and the experiences you've had? If you sit down and think about it, you've all achieved success to some degree (even if it's not within the square of what society labels as success).  Yet, do you feel like you have to do more?  That it's never enough? Me too.  However, I am learning to slow down.  I'm beginning to understand that there is more to life than status and material achievements.  I'm your number one advocate in always having goals, but they can be anything you want them to be not necessarily about having things.

So how do we relieve this pressure to achieve and great expectations?  My opinion is we need to appreciate what we have and enjoy our achievements so far.  Everybody has achieved something in their life time even if it's as minor as learning to tie your shoe lace.  I think we need to slow down and appreciate our abilities, what we have, those we have around us and be grateful for what we have so far.  I'm not telling you to not have big dreams, I'm just saying, stay focus on your huge dreams but don't forget about what you've achieved so far and give yourself some credit.  And if you're a parent, don't expect your children to be like you or follow in your footsteps.  Let them live their life and be there as a guide instead of a dictator.  Trust me, they'll appreciate it and they're friends will probably think you're cool.