Reframing Success
Every week in Assembly, we gain insights from speeches delivered by members of our Student Leadership Team. This week, with Year 11 on retreat, we had the opportunity to hear from Scarlett, a Year 10 student. She shared the importance of refraining from comparison with others.
I always thought it was quite ridiculous how we measure our own achievements. We get stuck in the idea that success is something shaped by the quantity and size of the result. We can feel that if we are not coming first or getting an A, then we are not worth celebrating.
Every day for everyone is different. Some things are going to be harder, and some easier. We compare ourselves with others constantly, believing that what we have done is not worth recognition or that it does not “scale” in comparison with the achievements of others.
Instead, we should be focusing on the journey we’ve undertaken to get to where we are. We are all at different places in our lives, and that is okay. It is why, when we start to compare ourselves with others, we get such a skewed perception of what success and achievement is. We only really see a fraction of the lives of the people who surround us. I, just like many people here, subject myself to these comparisons, and I can guarantee that they don’t get you anywhere. Even as I wrote this speech, I found myself questioning and comparing it. We can be our own worst critics when it comes to our own achievements.
Learning to celebrate yourself and acknowledge the work you have put in is very hard. You can rationally know that you cannot be an amazing person all the time, yet still feel let down when you fail. But you can start by being kinder to yourself, allowing for mistakes to be made, appreciating your differences rather than comparing them and recognising just how far you have come.
As American author, Orison Swett Marden, once said, “Success is not measured by what you accomplish but by the opposition that you have encountered, and the courage with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds.”
If the hardest thing you do today is to wake up and come to school, then that is something you should celebrate. Stop comparing your life with others’ lives and acknowledge that you are taking your own journey, filled with your own struggles. Your achievements will and should look different from everyone else’s, and it is okay if the steps that you take every day are small. Start celebrating yourself, to elevate yourself.