Turbulence on a tightrope

At school, all students take a Foundations course called Empathy, Balance, and Inclusion (EBI).  For many students, it’s the course that they roll their eyes at and say EBI? Not again… I’m quite surprised people dislike this course. While EBI is only three years old and still undergoing course development and refinement, I would say it’s one of my favorite 45 minutes of the week. Earlier this week, our class talked about WOOP, a strategy to tackle our goals in life, which I’ve been thinking through lately.

WOOP stands for wish, outcome, obstacle, and plan. It’s a strategy for achieving goals. What I like most about WOOP is that it not only talks about what we may have as goals, but it tells us to expect setbacks and encourages us to prepare ourselves mentally for overcoming them. Perhaps one of the biggest reasons why I set goals for myself and then fail to achieve them is because I’m not mentally prepared for a setback. I’ll often set goal x, and then go off track a little bit and struggle to restabilize myself towards that goal. For example, maybe my goal is to practice piano every day over break. Maybe I discover that I will be traveling for a little while. Coming back, it’s difficult to return to that goal-oriented mindset. Maybe my goal is to learn a section in my math book every day, but I slip one day, and then I can no longer get back into that streak. 

I’ve noticed a pattern: I have a tendency to set high goals and standards and work towards them consistently for a solid length of time. Perhaps this is what has earned me the description of “goal-oriented”. While I may be working towards a goal consistently, the entire time, it’s as if I’m walking on a tightrope. Any sort of turbulence could shake me off at any time. I need to get myself out of this tendency because I’ve realized that I’m entering this phase in my life that’s pretty critical. I’m nearing the middle of my high school career, and sooner than I can believe it, I’ll be heading right into the college application process. This is the moment in my life where consistency is critical. I cannot allow one setback, one small turbulence, or one small disturbance to utterly destroy the markers I’ve set for myself. I would like to stay on that tightrope. 

I suspect these next two years will be like a marathon, slow, steady, but consistent. It’s not a one month and done scenario. It’s a gradual build-up. It’ll be weeks filled with work, stress, and struggle, but on a more positive note, it will also be a time where I learn a lot about myself. I suspect I will learn about myself as a thinker, as a student, and as a citizen. Honestly, I’m kind of excited for that.