We all grow up learning a few simple lessons. The sky is blue, two plus two equals four and so many other things. One thing that I think gets preached down to us is that our best is always enough (and before you start thinking I believe the opposite, think again). Yes our best really is enough… but why does it feel like this isn’t always true?

I know for myself that I can put more pressure on myself than is needed. Honestly I can make the effort to be more kind to myself. I can do the work and affirm myself. The challenge in letting my best be enough is learning how to just be. It’s learning how to let myself be enough and not feeling the need to prove my value or my worth to other people. From my own perspective, I feel like because of some choices I’ve made, I’ve found myself in positions where I had to prove myself or at least felt the need to compete with other people. Let’s just called this the, “curse of the gifted student”.

So when I was in elementary school I was approached with the GATE program, which if you don’t know is the Gifted and Talented Education Program. I don’t even know or remember how it even happened, but basically a student has to exhibit that they are “gifted and talented in areas such as specific academic ability, leadership, visual and performing arts, and creativity”. Tiffany Ferg has a great video on YouTube that does a deep dive into this whole experience and some of the problems that come up as a result. I’ll let her give you the hot take, but in the meantime I’ll get back to my point.

Here’s an interesting article from the National Association of Gifted Children, and I would encourage you to look through the website if you feel like it. According to the article, some issues that can lead to depression in gifted students include:

• Perfectionism
• Overachieving behaviors
• Self-criticism
• Not feeling like you fit in
• Low self-esteem
• Negative self-talk

It should also be noted that these things are not solely applicable to gifted students. In my own experience, standing out and being one of the best was something to celebrate. No joke! I remember crying if I got anything below a B on a quiz or getting upset if I didn’t get some kind of certificate or award for an academic achievement. I was doing my absolute best to make sure I always had straight A’s and the funny part about it was that none of this pressure was coming from my parents or other family members. Yes, I did this all on my own and if I could go back in time I would tell myself to ease up a little.

High School

My parents have always pushed me and my siblings to do the best we could, but they’ve never had to be drill sergeants or push us to getting the best grades imaginable. I feel in hindsight I was definitely overcompensating for what I couldn’t see or appreciate in myself. Getting good grades and coming out on top was my way of proving to the world, and ultimately to myself, that I was good enough. Fast forward a few years. I am a senior in high school and ready to pursue my major.

If you talk to other engineers they may have a similar story to tell. More often than not, they were excellent students who had a deep love and interest in math and science. They may have been involved in some STEM (or STEAM) activities growing up, or maybe they had engineers in their family who encouraged them. Some people may have chosen engineering solely for the money, which I don’t think is the right thing to do, but that’s a different conversation for a different day. I decided I was going to major in chemical engineering since I really liked chemistry and wanted to do something that was interesting. I remember one of my motivations being that I didn’t want to work in an office, and if you’re reading this and considering engineering, just know that you may end up working in an office anyway.

College

When I went to Cal Poly Pomona as a freshman I was so pumped. I was ready to change the world and become an engineer. I went from not knowing what engineers even did to deciding I was going to be one! The one thing that no one told me about before was just how hard it would be. Make no mistake. I wasn’t deluded into thinking that this was going to be a piece of cake, but I did think that I could probably pick things up relatively quickly…. Think again.

What it Really Means to be the Best

When you are used to being “the best” in one circle and then you get put into another circle full of people who are also “the best”, it’s easy to see how things may not shake out in your favor. During my first year at college I definitely had a wake up call. I was smart, but there were people who were much smarter than me. In the grand scheme of things this is perfectly okay, but in my world that meant I had to work even harder. I couldn’t let up. Even if I wasn’t thee best I still needed to push myself. Failure wasn’t an option (even though after failing a class during my last year of college I did indeed learn failure was very much a possibility).

I made it through that chapter of my life and came out with my degree, but I also had to deal with the problems that came up as a result. If you watched the video earlier in this post, you’ll know that for some people who are in these environments, mental health issues can go unaddressed. I dealt with so much anxiety, stress, and depression. I had points where I was unmotivated and didn’t know how I was going to keep going in the program. Taking a test felt like a battle and I dreaded getting anything back that wasn’t a good result. At some point I got comfortable with the idea that sometimes you just have to survive and advance, but by the time I got to that point and finished I realized that I had to go back and do the work to understand the issues I was facing.

It took me five years to finish my degree. During that time I did end up taking somewhat of a break from the curriculum and pursued a minor in African American studies (which I wasn’t able to complete due to a semester conversion). I finally got my degree, but I had to take a look at where I was in life. Yes, I was on my way to a job. Yes, I finally had my degree, but I didn’t really understand myself fully. I was deep in this thing that I didn’t make enough space to just focus on me. If you listen to my quarter-life crisis episode of the podcast you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

I can only speak for myself, but I feel as an engineer I learned that I had to do the absolute best when it came to classes, internships, interviews, projects, presentations, etc. I do acknowledge a lot of that pressure came from me, but if you take any engineering disaster course you’ll learn that in extreme cases the consequences can be terrible. When I failed my class nothing catastrophic happened, but I was just so low mentally and emotionally that I ended up putting off some other plans that I had for myself. In that instance it was clear to me that my best wasn’t actually enough, but I was able to retake the class in the summer and move on. Now I want to touch on the point I made earlier of not fully knowing myself…

According to Abigail Brenner, M.D., “Self-realization is the healthy desired goal. A less healthy alternative exists when identity is dictated by self-idealization, when the idealized self tries to compensate for a sense of inadequacy and low self-esteem. As psychoanalyst Karen Horney puts it, self-idealization inevitably manifests in the search for glory where the individual creates a persona for him/herself that exemplifies all that is right and perfect; this in spite of the fact that the individual unconsciously feels that he/she is flawed, deficient, and imperfect; in other words, ‘not good enough.’ So the individual may try to live up to an ideal that may have nothing to do with who they really are.” Check out the full article here!

So how can we let our best be enough? Here are a few things I’ve learned:

Let go of the need to be the best.

It’s okay to just let things be. You don’t have to criticize yourself for every decision you’ve made. You don’t have to reflect on a score you received. Learn from the experience and move on. I know when it comes to overthinking you can think yourself right into a bad situation.

Drop the competition.

What are you competing for? Maybe a better question is who do you think you’re competing against? What’s for you is for you and it won’t pass you by. Someone being better at something isn’t the end of the world. You have your own strengths and talents that should be celebrated. Run you own race. If you focus too much on how fast someone else is going you’ll end up missing your finish line. Do you and drop the competition.

Let go of being a perfectionist.

There are things you used to do that served you in one area of your life. Maybe you’re like me and suffered from some perfectionist tendencies. Who says you have to be perfect? No one is actually perfect at the end of the day. Sometimes you’ll have to disappoint some folks. You may have to take an L every now and then, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t worthy. That doesn’t mean that you are doing something wrong. It’s easy to wear perfectionism as some weird badge of honor, but focusing on perfection isn’t doing you or anyone else any favors. Live your life even it gets messy. Perfectionism is not it!

Well that was a lot, but hopefully you were able to take something away from this. I think this conversation is so important to have especially for people who are in gifted programs or who have been focused on academic excellence for a long time. We have to be able to show ourselves grace and truly learn how to let our best be enough.