One from the Archives

In this Issue: helping our students remember the many OTHER things they do right (beyond grades and tangible achievements).

First up – Go Birds! I spent most of my childhood in a Phili suburb, so I had to get that off my chest 🙂

Now to today’s blog…

Many mons ago, I stumbled across this list of 30 Accomplishments to Be Proud Of and thought it might be interesting to share it again. The writer of the blog had been asked to provide a list of her greatest accomplishments for 2012, and struggled.

She came to the conclusion that “accomplishments don’t necessarily need to entail productivity, promotion, sales, or profits. Sometimes the most fulfilling things we do in this world bring little recognition, yield no monetary results, and come without fanfare. And yet, they still can mean so much and feel so completely satisfying.”

Our students are so achievement-oriented and so successful, that sometimes it must feel to them like they are struggling just for the grades or the internship or the job opportunity. And maybe it would be a good thing to remind them that they already do a lot of terrific things that may not be as easy to measure, but are nonetheless important.

This list divides accomplishments to be proud of into three categories – your relationship with yourself, with others, and with the world. I’d be willing to bet our students are doing a lot of these already. I have lightly edited and condensed these.

Your Relationships with Others

• Offer your love and support to someone who needs understanding.
• Show up for someone who needs help—moving, packing, or doing anything that’s easier with an extra set of hands.
• Respond calmly to a tough situation to keep a small issue from escalating into something much bigger.
• Speak up for someone who otherwise might not have a voice, or may be too scared to use it.
• Volunteer your skills and talents to help someone, whether that means proofreading a friend’s resume, working at Campus Kitchen.
• Offer a random act of kindness to someone without expecting anything in return.
• Point someone in the direction of a resource, group, or event that could be life-changing for them.

Your Relationship with Yourself 

• Set a clear boundary in a relationship that needs boundaries.
• Make a commitment to yourself, whether it’s to exercise, eat healthy foods, or to try something new.
• Replace a negative, self-defeating thought with a positive, self-affirming one—and believe it.
• Stick with something you’re tempted to quit knowing that what matters most is your commitment to the journey.
• Improve how you deal with criticism, receiving it with an open-mind, without self-judgment.
• Trust and follow your intuition instead of depending on someone else to define what’s best for you.
• Forgive yourself for a mistake, and focus on seeing, enjoying, and appreciating what’s right in front of you.
• Choose a healthy coping mechanism to deal with difficult emotions.
• Allow yourself to get into the zone with something you enjoy instead of overwhelming yourself with persistent mental chatter.

Your Relationship with the World

• Purchase consciously, buying only what you need.
• Become conscious of your environmental impact, and adapt your practices as suits your values.
• Recycle. (You can recycle a lot more than you may think!) 
• Pay it forward. Do something kind for someone and tell that person to return the favor to someone else.
• Donate old clothes or unwanted goods instead of throwing them away.
• Follow Gandhi’s advice and “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

---

Do you have anything to add to the list? Maybe on a day your student got a bad grade or needs a little boost, you can remind them of some of their private acts that might be just as meaningful.