Seeking inspiration, I opened my document of half-written notes and semi-lovely lines. Forever writing, this page is a catch-all for in-progress thoughts and potential future blog posts. One immediately caught my eye. “Write a blog post about why self-performance reviews are so freaking hard.” The bullet points underneath are a conversation with my mom:
Me: “This is so hard and I am so stressed.”
Mom: “Liz, you can do this. It’s not a calculus test!”
Me: *with dramatic flair* “I’d rather take a calculus test!!”
I paused before immediately realizing:
“Oh my gosh; I would totally bomb a calculus test right now.”
Calculus was one of those skills from high school that never fully clicked. It didn’t translate to anything I wanted to do with my future and while I studied hard at the time and while I passed the class, I was 100% certain that I could retain absolutely none of it now.
That’s when I started laughing. “I can’t do any calculus.” And I realized I laughed because I didn’t care about calculus. I wasn’t bothered by my lack of calculus ability because calculus wasn’t important to me.
I was, however, stressing myself out over a performance review because the organization that had asked me to complete it was important to me.
And that’s why I was worried about the task at hand. Because it mattered.
I remember talking to a friend once and apologizing for what felt like a lack of attention or care on my behalf. They responded that they knew I cared. I wouldn’t be worried or concerned if I didn’t. The fact that we were even having that conversation showed a level of care and diligence.
Important things matter. Important things can also wedge deep into your heart. Let them.
Love always,
Liz
