Summary: We all get an academic report (which we always overestimate) but what about our personal report card – health, goals, and relationships?

Remember the last time you felt good about writing an exam and walked out with your big smiley face? 😀

Fast forward to exam results. Bummer. You find out that you got much MUCH lower than expected! :'(

Well, that is something that just happened to me.

Then I had the choice of doing one of two things: blame something external (exam was too hard or everybody failed) or begin working on your weaknesses.

That was a reality check of how I was doing academically.

Reflections of Achieving a Low Academic Grade

This experience got me thinking about two key-takeaways;

1. We have biased and vague self-evaluations
2. We don’t like to know that we did poorly on something

Now, what about my personal progress? Who gives you that reality check – the ugly truth?

What if my personal progress report is much lower than what I think it is as well?

Sure, you can say you do or your parents are “proud” of you. But do the above two key takeaways apply here too?

Yes.

Let’s say you are writing a book. Perhaps you are tracking how many pages you have written. You have a vague sense of progress. However, you have no standard to compare yourself with.

Am I an A+ or B- or D-?

If you had a personal coach and he graded you, how would you do?

It is in one’s comfort zone to avoid grading oneself. Who wants the disappointment of knowing that their progress has been bad?

However, is the temporary disappointment of  honest self-evaluation worse than experiencing a project failure?

I have set vague goals and still do at times. It is our tendency to write down something in our To-Do list or calendar but rarely do we grade ourselves on it. However, in addition to our GPA, we can begin to grade ourselves to be assured that our dreams and aspirations will materialize.