As I anxiously awaited my performance review at work today, I was reminded of a story that really stood out to me in Randy Pausch’ “Last Lecture.” For those of you who haven’t read our previous blogs, Randy was a professor at Carnegie Mellon, who was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer in 2006. His “Last Lecture” which he gave in September 2007 and has since turned into a book, has since become quite famous as its filled with wisdom, humor and life lessons. (I would definitely recommend watching the Lecture on YouTube or reading the transcript)
In the Lecture, he tells about an important life lesson he learned at the age of nine, playing Football for a pretty tough Football coach. One particular practice he was being constantly drilled and yelled at the whole game. His Assistant Coach came up to him after and noted how hard he was being treated and said, “That’s a good thing. When your screwing up and nobody’s saying anything to you anymore, that’s when they gave up.”
I have thought about this a lot since then, and found it to be a very important thing to remember as you work or go to school. If your colleagues, friends or boss’ see potential in you, they will give you constructive criticism and encourage you to do better. Sometimes you might have a day like Randy’s where you are constantly drilled, and feel pretty defeated. The key is that you quickly pick yourself up and listen to their criticism, so you can make improvements to your work.
I went into my review hoping for criticism (not too harsh of course) and thankfully was given a lot of things to work on in the next months. If I had gone in and my boss had said, “There really is nothing to improve.” I would have been worried. No matter how educated, intelligent, or driven you are there is ALWAYS room for improvement.
