Things I Learned About Life From High School: Day 1

On Friday I completed my last day of high school. Now that it's over I have time to think about all of the experiences I have had over the last 4 years. Things that I had success doing, and things that where harder than I ever thought could be possible. For the next 11 days until graduation I will be posting a take away or important reflection about high school life.
-Abs

1. Grades are important, but unhealthy thinking causes stress and unhappiness. 
 I had conditioned myself to strive for perfection in everything I did. When I fell short (which happened frequently, because we are all human), I would get upset and only focus on what I was lacking. For example if I studied hard and got a 95% on a math test, I would be upset that I still missed 5%, instead of being proud that I had mastered the material. This kind of thinking lead me to see every assignment, test, and project as a potential "grade crusher". I would envision the worst possible outcome, a bad grade that lead to a lowered GPA that lead to not getting into college. This scenario never actually happened. But still I continued to be stressed out and unhappy. Then in the last 6 months of my senior year I started to really change the way that I approached my school work.

I began to focus on learning the material and less on my unrealistic expectations of myself as a learner. I began to give myself more positive "self talk" and allowed myself to enjoy the little victories when I did well. I became less stressed out and started to have more positive attitude. I'm not saying that it was easy to change my thinking, but I feel that I have made lots of progress in the right direction. I think the biggest thing that I am going to take with me to college is that it is good to be motivated and to have goals,  but good learning  can take place when you don't get things right the first time. I think it's about trying and trying and trying again until you understand.
"The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change"
-Carl Rogers