What…
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Posts
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• What is wild, valuable or extraordinary about you?
• What are your “must-have’s” for your life’s happiness? What are “must-not have’s”?
• If you don’t already, where do you want to live?
• Name the top 3 things / adventures you have left to accomplish in your life?
• What kind of life would “make you jealous“ to have by next year?
• Who in your life now inspires you, brings energy to your life and helps you to be yourself more deeply (and genuinely like yourself)?
• Who in your life now sucks life from you, makes you dislike yourself, makes you dislike YOUR life or just makes you dislike life? When and how will you break up with them?
• What makes you come alive? What ignites you? What makes you forget time, food and water?
• What does your body need in order to function at its best?
• What are you proud that you’ve accomplished so far? (Please: Don’t compare yourself to others.)Hey Mark, oh my goodness that’s a long list of questions lol..
I’ll pick the last one. I moved to the States when I was 19. I left my family, my friends, my home and everything behind. My English wasn’t good because I started learning English when I was probably around 16 or 17. I took the TOEFL and SAT three times each to get an acceptance to my dream school.
When I first arrived in the States, I was pretty overwhelmed by cultural differences, new environment, and new food etc. Fast forward 5 years of struggles and hard work and pushing myself every day, I graduated from college with Departmental Honors and summa cum laude. I pursued my graduate school right after and graduated as a top student and Honors.
Though graduating with Honors and being recognized as a top student is huge, what I’m most proud of is my persistence and determination. It’s easy for people to say that I’m born smart or make such comments. But as a person who has gone through it, I can 100% say it wasn’t easy and I had many moments I felt like I was close to giving up. I’m happy to be where I am and proud of myself for never giving up on my goals.
You’ve shared before that, when you first came, it literally took you a week to read one chapter in English, yes?
Amazing grit.
What would you say was the #1 factor in your perseverance? What made you persevere? Genuinely asking: wanting to “prove” yourself, perhaps because of past life experiences or a home environment were you were told you wouldn’t or couldn’t succeed? (this has been a factor in my success) Were you taught to persist from a parent or sibling?
Again, I’m confident that there were many factors – I’m asking the #1 and, in particular recognizing that sometimes we’re driven to succeed by past failure/disfunction and sometimes drive to succeed by healthy values and function. We each have our drives. What was your #1 drive to persevere?
That’s a great question, Mark! It’s kinda hard to say but I was heavily focused on academics since elementary school.
I remember participating in a Math competition in my first grade and had done tons of competitions through school. I did very much enjoy competing with kids, having that thrill of setting a goal, and winning competitions and making my mom and my family proud of me. That continued through my undergrad and grad school in States as well.
It’s really hard to pinpoint a single thing to say that this was the main reasons why I persevered. I think many factors contributed to it. For example, for my undergrad, I got a full-ride scholarship from my government, and there was no way I’d fail in classes because if I did, the government would cut the funding and I’d have to go back to my home country. In fact, that was one of my major fears before I left. The government set 3.0 GPA as the minimum and they’d cut the funding if students fail to get the minimum 3.0 GPA.
So all in all, I don’t know exactly why I persevered through things.. maybe it’s my personality?
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