by Ramu
5. March 2010 21:37
Development is an improvement in our capabilities relative to our current capabilities. It is not relative to the capabilities of others. Thus our objective has to be to better ourselves.
Often children are shown others as examples to inspire the children to do better than what they have been doing. We highlight to children that the neighbour’s child has scored far better. We highlight the achievement of that other child studying in the same class. Such comparisons do not stop at childhood. As adults we compare with others. Progress becomes a relative to that of others. A colleague is earning far more that that we are earning. That other classmate has reached a very high position in the corporate ladder.
Such external comparisons have very limited use on the positive side and is detrimental to a large extent. Children grow up with a sense of inferiority complex. They tend to have lesser belief or appreciation of their own capabilities. As adults we fail to recognise our achievements and in turn feel that we are always lagging.
Such external comparisons or relative to others does not make sense. They are more often negative and drain ones energies.
Development is a matter of “bettering” oneself. If the child is scoring 40 marks out of 100 in a subject, encouraging the child to score, maybe, 45 in the next exam. If the child ran the 100 metre race in 14 seconds, encouraging it to do it in 13.5 the next time. If the child made a drawing, encouraging it to make something better and tougher one the next time. The idea is to challenge the child relative to itself, help the child do better than what it has been doing so far, make it stretch its capabilities. This builds confidence in the child. It helps the child feel good about what it is doing now and gives a confidence that it can do better. It drives the child to strive to better itself.
This is true for the adults too. It would be better off if the manager encourages her salesman beat his sales achievement of the last quarter, encouraging that programmer to write better code the next time, that machinist to deliver better precision. When one is taking self initiative to develop oneself it would help to set targets for oneself based on ones own past achievements – “better than what I did in the past” – spending more quality time with family, making better savings, spending more time on learning those new developments in technology. Such improving our abilities is far more satisfying. It gives us a confidence that we can do even better in the future. It builds a positive approach by giving us those achievable targets – its ours coming from within us and not from others. In short it makes do better and feel better.
Can we increase challenging ourselves, and reduce comparing with others?
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