Without a Scorecard
Letting go of the pressure to keep up
In the working years, life was dictated by expectations. And many of those expectations were around keeping up or getting ahead. Relevance mattered. Being informed mattered. Competitiveness mattered. Personally and professionally, I felt compelled to improve. To consume the latest thinking on politics, industry trends, finance. To contribute to the conversation. To increase my productivity. Staying sharp wasn’t optional – it was survival.
Now – kid grown and flown, career left behind, no one is evaluating me anymore. Along with the loss of validation came the loss of pressure to keep improving. What a relief, right? Well … entrenched habits are hard to break. My current Kindle reading list has as many self-help books as it ever did.
I don’t have to be more efficient or productive anymore. There’s nothing compelling me to be the “best version of myself”. Yet somehow I still feel the need to keep up – to optimize, to improve. Am I afraid of falling behind? If I stopped competing tomorrow, would anyone even notice? Probably not.
Of course I would, but that’s just me comparing myself to some goal that doesn’t exist anymore. And that’s what I realized – in the absence of someone else to compare to, I’ve been comparing myself to who I was. It’s not a fair comparison. Retired Andrea isn’t less than career Andrea – she just has different drivers.
Don’t get me wrong, I want to remain an informed and competent adult. But I really don’t need to know the best AI prompts to increase my productivity by 300%. I can find what I need on the internet just fine, thank you very much (my son’s “okay boomer” comments notwithstanding), even though it may take me a few more keystrokes.
What I do need is a better focus for my learning energy – one that comes from within rather than from outside pressures. I’m going to keep up with the headlines – because I’m part of society and curious about the world. I’m going to use AI – because it’s interesting and helps me deep dive on topics I want to learn about. I’m going to learn a bit of the language before traveling to another country – because that’s part of the excitement of traveling for me.
Shifting from “I need to do this” to “I want to try this” will take some time to fully implement. Maybe the real shift is learning to live well without a scorecard. That feels like a challenge worth taking on.