Since my childhood, I have had countless family members tell me that I have a bright future ahead of me. Since my father is a doctor, most of these comments involve a baseline assumption that I too will become a doctor. So, from a young age, before I even realized it, I had it in my mind that medicine was the only path for me. For a while, I was totally on board with this. I have always enjoyed biology, and I used to love talking to my dad about his patients when he came home from work. But as my love for biology grew, so did my love for writing. I soon began to find that my humanities classes were always my favorites. All of the awards I ever received in high school were either for my writing or other work in the humanities. I noticed this and started to think: Well, this doesn’t really scream “doctor,” but I pushed these thoughts aside.
While working on my college applications, I was faced with so many questions about my potential career path. I was confronted with the fact that I had never seriously thought about what I truly wanted to do with my life. I enjoy both science and writing; so why was it that I had only ever considered a career as a doctor?
Looking back, it all comes down to how I viewed success. In Egyptian culture, success comes in about four sizes: a career as a doctor, pharmacist, engineer or lawyer (there are so many memes about this, iykyk). My own ideas of success had been so heavily influenced by this view that I didn’t really have a definition of my own. Without even realizing it, I had internalized all outside pressure to fit into one of these categories and placed that same pressure on myself. The thought of my career always seemed so daunting and distant, and I finally understood why. I never viewed my future career as something I was supposed to enjoy. My career was just something I had to excel in.
It turns out, adopting other people’s ideas of success was a large contributor to the overwhelming anxiety I have when it comes to my schoolwork. Along with this anxiety comes an unhealthy amount of pressure I tend to put on myself to “succeed.” When I perform poorly on midterms, my first thoughts are often about how my GPA will drop and negatively impact my chances of getting into graduate school. It’s really quite exhausting. I find myself occasionally wondering: Why am I even doing this? Why am I working myself so harshly? Why does being “successful” mean so much to me?
Once I came to this realization, I’ve been able to explore careers based on both my skills and my interests. I’ve been able to think outside of the box and come up with different combinations that I never before thought possible. For the first time ever, I actually enjoy thinking about possible career paths. Redefining success has also improved almost every aspect of my academic life. I take all my classes one week at a time, and I’m now a lot kinder to myself when things don’t go according to plan. Every now and then, I’m hit with a wave of intrusive thoughts about how my new ideas don’t fit the old criteria for success that I’m used to, but I’m in a better position to be able to work through these anxieties now.
I view redefining success as a way to take control of my life. The most beautiful thing to have come out of this process is that I’m now excited for my future. Having something to aspire to doesn’t have to be daunting! I am most definitely still a work in progress, so I like to say that I am training myself to redefine success- and you should too.