What a journey!
It all began in kindergarten, when I was a Daisy Girl Scout. I heard about the Gold Award, the highest award a Girl Scout could earn. Then and there, I decided that I was going to earn that award. Fast forward ten years, I'm taking a workshop on how to go about earning the award. My vision had become a reality! Here's three things I have learned along the journey:
1) Teamwork makes the dream work!One of the requirements of a Girl Scout Gold Award is that the girl striving to achieve it must lead a team. Initially, I was kind of bummed. I thought this was a project I could do myself and having a team would just slow me down and be so much more work. However, once my proposal was approved and I began working with my team, I realized what a blessing they were; they had so many fresh ideas, were so much more talented in differing areas, and really helped lighten the load. Looking back, they are truly the ones who were the backbones of this project. I had an idea, but they helped to make it a reality. So if you're like me and prefer to go solo on big projects, I encourage you to branch out and try working with a team--teamwork really does make the dream work!
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2) Better done than perfect.I am a perfectionist. That's part of the reason why I was initially skeptical of the idea of having to lead a team. I like to do all the work, all by myself; that way, I can always control the outcome. However, this project really helped to teach me that striving for excellence is way more effective and realistic than striving for perfection. If you strive for perfection, things will never get done; it's important to realize when we become caught up in the unimportant details and move on, accepting excellence as our achievable reality.
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3) Just keep swimming.There were definitely points during this project where I felt overwhelmed (no matter how many to-do lists I made!) and I wasn't sure how I could finish this project while balancing sports, school, and other extracurricular activities/projects. There's only so much time in a day, week, and month. At other points during the journey, some things didn't go my way. I thought of dropping aspects of the project, but decided to look for other creative solutions. In both cases, however impassible the barrier seemed, I just kept going. Your perseverance will pay off! The best things are often the hardest, so if you're working towards a goal and you stumble upon a roadblock, know there is always another way. Just keep swimming!
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