“You are an overachiever.” I have heard it a thousand times. It is as if it is a dirty word. It is as if it is a bad thing. And to be honest, I just don’t even understand the word and I really don’t understand how what I really think it is .is a bad thing.
According to the Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, achieving means to carry out successfully and the appropriate usage of over in this case is “beyond some quantity, limit, or norm, often by a specified amount or to a specified degree. ”The dictionary defines overachieve (according to dictionary.com) as:
1. to perform, especially academically, above the potential indicated by tests of one's mental ability or aptitude.
2. to perform better or achieve more than expected, especially by others.
I suppose it is possible for one to derive those definitions when combining the meanings of the definitions of achieve and over. Definition two here, though, hits the nail on the head when it states “especially by others.” The problem with the word overachieving is that it is often used to criticize others in the academic field and the basis for judgment of whether one has overachieved is external not internal. Just who is anyone else to determine where someone else’s level of achievement should cease or end is?
I say that the word overachieve is used to criticize others in the academic field because in my experience, it has never been said to me in a positive way. It often comes from peers and in a snide and critical manner accompanied by rolling the eyes and some other comments about the waste of time I put into my work.
Personally, I think that my work is a representation of my ability and anything less would be me underachieving. I am not quite certain why I should let the expectations of someone else limit my ability. I would like the work that I do display what my potential is and that is not always what is expected by our professors, teachers, or bosses. So, I may just be mincing words, but I would prefer to say that I have merely achieved to MY ability while I may have exceeded someone else’s expectations. I would like to be the one to determine what my ability is. It is after all what I am capable of and I can’t seem to fathom how anyone else can determine if I have gone “over” my own ability.
Truly, I thinking ability is ability and it can improve with education, practice, time, patience, dedication and choice. Any level of achievement we reach, if we try our best, is our true level of achievement…we go “over” nothing. We just exceed expectations of requirements placed by others.
We never hear of Olympic track athletes who break Olympic records or world records being snidely called overachievers when all they had to do is win the race to earn the gold medal. We recognize their efforts and dedication for training and now they have a new level of achievement.
It is a different story in academia, however. I can’t help but think that in some cases, those who use the word overachiever in a negative way (I am not sure that it is truly intended to be used only in such a way) do so to help relieve themselves of feeling guilt for perhaps not having chosen to do their personal best or just not doing the work at all the way it was intended to be done and “faking it.”
I think that in everything we do, we have to examine the expectations put before us and determine if we want to use them as the bar at which to represent ourselves. Achievement is something that is determined by us and should therefore be measured internally…not externally. No one has the right to say that we have overachieved. Only we can determine what we are capable of achieving. Expectations are set externally…we can exceed them.
I am just an achiever…I choose to achieve to my ability.
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