I went into a leadership position with a list of expectations and came out learning a lot of things I did not plan for.

Some might say this is because I did not follow every step I mapped out; others might say there is not one direction your leadership should take you, but many.

And through every obstacle, each failure is what made me stronger than before.

You also cannot prepare yourself for how others are going to work in the time before reaching your goal, and this is a reality that has been hard to face.

Of course, this idea turns me right back around to my leadership and analyzing what it lacked: assertion and organization.

Even though I messed up, I can see why and where things went wrong, and this was somewhat of a healing process in drinking the bitter beverage of pride.

Being editor of the yearbook was a challenging and amazing privilege that helped me grow with patience and maturity.

Once everything was finally done, I was able to reflect on my mistakes and to analyze how they are not to dwell on, but to move forward from.

I have written columns on this before but have still had an issue doing it, as most people do.

When you work hard on something or several things at once, it is hard to evaluate yourself to get ready for the next steps in life.

Maybe this comes from a sense of entitlement or pride for being able to juggle more than one thing, but college students are constantly complaining about how busy they are, and I have been guilty of this too.

Lately I think about the reminder from those who are wiser than me and my peers that we should think about how it could be worse and how we might be using our “busy schedules” as an indirect excuse to freak out or be lazy.

Analyzing ourselves is a scary task to take on because we do not want to be wrong—we would rather recognize our strengths than our weaknesses, but we are skipping over an important part of being alive.

If we constantly fear and make excuses for not doing something, then we are limiting ourselves to what we are good at, and that is how you become the “one trick pony.”

Of course, we are all still busy and that is OK, but it is important to bring ourselves back down to Earth when there are people doing the same thing as us with children or other things behind the scenes. We could be much busier and much more stressed—it’s just a matter of managing it.

Not only does humbling yourself help ease the stress, but it also keeps you in perspective.

Abbey Whittington is a junior journalism major and can be reached at 581-2812 or qnwhittington@eiu.edu.