A Report Card on Your Life

Most of us have grown accustomed to receiving report cards while we were in school. While currently my job is to write report cards for children, I thought I would take stock of my life since it is the end of the year, end of the decade. I stumbled upon a quiz that rates different aspects of your life and gives you a score; a report card. I had an idea of where I wanted to focus my improvements for the next decade but thought it couldn’t hurt having some data to back me up. I took this quiz to get me focused.

https://survey.smith.queensu.ca/jfe/form/SV_0oKbWy5WleYxiVD?Q_JFE=qdg

The results were troubling.

The score has 8 different categories

Relationships

Career & Work

Finances

Health and Wellness

Contribution to the world

Spirituality

Living Environment

Planning my life

Without taking the test, what areas do you think are your strengths? Weaknesses? Well it turns out; my life needs a lot more work than I first imagined. Here are my results.

Relationships: 82.5%

Career & Work: 59.67%

Finances: 27%

Health and Wellness: 34%

Contribution to the world: 10%

Spirituality: 57%

Living Environment: 38%

Planning my life: 57%

Relationships-82.5%

This score seems about right. I think that I am good at staying in touch with friends, visiting home during the summer and planning trips to meet up with friends who live abroad. Lacking a significant other probably hurts this score but probably helps my overall happiness level so relationship score is a win.

Career & Work-59.67%

I can't help but imagine what this score would have been ten years ago. I like my job and being around kids all day. I like that most days are different and I may or may not have some type of positive impact on my students. I suppose it would be nice to not have to go to work or to get paid to write posts like these but overall I’m satisfied with how teaching has influenced my life.

Finances-27%

This score seems low for me. Especially after paying off $31 500 and climbing to a credit score of over 800, I feel like my score should at least be in the 60’s. True I don’t have an emergency fund yet or making money off investments but I have made gains and will continue to focus on this area in 2020 and beyond.

Health and Wellness-34%

This seems about right. My daily activity is limited and most days I am not even meeting the 10, 000 steps my phone tells me I need to make every day. I bike in Seoul but now that it is winter, my desire to go for a ride has decreased. My plan of action is to join a Seoul basketball league, workout with a guy from work and do yoga twice a week then go bike crazy come spring. I am most excited to tackle this weakness since it creeps into many other areas of my life.

Contribution to the World-10%

10% is embarrassing to be frank. I don’t volunteer my time and am not donating the recommended 3-5% of my salary to help causes that I am feel strongly about. This will be an easy area to improve. I think this area is super personal and what I might view as contributing to the world, you may feel differently. I think that as long as you believe you are making an effort to make a world a better place to live, that is what counts.

Spirituality-57%

Spirituality to me doesn’t necessarily mean going to church or spending x amount of hours reading a religious text. It seems like it would be important for you to define spirituality for yourself so you know how to improve this area. My overall view of spirituality would be to be connected and mindful about your time and impact on the earth, to those around you, your relationship to yourself and your thoughts.

The University of Minnesota’s websites writes that "Nurses Ruth Beckmann Murray and Judith Proctor Zenter write that "the spiritual dimension tries to be in harmony with the universe, and strives for answers about the infinite, and comes into focus when the person faces emotional stress, physical illness, or death."

https://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/what-spirituality

Spirituality is a massive topic and I will write a more detailed post once I learn more about it.

Living Environment-38%

I live in a big city in a small apartment so this one makes sense. I like the country I live in but I am not in love with it and don’t see living there long term. Ideally, I would like to live in northern Japan with close access to mountains, nature and snowboarding.

Planning my life-57%

I like to plan trips, my weekends and summer vacations. My love of planning does not translate to planning into my 40’s or eventually retirement. I have vague ides about what I want in the future but I also feel like life happens and just because you have a plan, the world has a funny way of putting its own stamp on things. It is important to plan for career growth, the importance of family and relationships as well as financial and health goals. All areas I need to focus a little more closely on.

What did we learn from all of this? If you took the quiz, you would realize that you are ‘beating me’ in life. That probably is the case and I congratulate you. What I take away from all of this is that we all have areas to improve and that the point isn’t to jump from a 40% to a 90% over a weekend. I am learning lately that small and consistent gains add up over time. This isn’t a race and you should do what brings you joy, be kind to others and think about how you can leave this planet a better place than how you found it. 

My challenge to you is to find 1-2 areas to focus on in 2020 and see how it improves your life. Remember that when setting goals, it is helpful if they are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based. For example, an easy one to start 2020 will be for me to write a guest post on someone’s blog or write an article for a magazine before the end of 2020. That would help improve my work and career score while also reaching a goal that I have had for a while. I hope the end of this year and decade leaves you time to reflect on where you went right and what areas need a closer look. I wish you an exceptional 2020.

“To all the students-no school report card can tell you whether you can achieve your dream or not. Know your purpose, know your dream, know your vision, stay focused, do your job and do not listen to anyone including your report card. Don’t let the board results or rankings bother you. Do what you are passionate about, work harder, do better but don’t let your mark sheet tell you anything.” 

Sharad Vivek Sagar