NochNoch.com

Guest post by my husband… 

Last night, just I was turning out the lights I asked Noch Noch how was her day. “Not good”, she replied, “I didn’t do anything, except sit on the couch all day”.

I knew very well that while on the couch all day she had been typing blog posts, managing the household administration, checking bank accounts, replying to emails, and probably doing countless other tasks. I quizzed her on how many hours she had spent working (not playing) on the computer? “Ummm…. nine hours”, she stated.

“You’re nuts!” I said, “It doesn’t matter if you didn’t leave the couch, you used your brain all day and even worked more hours than an average office worker does!”

“But, I only wrote 800 words today, I was supposed to write 5000” Noch Noch murmured as she quickly drifted off to sleep.

Noch Noch is an overachiever. It’s not something she decided to be or even wants to be, its just how she is. Part of it is her personality, and part of it I attribute to her high-pressured upbringing where she was expected to perform at the top levels of school, debating, piano class, basketball etc.

Living with an overachiever like Noch Noch is frustrating…

昨晚熄燈後，我問Noch Noch她昨天一天過得怎樣。“不怎麼好。”她回答，“除了在沙發上呆一整天，我不知道我還能做什麽。”

我很清楚，坐在沙發上的一天，她已經完成了她的書的好幾個章節，發表了博客，處理了家裡的帳單，或許還做了無數其他的事兒。我問她對著電腦的時候有幾個小時用在了工作上。她想了一會說：“嗯……9小時吧！”

“你瘋了！”我說，“你有沒有離開沙發并不重要，重點是你這一整天里腦子在不停地運轉，甚至比那些辦公室文員平均的工作時間還長！”

“但是，我今天只寫了800字（單詞），我應該能寫5000字（單詞）的！”Noch Noch嘟嚕著。很快她便睡著了。

Noch Noch是一個成就比預期大的人。這并不是因為她決心這樣，甚至也不是因為她想這樣，似乎她與生俱來便是如此。這當中有一部份是她的本性，另一部份我把它歸咎于她所受的高壓教育，她被大家期望著有良好的表現，無論是在課業，辯論，鋼琴還是籃球上。

…. because she is always unreasonable with herself about what she could accomplish during any single day – even when she is sick. She is rarely satisfied with her own performance, and in her mind everything is results-orientated. Although her attitudes bother me, I can understand her because I am exactly the same.

We had completely different up-bringings, yet turned out with very similar attitudes to achievement and performance. Noch Noch grew up in the Hong Kong and did absolutely everything her mother told her, even when it meant giving up her own hobbies, dreams and desires. I grew up in Australia and refused to do anything my parents told me. I was headstrong, mischievous and often got into trouble for arguing with all types of authority from a young age.

For everything we do, Noch Noch and I are always silently giving ourselves grades for performance: Blog posts, apple pies, Chinese calligraphy, wakeboarding, everything gets a grade for quality, taste, beauty or style etc.

I remember at school in Australia we used to get two grades. One was for actual test scores and the other one was for effort. Although my results were often mediocre in both, for my parents the grade that really counted was effort. I suspect that in Hong Kong effort doesn’t matter at all and only the tangible results grade counts for anything. (Noch’s note: there was no points for “effort” at all in my school…)

One problem overachievers have is benchmarking their best performance days as the standard for what should be achieved everyday.

So when the stars align and with peak energy and concentration I can put in an intensive 18 hour day that includes 12 hours of work, 2 hours of study, 2 hours of exercise and 2 hours for meals and sundries. The problem with this is because, once I know it can be done, I expect myself to perform at that level everyday. Yet, its unreasonable to expect everyday to be like that. As many over achievers aim for peak performance everyday, they end up letting themselves down and being unhappy all the time.

As I get older, and busier and become more demanding on myself, I have also become less satisfied with at the end of each day. A few weeks back this was all becoming too much to bear. I was miserable and beginning to wonder what the point of life was if I was so unhappy everyday.

I started to see myself going down a similar path to depression that Noch Noch took, so I decided to make some changes on how I judged my performance and achievement.

I re-organized my daily activities and started a simple excel spreadsheet system to track see how I spent my time each day. That way, at the end of the day/week/month I would know how I had divided my time, what I had achieved and where I needed to shift focus.

Just as my teachers in Australia had done, at the end of each day I also began to give myself a score out of ten for effort.

This has helped me to be reasonable with myself. So now, regardless of how many words I actually typed or new Chinese characters I learnt, at the end of the day I grade myself on effort. I take into account my energy and concentration levels, external demands on my time and other elements that would affect daily results.

By doing this, it makes it much easier for me to be satisfied with my day because I know if I had tried hard, and almost everyday I try pretty hard. My effort score removes any doubt of whether or not I could have done better. It lets me know that I couldn’t have gotten up earlier, done more sit ups or written an extra thousand words even if I wanted to.

So to my dear wife Noch Noch, I know you don’t like to listen to me, so I decided to write this in a post instead and hopefully your readers will support me.

Please unlearn the notion that tangible results are the only acceptable measure of your daily performance and hence happiness.

Please recognize that everyday cannot be a high performance day and try to give yourself credit for your efforts.

Whether you do or not is up to you and you know I will love you no matter what.

Love Timmie

Please also check out my post on “Communication Breakdown” between the depressed and those who are not and contribute your experience to my soon to come ebook!

跟像Noch Noch般無法預料其成就的人住在一起，實際上，是很令人沮喪的。因為她面對自己每天可以完成的事情總顯得不可理喻。她很少，應該說從來都不會對她的表現感到滿意。在她的腦里，所有事情的結果都已經被定好了方向。儘管她如此的態度讓我很懊惱，但我卻很能理解她。因為實際上，我也是一個這樣的人。

我們接受著不同的教育，然而在面對表現和成就，我們卻有著極為相似的態度。Noch Noch在香港長大，她謹遵媽媽所教授的一切，甚至放棄了她的愛好，夢想以及渴求。我在澳大利亞長大，從不聽從父母的教導。任性、淘氣，經常因辯駁各種權威而闖禍。

對我們所做的一切，Noch Noch和我總在默默的為我們自己評分：博客上的日誌，蘋果派，書法，水上滑板。所有的事物在品質、品位、審美、風格等等都有一個評分。

記得在澳大利亞讀書的時候，我們有兩個成績。一個是確切考試的成績，另一個則是努力分。 在兩方面我都差不多，但對我父母來說，他們真正關心的是我的努力分。而我猜，可能在香港努力分一點都不重要，只有直觀的考試成績才算數。

對成就總比預期大的人來說，其中一個毛病就是總以自己的最佳表現作為衡量每一天必須達到的標準。

當表現一直保持出色，能量和集中力達到峰值的時候，我可以在一天的18小時內排滿了12小時的工作，2小時的學習和2小時的運動，剩下2小時的給自己吃飯和做其他雜事。問題就在於因為我知道這是可已實現的，我便期望自己都每天都保持這樣的狀態。然而這其實是很不合理的。正因為每個成就比預期大的人都以峰值為目標，因此每一天的結束都會讓他們整天都很失落。

隨著年齡以及工作量的增長，我對自身的要求越來越高。對於每一天的結束我也越來越不滿意。幾個星期前，這種情況變得尤為嚴重。我是如此的悲觀。這使我開始疑惑我每天都這麼不開心地活著，那麼生存於我而言又有何意義？

我開始發現我走進了和Noch Noch如此相似的困境。因此我決定要改變自我審視的方式。

我對我的日常活動作了新的安排，并以電子表格的形式記錄我每一天是如何度過的。這樣，在每一天、每一禮拜或每個月結束時，都能知道我是如何規劃時間的。也能得知我都做了什麽以及需要把重點放在什麽地方。

正如我在澳大利亞的那些老師們所做的一樣，每天結束時，我都會以十分為滿分，給自己所作的努力打分。這使我更加合理地對待自己。

所以現在，不管我寫了多少個字或學了多少個新的中文字，我所付出的努力才是日結評分的標準。我的精神狀態、集中程度、客觀的外部需求以及其他會影響我日常表現的因素都被納入了考慮範圍。

這樣做使我更滿意我的每一天，因為我知道我付出了努力。每一天我都付出了很多很多的努力。我的努力分基本上消除了我對我每天是否能做的更好的顧慮。這使我知道即使我想，也無法起的早點再早點，做更多更多的仰臥起坐并寫多1000個字（單詞）。

我的愛妻Noch Noch，我知道你并不喜歡聽我對你說教。所以我把這寫到博客上，希望你的讀者會支持我。

請忘掉直觀的成績才可能衡量你日常表現的想法，這樣你會更開心。切記不可能每一天都有出色的表現，所以給你的努力加加分吧！

是否接納我的意見，是你的選擇。但無論如何我都以一如既往地愛你。

愛你的 Timmie