Describe a decision you made in the past that helped you learn or grow.

While I was in college, I eventually learned to stop putting off turning in projects or papers because I might work on it more. I had this fear that if I turned in something early that I did not put in enough effort. I would stress out until the due dates or times because I felt I needed to put in more work with this extra time that I had. Sometimes I would fiddle with it some more, but quickly I learned that if I let it be finished when I felt it was done, then I got a better grade than if I waffled over it longer.

There comes a point during any endeavor where if you continue trying to make it perfect, you make it worse than it was before. I feel that way with writing a lot of the time. The more people go over a piece and tweak things, the harder it becomes to understand.

I am not saying you should not go over your work, but allow yourself to have an end point that is not time specific if it does not have to be. Using all your energy up worrying over something is not an enjoyable way to live. When I let go of the expectation that I should work until the last possible moment and changed to finishing a task when it is complete, life became much less stressful. There was this strange feeling that I was expected to use all the available time instead of the time being available to me if I needed it. Deciding to let that go gave me my life back. I could focus on other aspects of my life or on other academic work.