Millennials

Over the past week I watched a Simon Sinek video on millennials and their influence in the workplace. He talked about how millennials were raised being told that they are special and that they deserve things just because they want it. How we have grown up getting participation awards for coming into last place. After he said that, it really made me stop and think about my own bringing up and how I was told that I could be anything I wanted or change the world.

Tying into that, two weeks ago I competed in a state wide DECA competition. In each event they only take the top 6, there was 18 people in my event including myself. After I went and presented my case to the judges, I felt very confident in my performance and that I for sure made it into the top 6th. Later that night I found out that I didn't make it, and I was completely devastated. When I say devastated I'm not talking about being bummed for two minutes and then moving on. I was full on crying in the stair well to my father. I felt like just because I had worked my butt off and felt like I did well that I should be able to place, or even because of the fact that I just showed up I should be able to move on. Not only that but I felt like a complete failure even though I came in 7th place out of 18 which isn't bad.  That's not the case in real life. Just because you show up to your job and do the bare minimum doesn't mean you deserve that raise or promotion. Someone else who came to work and went above and beyond not because they were asked but because they wanted to. So then we quit and move on to another job because we felt like there was no room for us to grow in the company.

What I am trying to say is that we need to stop babying millennials and telling them just because they showed up doesn't mean that they are going to win. That there are other people in the world that are just better then them, and that's okay. It's great to tell someone that they can change the world or make a difference but define what the world is. The world could be your family and friends. It could be your community or even your state. As millennials we see the mountain (goal) that we have in mind. We are standing at the bottom of it looking up, and there are all these clouds. We want to be at the top so badly, but what we don't see is the small little goals we need accomplish before the top.  The point is that we need to stop being discourage when things don't go the way we want or give up because someone beat us.