The Test(s)
July 30th, 2018To start this story, I need to tell a little bit about myself.
One of my main personality profile traits is a fear of failure. It’s come up on a couple different personality tests from a couple different places I have worked. This trait has its pros and cons with my career in IT – where I tend to test things very thoroughly and overall try to be risk averse. This ultimately helps our customers have less downtime – so to some degree that can be a pro. One of the cons of it, however, means that if I’m unsure about something I may tend to set it on the backburner and procrastinate it.
A very specific example of this is taking certification tests for IT related technologies. Throughout my career, I’ve been to training for many enterprise level things: Cisco networking, VMware, various Linux/Unix, Microsoft Server, etc – the list goes on and on. But I had never taken a test after these trainings to get certified. I would tell myself “oh my employers don’t care about the certification, just the knowledge that comes with the training” but if I am being honest with myself, I avoided the tests because I was scared I’d fail. I would feel humiliated, disappointed in myself, and that fear of failure made it too easy for me to avoid facing a test. I’d think about this every year or so, and have this twinge of guilt and remorse; a dark spot on my IT career that I would try not to think about.
Fast forward to 2018 and Chase being 8 years old. The cub scouts are having a late nighter at the YMCA which has a couple hours budgeted for swimming. In order to be able to swim the full range of the pool and not be confined to the kiddie section, swimmers have to take a “test” to demonstrate their swimming ability to a life guard on staff. The test consisted of treading water for 60 seconds, and then swimming the length of the pool without touching bottom or stopping. I knew without a doubt that Chase could do this after swimming for a couple summers at Grandma’s house – but he was less sure of himself. He didn’t want to take the test, and he was telling me (and himself) he was going to be fine in the shallow end of the pool. As I started to talk him through it, at some point my words of advice to him became my own advice as well. “I know you can pass – but even if you don’t, it’s ok! Try your best and see what happens. Even if you do fail, we’ll practice and try again”. Even after a few rounds of this, he remained hesitant and was going to settle for the shallow end. I didnt want that for him. I dont want him to settle. But, that meant I couldn’t settle for the figurative shallow end either…
I finally said “you know what – I know exactly how you feel. I’m scared to take tests too. I never take them when I should at work because I worry I wont pass”.
It was now clear that Chase has this same personality trait, so it was time for us both to get over this hump together. I proposed a deal: If he would try the swim test at the YMCA, I would register for an exam on the latest training I had gone through – Microsoft’s Cloud. Once he had me willing to take the plunge with him (puns, puns everywhere), Chase summoned up the courage to try the swim test that night at the YMCA. Of course the kid passed. He treaded water without an issue, and swam his best to get to the end of the pool with an excited grin on his face. I congratulated him, telling him I knew he could do it. Now with his part completed, I was committed. Even if I had to admit to my son that I failed my part, I had made a promise and there was no backing out now. I went ahead and scheduled my exam for implementing Microsoft cloud solutions.
I took it seriously. I did some practice tests, hands on labs, and even studying my practice exams while coming back from a road trip to Mackinac island. I felt prepared, but I was still very nervous when it came to test time. The proctors of these exams take it even more seriously. You’re monitored on video, and they take all your belongings off your person before you’re allowed to start the test. You get a notepad and writing utensil for notes… That’s it. I honed my concentration as much as possible and tried to remember my own advice – “It’s ok if you fail – but try your best”. About an hour later, I was done. Before I was even ready to see my score, the electronic system thrusts it at me. 861/1000 – RESULT: PASS. I was more happy and excited than Chase had been when he’d passed his respective test, for sure. Although, I guess mine has been over ten years in the making here. And even better for me was how awesome it felt to tell the kid that ended up being MY inspiration that neither of us were settling for the shallow end…