[Type 3] Threes and problem with being overly ambitious?!

[Chloe]

Do you guys have this problem?

I just took college entrance exams, and out of 1800 people who applied I was first with 851 points, 2nd was 817, then all under 800.
My initial plan was to have 920 points so I pretty much failed Not to mention that one part of tests (851 is all together,6-7 tests) I was only among top 15% which really disturbed me

In some other scenarios if I did worse I wouldnt even open a thread because I would just try to forget the whole failure thing and focus on next chance to proe myself.

Thing is, I know this isnt very normal. I get absolutely frustrated when I cant feel best in something I've put my mind into. :/


Other issue is that I have periods of huge ambitions combined with periods of totally being flat about success because it is too much work and there are more imp things; which is very bad combination IMO because you cant set your priorities

and i absolutely manage to destroy most of things i have achieved in period of when i dont care or am too lazy

Also, I am afraid of that day -hope it never happens- when I will figure out that I cant achieve at all what I planned and I will end up just average. Since i am getting older i am more aware of that scenario bc my career so far was disasterous because of i was changing my mind 100 times and didnt invest in 1 thing enough.
If someone asked me couple years ago about success I would be absolutely sure I will make it, dont know is this typically 3 to have too much self/confidence sometimes, but I am able to black out all negative scenarios and just see how "i can do it"; it is powerful drive but obviously it is often far from reality; I am more and more aware that failure is very likely.

 

[Nomenclature]

Oh my god.

I recently got my new ACT scores back the other day. 32 composite out of 36, which is top 1%. I achieved my goal of 30 composite and 34 in any subject. The first time, I got 29 composite (top 6%) and 33 in science. Imagine how excited I was for a 3 point increase.

There are few situations worse than having nothing to show for working my ass off, but I'm young and I don't think I'll run out of options any time soon. Not accepted into my dream college? Psh, sign up for an easier college and transfer after getting a degree and serving a year on the Peace Corps. Commited? Dedicated? Fuck, yes.

I myself couldn't set my priorities for a while-- I'm good at pretty much everything I try, and I'm scattered as fuck. But this year, I realized that there really is nothing else that makes me tick the way physics does (except maybe sexology, but... ), not to mention I can start working in a lab right away after graduating. I could work for NASA. I could work for the U.S. Navy. I could work for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It's so versatile and has so much potential (certainly more than the other majors I was considering). I think that works for me.

Other people call it ADHD. I just call it having heavily polarized motivation and excitement.

 

[Chloe]

haha.. "I could work for NASA. I could work for... etc." - I know this thinking pattern but I wonder how much it is distorted 3s way of thinking and not reality. This is what I was thinking when saying that 3s can be too self confident. Which is not completely bad - until you end up o your ass and figure you saw it all how u wanted to see it and not how it IS.

 

[Nomenclature]

haha.. "I could work for NASA. I could work for... etc." - I know this thinking pattern but I wonder how much it is distorted 3s way of thinking and not reality. This is what I was thinking when saying that 3s can be too self confident. Which is not completely bad - until you end up o your ass and figure you saw it all how u wanted to see it and not how it IS.

A couple research teams at my high school from this graduating year did get awards from the US Navy (one of the projects was something with snail slime as a medical adhesive) and I have connections with people who work in labs, sooooo... I have grounds to believe that it's doable from a pragmatic standpoint. I can name other cases in which I was fucked from the start but all too stubborn though.

 

[Chloe]

so you say "failure is not an option" ?

anyway, of course you can get the job, but you can be bad at it, or something, there are always millions of possibilities to fail...

 

[21%]

I have a feeling that you will identify hugely with your enneagram type when you are young, but as you grow up, you learn to become more balanced and accepting (including accepting yourself), and you sort of 'step' out of the box. I think healthy threes will slowly learn NOT be so success-driven once you get a bit older.

I'm in my late twenties, and I remember that I felt soooo 4 when I when I was at uni. Now I feel like I'm 'settling down' in my personality and I like myself better this way

 

[Elfboy]

I don't think it's so much that 3s are too ambitious as much as ambitious about the wrong things. wanting to make $1,000,000 a year retire by age 45 is useful ambition; wanting to get 100% in every class you take is not

 

[Chloe]

Actually, I wanted to get 100% because first person gets scholarship - so it is. But still, I put too much into it

 

[Octarine]

Ambition without passion is impotent. When you are passionate about something, you are far less likely to be motivated by factors such as a fear of failure. But sustained passion requires commitment.

 

[Chloe]

Ambition without passion is impotent..

you described my problem in few words so well; i am crazy ambitious but have no susstained passion.

 

[Speed Gavroche]

 

[FDG]

I'm not a 3, but I kind of relate. Yet as a 7 I don't want to be 1st, but I want to be in the top 5th percentile at everything I do.

 

[Chloe]

I'm not a 3, but I kind of relate. Yet as a 7 I don't want to be 1st, but I want to be in the top 5th percentile at everything I do.

well, thats the same... "winning" is the most important.

 

[Nomenclature]

3w4 in another picture:

I don't think it's so much that 3s are too ambitious as much as ambitious about the wrong things. wanting to make $1,000,000 a year retire by age 45 is useful ambition; wanting to get 100% in every class you take is not

100% is unrealistic, and chances are, if it's easily doable, the class is too easy to sustain my attention span. I kind of acknowledged that sit-down-and-do-bookwork school isn't for me, but given the chance for a huge project, that's when it matters.

Senior research is an entire semester, 2 hours a school day, unsupervised in the lab, dedicated to whatever you decided was your muse. The most teacher interference is going to be in choosing the research concept (e.g. no paintball guns trials in school, no testing on live animals, etc.), because we've gone through the lab report process at least four times before.

My point is that I don't quite have a conventional view of academic success-- there needs to be open-endedness, or I won't thrive. GPA doesn't mean anything to me. If I'm not excited for what I'm doing, then that's not the right way to go about it.

 

[Jonny]

One of the most worthwhile accomplishments I have ever set and achieved was learning to accept my limitations and be happy with my life, regardless of failure. Whatever you do in your life, it is unlikely that you will be as successful as your potential (pretty obvious really, to reach your potential at one thing would require sacrificing all else); so it really comes down to adjusting yourself to become better adept at handling that truth.

Having a false sense of superiority can be exceptionally draining, as one expends a great deal of emotional energy attempting to preserve that exaggerated self perception. Although this is an assumption, I find it highly likely that nobody at TypoC (yourself included) is going to be the best at what s/he does. I understand that best is a relative qualifier, and that people are likely to 'take best to the tailor' so to speak, so that they can perceive themselves in the greatest possible light; but I'm talking averages here. Whatever you decide to do, you will fail sometimes, meet people whose abilities eclipse your own, and hopefully learn and grow from every experience.

Go out, set goals, achieve them, fail, adjust, live your life. Relish in your success, and remember, anything you have was given to you by happenstance. Your intellect was a gift from the universe as a result of your genetics and upbringing, but eventually you will be a rotting corpse in the ground (then you can be the 'best' darn worm-food there ever was).

P.S. - There is a person on TypoC (at least one to my knowledge) who scored a perfect score on the SATs: 2400; yet she is surprisingly humble and gracious about this fact, considering she is in the 99.998th percentile. She did admit to once being anxiety ridden over the prospect of getting a B in a class (it did happen), but seems to have gotten over it and is on the road to success and happiness.

 

[knight]

I don't think it's so much that 3s are too ambitious as much as ambitious about the wrong things. wanting to make $1,000,000 a year retire by age 45 is useful ambition; wanting to get 100% in every class you take is not

well no, that can be useful as well. that 100% can be a buffer if you screw up on something within that class, later on down the road.

 

[Boo]

All of this makes me want to cry because it's so true :'( You set expectations for yourself that seem so realistic at the time you plan them out, and once you realize there's just no way you can reach the top, it's a nasty fall.

 

[Chloe]

One of the most worthwhile accomplishments I have ever set and achieved was learning to accept my limitations and be happy with my life, regardless of failure. Whatever you do in your life, it is unlikely that you will be as successful as your potential (pretty obvious really, to reach your potential at one thing would require sacrificing all else); so it really comes down to adjusting yourself to become better adept at handling that truth.

Having a false sense of superiority can be exceptionally draining, as one expends a great deal of emotional energy attempting to preserve that exaggerated self perception. Although this is an assumption, I find it highly likely that nobody at TypoC (yourself included) is going to be the best at what s/he does. I understand that best is a relative qualifier, and that people are likely to 'take best to the tailor' so to speak, so that they can perceive themselves in the greatest possible light; but I'm talking averages here. Whatever you decide to do, you will fail sometimes, meet people whose abilities eclipse your own, and hopefully learn and grow from every experience.

Go out, set goals, achieve them, fail, adjust, live your life. Relish in your success, and remember, anything you have was given to you by happenstance. Your intellect was a gift from the universe as a result of your genetics and upbringing, but eventually you will be a rotting corpse in the ground (then you can be the 'best' darn worm-food there ever was).

P.S. - There is a person on TypoC (at least one to my knowledge) who scored a perfect score on the SATs: 2400; yet she is surprisingly humble and gracious about this fact, considering she is in the 99.998th percentile. She did admit to once being anxiety ridden over the prospect of getting a B in a class (it did happen), but seems to have gotten over it and is on the road to success and happiness.

i agree with all you're saying... if i dont view it that way i wouldnt open the thread.. but again there's always part of you (as 3, i think, at least with me) that has that crazy drive... irrational... and also, often its not about being superior.. its about not failing. that's totally different thing... because failure is something like being dead, to many 3s... we deal with it very much worse than others. You can succeed even if you're not superior, it's all about what your goals were.. but you either fail or dont, it's 1 or 0, in 3s mind, often... that's the scary part.


I like how Maitri described 3s - running away from 6's position ; 6 is insecure about does she have floor under her feet, and 3s dont like that insecure position so they say "i'll do it myself", and in order to run away from fears they must strongly believe it's possible to do whatever they want to do... that's like hypnosis. "If I cant do it - who can?"

 

[skylights]

i have a 3w4 friend, her catchphrase is "i'll do it myself!"

i have no idea how she keeps up with herself though. she's not really high-energy, but she goes and goes and goes. event then event then event then event. i need my downtime!

 

[Boo]

I'm pretty lazy for a 3 o__o; Or maybe it's because I'm just always in some unhealthy mode.