I love this statement from Richard Feynman when reflecting upon his job offer from the Princeton Institute of Advanced Studies:
They expected me to be wonderful to offer me a job like this, and I wasn't wonderful, and therefore I realized a new principle: "I'm not responsible for what other people think I am able to do. I don't have to be good because they think I'm going to be good." And somehow or another I could relax about this. I thought to myself, "I haven't done anything important, and I'm never going to do anything important, but I used to enjoy physics and mathematical things. It was never very important, but I used to do things for the fun of it." So, I decided I'm going to do things only for the fun of it.
This is an interesting insight. We don't have to be great because that graduate school or company expects us to be great. Instead, we should drop any unnecessary external expectations and know that sustaining the mindset of having fun encourages consistency and curiosity in our work, eventually leading to excellence as a byproduct.
This idea is fun to entertain and exciting to think about. I bet you can look back and say, fairly emphatically, that most things you've excelled at was a direct consequence of enjoying it so much that you didn't even notice the time passing.
I've been entertaining this philosophy more and more lately as my course load and personal goals have become more demanding, and I'm beginning to realize how valuable of a skill it is to be able to buffer, if not completely rid of, unnecessary pressure by adopting a mindset that can optimize the amount of fun in a given task.
And I know a few people who have effectively leveraged this mindset to the extent that they have become distinguished in their respective fields, ultimately earning themselves favorable future opportunities.
I bet you know a few of these people, too.