Ever since I joined the Boy Scouts at eleven I had always had the goal to become the Senior Patrol Leader, to lead the other Scouts. Last year our SPL had served an unusually long term of eighteen months, and was often jokingly referred to as our “super scout”. But he was turning eighteen and had to give up his position for a person to be elected in. I was the next most experienced Scout and was considered the obvious choice. So I won the vote unanimously. He said a few words about how good of a job he thought I’d do gave me a handshake, and wished me luck. He never came back to a Troop meeting after that, from that point on he was the predecessor that I had to live up to.
I came in next Monday expecting to do a great job leading. After all, I had spent the last term as a Patrol Leader, so I had some leadership experience. And being the SPL had always been a personal goal of mine. I couldn’t imagine I would do a bad job. I didn’t want to imagine I would do a bad job.
But me leading my first meeting ever was a trainwreck. I left that evening disappointed in myself. As I left several of the adults told me that I did great. However, I didn’t believe them and passed it off them just trying to make me feel better. I had failed to meet my own personal expectations.
I later came to realize is that the reason that
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What is important what you take away from your experience. It took me several months before there was a meeting that I would call successful, but after every unsuccessful attempt I would write down what I thought went well, and what I thought that I should improve on. And I made it my goal for the next week to learn from the last. And slowly I improved. It was several months before I felt my leadership skills hit the point that I first expected them to be at.But when I hit that milestone I kept working on improving. And eventually exceeded all of my possible