This is the normal distribution.
As you can see, by definition, most people (68.26%) are one standard deviation away from the "most average" person template - most people are actually not that remarkable.
From that batch of people maybe the top 20% will be talented enough to pursue higher education and intelligent enough to back up their dreams with hard work and achievement.
Congratulations, you are already one standard deviation ahead of the mean.
Then you go to college.
This is the normal distribution in college.
Of course, the average student at Harvard is different than the average student at Kent State but as long as you go to a reputable institution, chances are most of these students got good grades throughout high school, have overcome significant challenges, and are decent to brilliant standardized test takers with above average - if not pinnacle echelon - raw intelligence.
Even the one, two, and perhaps even three plus standard deviation students out in the "real world" are the "most average" in this highly cerebral land where your ability to think is valued more than in any other walk of life. Imagine this distribution again for the pre-meds at your college. Let's say the top 20% of the pre-meds at this college (measuring by GPA above 3.4) have a realistic shot at getting into medical school, i.e
real pre-meds.
50% of them will get in, on average.
This is the normal distribution in medical school.
You see what I'm getting at?
Stop comparing yourself to other people. You are not other people. Focus on yourself and build yourself up to the best of your ability. No you will probably not row crew and captain the team while pumping out first author publications like your a condom machine at the Olympic village. In fact, MOST PEOPLE WON'T! That's the beauty of the normal distribution...it is unprejudiced, precise, and unfeeling. It is about as cold and clinical as nature gets and all it really says is that most of the time most things are mostly average. That's it.
Be happy, you have beat the normal distribution many times and you will probably beat it again, even if it doesn't mean a 99% MCAT/Step 1 or speaking at your graduation.
Someday, the normal distribution will come for all of us, even those people who have never dealt with failure.
You know what happens to those people who have never dealt with failure the second they fail? They cry. They break down. They don't know how to handle not being perfect. Chances are, they are just as stressed and afraid as you are and their perfectionism might even cripple their progress as human beings, scientists, clinicians.
