By: Anna Marie Mamba(YMA 4 – Generation 3)

     Benchmarking is the practice of establishing goals and targets for process performance levels and identifying required improvement areas based on the published or known performance of direct competitors or a relevant industry. For example, in taking piano lessons, you aim to play a piece just like your teacher. When you know someone who can play a song by just listening, who could play anything and who could read notes right away, you aspire to be like that person in the future. That is benchmarking. Have you ever tried doing that?

      I first heard this word in the Young Minds Academy. I am happy to know that some of the cities here in the Philippines are doing this and are doing something to achieve it. Having learned this, I would also like to have a goal to achieve.

     After five years I would like to be just like Brian Crain. An excellent pianist who could play and compose songs on anything he can think of such as A Walk in the Forest which upon listening to it, you could really imagine yourself walking alone in a wonderful place, filled with different kinds of trees, flowers, smelling the fresh forest breeze cooling your body, passing through a river, hearing birds singing and seeing animals living peacefully. By achieving this goal, I need to work on my fingering skills, on having a perfect pitch, and most of all, to continue practicing to improve my skills!

     Benchmarking is truly fun. How nice it would be to see an improvement on yourself! As time goes by, you can witness that you are slowly achieving your goal. It is very nice to experience that feeling of happiness, contentment and the feeling of accomplishment that you have managed to be what you wanted to be.