Your pace isn’t wrong because it’s not the class average. Some fruit ripens later and tastes better.

An average describes a group, not a standard any individual was meant to meet. Institutions need a common schedule in order to function, so they build one, and then it starts to feel like a law of nature, and anyone developing on a different curve gets told they are behind rather than simply different. The measure was built for administration.

Work out what your own progress actually looks like and track that. Compare yourself with where you were, not with a cohort you were grouped into by birth year. Arriving well matters more than arriving on time.