The perils of being ‘Little Miss Perfect’
Hanna Woodside thought work would be a breeze after flawless grades at school, but the harsh reality provided a valuable lesson
Today, thousands of A-level students – and their anxious parents – face the dreaded results day. And for typically top-tier pupils there may be disappointment: for the past five years, A and A* grades have fallen consistently. (GCSE results are also predicted to drop this year, with the new, tougher grading system kicking in.)
On my A-level results day, in 2011, I ripped opened my envelope to find four perfect A-grades – just as my teachers (and, privately, I) had predicted. Attending a laid-back comprehensive sixth form in rural Devon, I was hardly hot-housed, but I had a knack of memorising facts easily and, with enough revision, exams were simply a case of regurgitating what I had crammed, so I sailed through SATS and landed straight A*s at GCSE. It was gold stars, top sets, gleaming school reports and “excellent work, Hanna” all the way.
It meant I defined myself by my success at school – being clever was my “thing”. I was addicted to the praise of adults – I still look back proudly on the time my English teacher photocopied my “exemplary” GCSE coursework for future pupils to reference – and I could see how pleased it made my parents, who would brag about my latest achievements in their Christmas round-robin letters. I was careful never to boast myself, and I was lucky never to be bullied because I was clever, but I certainly enjoyed feeling like a big fish in a small pond.
Soon after I graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London, with a first class degree in media and communications (“what a waste,” a teacher commented about my chosen subject), I got a job on a
‘It was the curse of the A-grade student. I had zero skills to cope with failure’
glossy magazine. I strode into the “real world” with my new Zara blazer, confident I’d excel effortlessly through my career, just as I had with my education.
Well, that was the first mistake that Little Miss A* made.
I still remember the gut-punching humiliation when my first piece of writing, a round-up of “things to do this week”, was returned, barely visible beneath all the edits. Turns out those exemplar essays were no help in cracking the snappy, conversational tone of a women’s mag. “Why don’t you try again?”
After years of automatically acing my schoolwork, I was crushed. It was the curse of the A-grade student: I had zero coping skills for the slightest failure. It took three excruciating attempts to get it to a publishable state. There were tears in the lavatories.
Over the next two years, my confidence crumbled. I dreaded coming into the office. My sense of self-worth was so dependent on being the best, I withered in an environment where I wasn’t naturally brilliant. My agony was compounded because I didn’t know
how to ask for help. I’d never had to. A fellow academic hotshot, Kat Brown, skipped ahead a school year. Now 34 and working in the social media sector, she was similarly at a loss when she started working. “I spent my 20s in a state of perpetual anxiousness. When I accidentally deleted an important work file one night, I woke up my housemates screaming,” she says. “I was also parasitically needy. Without praise, I felt like a waste of space.”
For Charlie Williams, a 29-yearold solicitor, school was so straightforward that the slog of a legal career was a shock.
“Honestly, all I did for exams was turn up. I really struggled with the transition from being somebody who didn’t have to work to somebody who did,” he admits.
Judy Willis, a neurologist and education specialist, often sees high-flyers falter like this. “Success without challenge doesn’t prepare gifted students cognitively or emotionally for reality,” she says. “They develop a fixed mindset that success is the result of the brain they’re born with. They have no confidence that effort can influence outcomes, and lack the resilience to persevere through setbacks. Equating the need for help with personal inadequacy means they fear being ‘exposed’.”
Tara Mohr dedicates a chapter of her bestselling book, Playing Big, to un-learning “good student” habits, which don’t create the “ingredients of accomplishment” (e.g. risk-taking and standing up to authority) that professional environments demand.
“In school, you’re tested on what you’ve already studied. So highachievers are accustomed to feeling very prepared and in control,” she says. “But the workplace is unpredictable. A boss asks an important question we didn’t anticipate – we have to improvise.”
Mohr says the impulse to intensively prepare for every eventuality is not only futile, it’s so time-consuming that important activities like networking or developing one’s own ideas suffer.
“It took me a long time to think independently,” agrees Kat. “I always did everything I was asked, but it was years before I could offer up an opinion.” School swots aren’t destined to flounder forever – eventually we get the education in failure and adaptability that we missed at school. But we are at a disadvantage, learning these lessons “on the job”, when our less academic peers have likely nailed these skills already.
My turning point came watching my editor in her glass office, waving around my work with an exasperated expression that could only mean: “This is dreadful.” My inner teacher’s pet squirmed. I was certain I’d be sacked. But the P45 didn’t appear.
And every day it didn’t, it dawned on me: it’s all right if you’re not amazing at something.
I wasn’t a star player. But I turned up and got on with things. I muddled along. And over the years, I improved: compliments came from the editor. I learnt the true satisfaction of trying at something – and that praise is far more meaningful when it’s hard won.
Recently, my 11-year-old cousin was distraught when her end-of-year test results were not what she hoped for. Comforting her, it hit me how much I regret the pressure I piled on myself to be perfect, all that wasted time obsessing about being the best. Now, in my late 20s, I may not be a
great writer, but I am good enough to make a living from it. Being average – a C, not an A – is absolutely fine. I just wish I’d known that when I was 18, rather than 28.