It’s About the Effort

After the first three weeks of being in high school I was despondent, my self-esteem was completely shot, and I felt like my reputation, which I had cultivated for years, was crumbling around me. Now, looking back upon it, I am astounded with how distorted my understanding was that quizzes, tests, and grades defined one’s life.
Throughout middle school I had never gotten below an “A” in a class. I always thought of myself as very smart and it seemed that my self-worth was completely dependent upon how smart I thought I was, and how others felt the same. Such a way of thinking led to a large amount of volatility in my mental health, because I had a tendency to question myself when I did not do well on something or did not immediately understand something.
I have always held the belief that math was my strong suit and it seemed like others judged smartness based upon math level. So, when three weeks into school I had a low “B” in math, it felt as if the entire essence of my existence had disappeared. Throughout the rest of the semester, I worked so hard to get my grade up. I did every homework assignment twice. I did every optional worksheet. I created my own problems. I read ahead in the textbook. I tried my hardest to take neat and concise notes despite my ADHD. By the end of the semester, one week before the final, I got my grade up to a low “A.” Despite having an “A” in the class, I essentially needed an “A” on the final to maintain it.
I was so stressed that I could not sleep, I could not eat dinner with my family, I could not even relax for a second. I spent every waking moment fidgeting, thinking about math, and panicking about the possibility of getting a “B.”
On the day of the final, I got up early, I ate a good breakfast, and I got a good seat in the classroom by the window. Then came the time I was waiting for, my teacher started passing out the tests and the timer started. I knew the first problem, I figured out the second, the third one was a little tricky, but I worked through it. Soon, I started getting stuck on all my problems. I always thought that I would just skip it and come back to it, but soon I was running out of questions, I had dug myself into a deep hole and the clock continued to tick.
I went into a full blown panic attack. My heart was beating as fast as if I had been sprinting for five minutes. My face was so red and I had so much sweat beading off of my face, I was glad everybody was focused on their finals and not on how pathetic I looked. I had struggled with anxiety since I was born, as many pictures of me in headphones will confirm, but it had never affected my academics like this before. I started getting dizzy and felt that I was about to faint.
I was finally able to pull myself together and work through the problems as best as I could. After I finished with the test all that was left to do was wait. I was so hopeful, yet it was for nothing because a couple of days later I found out that I did not get my “A”. I was devastated and became very depressed.
Looking back at it now it was one of the most important times in my life, because I had to learn to realign my values and learn to appreciate different things. As I talked about before, I had been valuing my self-worth based on the grades that I got. While I tried to realign my values, I heavily relied on the help that I got from my therapist. We talked about strategies to relax while taking tests, and to develop the ability to look at the big picture and appreciate myself.
The strategy that ended up working the best for me was, instead of valuing myself for the grades I get, I valued myself for the effort that I put in. The benefit of doing that is one can control how much effort they put in, but not necessarily the grades that they receive. Additionally, when one values themselves based upon the effort they put in, the effort that they put in will increase, hence one will get better results, and be in a better mental health space.