By Poornima Vijayashanker
Growing up, I was always good at math – and not because I was a “natural” at it. I couldn’t magically compute numbers in my head, on the fly, nor could I solve problems at the spur of the moment. No, I was good because I practiced and studied almost everyday. At the time, I had no idea that it was my consistent practicing and studying that contributed to my success.
In my 8th grade Algebra class, I noticed that one of the girls got an A+ on her test. I only got an A, and wondered how to get to the next level. So I just asked her: “What did you do? How many hours did you study?” And she responded, “Oh like maybe an hour the night before.” An hour?! Sheesh.
Based on her response I thought, “OK maybe I’m overdoing things… I should study less and that will get me a better score next time…”
WRONG.
The next test I took I got a B! When I got home, my dad of course demanded to see what my test results were, and boy was he displeased. I told him the story of the girl who sat next to me, and said that she only studied an hour. I told him how she scored higher than me on the last test so I thought that her strategy would work for me as well. My dad retorted, “She probably just lied to come off naturally smart.”
I wanted to confront the girl and demand that she tell me if she really had studied only an hour for the test, but I knew either way it wouldn’t matter, because it wasn’t a strategy that was going to work for me. It wouldn’t help me succeed in the long run. No, my strategy for success would be to do things the hard way. The perfection myth implies that there’s a “right way” to be successful and that some people are naturally perfect at things. From that point on in my algebra class, I went back to my tried and true methods: learning the materials, and understanding them cold before the test no matter how many hours it took. As a result, I went back to being one of the top students in the class!
Those who claim to be effortlessly perfect may indeed be, but the rest of us have to learn by practicing, studying, and even making mistakes.
I’m curious to know if you’ve ever been in my shoes. When was the last time you tried to mimic someone else’s shortcuts to success only to discover that their strategies wouldn’t work for you? Let me know in the comments below!
