Why Grinding At School May Be Detrimental

There is a fine line between working hard and overworking, and the latter, according to Dr. Damour, has detrimental effects on a student’s self-esteem.

One morning, I came across an article titled “Why Girls Beat Boys at School and Lose to Them at the Office” in the New York Times. Intrigued, I clicked on it, hoping that reading it would somehow reveal the “secret” behind why 95% of corporations are headed by men, how I could beat the system and slip into the 5% of women who have “made it.” To, essentially, beat the patriarchy.

Dr. Lisa Damour, the clinical psychologist behind the article, discussed the notion of the “confidence gap” in which girls, although display a high work ethic and great competence during their high school careers, exhibit a shortage of confidence and self-assuredness throughout their lives, holding them back from advances in their careers (without taking into consideration factors like ethnicity, race, and class).

When she wrote about the high school girls she had as patients, their patterns of studying and their negative perceptions of themselves, it almost felt like Dr. Damour was addressing me. I could see myself in their stories, in their patterns of studying and in their views of themselves.

The article was able to conjure memories that I had stored away: my eighth-grade self waking up at 3 AM to study for an exam, my ninth-grade self memorizing a textbook in its near entirety, myself in 11th grade making endless studying schedules that were no way near realistic.

Looking back at the mindset I had between eighth grade and right now, as a near-graduate of high school, I always thought this was something to be proud of, something that proved the tremendous amount of determination I possessed. And while these acts do exhibit my steadfastness, were they necessary? Did I really have to wake up at 3 AM to get a good grade, or memorize my textbook, or follow ambitious, albeit suffocating, revision timetables?

Dr. Damour drew a possible link between lack of confidence and “hyper-contentiousness” where she wrote: “that experience of succeeding in school while exerting minimal or moderate effort is a potentially crucial one.” In essence, what that means is that there is a fine line between working hard and overworking, and the latter, according to Dr. Damour, has detrimental effects on a student’s self-esteem, where they begin to depend so heavily on pure grind and hustle rather than their natural wits and intellect independently (or co-dependently, in the case of hard work).

While I do feel like there is a lot more to one’s lack of self-esteem than just their studying patterns, the article made me question myself. Why is it that I equate my self-worth to the number of hours I spent studying? Why, despite trying my best, am I still too afraid to put my hand up in class to answer a question? Why do I still doubt myself so relentlessly?

It also made me realize that I never want to hold myself back, not in my career, not ever; that I never want to question my abilities; that I want to be proud and assured of who I am and what I can do. And if that means I have to wing it a bit more and maybe hustle a bit less to trust my natural capabilities, then to heck with studying schedules.