Confessions of a Fragile Perfect

How do you handle losing when you’ve always been a winner?

I recently finished reading Angela Duckworth’s popular book “Grit.” It was a fantastic read, and I’m willing to say that it’s the most important book I’ve read in the past year.

Duckworth’s main premise is that innate talent is not as strong a predictor of success as is grit, a psychological trait composed of passion and perseverance. Additionally, grit isn’t a fixed quality; it can be cultivated both internally and externally.

As good as the book was, I feel compelled to say that it wasn’t a very comfortable read. No one likes to be exposed, and I felt that at times, Duckworth had me on her hit list. Let me explain.

In one section of the book, Duckworth writes:

“I see a lot of invisibly vulnerable high-achievers stumble in young adulthood and struggle to get up again. I call them the “fragile perfects.” Sometimes I meet fragile perfects in my office after a midterm or a final. Very quickly, it becomes clear that these bright and wonderful people know how to succeed but not how to fail.”

“Oh.”

I clenched my teeth, closed the book, and rested it on my desk. I thought of high school – of never studying for my classes when I returned from school, of never needing to study for my classes, of consistently churning out perfect scores on my tests, and of staying at the top of my class. The words “invisibly vulnerable” kept resonating in my head.

Throughout high school, others often told me how proud I should be of my accomplishments. But if pride was “a feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements”, then how could I be proud? Other people didn’t know about my effort, or lack thereof. It’s hard to feel pride when you know how much you didn’t try to reach those achievements.

When I entered college, I knew I wouldn’t be able to coast by like I had thus far. I figured that my classes would be significantly tougher, and I’d have to start a daily study routine. However, I wasn’t even close to being prepared for the difficulty of my classes. And it manifested rather quickly in my grades.

Before my freshman year at Northwestern, I had never known the demoralizing feeling of looking down at a test and not being able to answer the first question. Nor had I ever known the stress involved in shrugging off a D on a midterm in front of my peers when I really felt like running to the nearest restroom and puking. But I had always heard that college was full of new experiences, right?

Looking back, I’m not angry that I received those grades. I don’t hold myself in low esteem because I’ve had to drop some classes in the middle of the term. Those failures have sparked a fervor inside me I hadn’t felt in high school. In my most recent quarter, I pored over class materials and prioritized the most difficult content to study. I regularly camped out in the library. Make no mistake, this wasn’t an anger-fueled productivity streak. I just wanted to learn really badly, and I was finally willing to make myself uncomfortable repeatedly to get what I wanted.

I ended the spring quarter of my sophomore year on the Dean’s List–the first time I had done so in all my time at Northwestern. The news wasn’t accompanied by any fanfare and I didn’t receive endless adulation when I received the letter in the mail. But I hadn’t felt so proud in years.

***

To anyone who suspects themselves to be a fragile perfect, I encourage you to find something to struggle with. Pick up a guitar, learn a coding language, or lose 20 pounds. Make a reasonable goal, and stick with it. If you completed your goal without getting frustrated, you missed the point. Make another one, and make it tougher on yourself. The only achievements worth celebrating are the ones that require and reinforce grit. If you don’t know this now, you’ll learn it soon enough.

I may not consider myself to be an especially gritty individual, but I’m working on it. I’m sure that’s just what Ms. Duckworth would want me to do.