My Delayed Realisation

My Delayed Realisation

'You don't have to have all the answers right now.' I was told this fairly recently following a breakdown due to the results of an English Literature mock exam I sat. I felt like my world was crumbling around me and I was being sucked into an abyss, further and further away from any chances of going to my top choice university. To study Journalism, some universities require you to achieve a certain final grade in an English subject. It's quite a pressuring thought to have circling around your mind the closer it gets to exam time and causes me to put an awful amount of pressure on myself to do well. Getting back my results was something I feared as I knew in my heart I didn't perform how I had hoped. I held myself together through the lesson and was called back by my teacher as she hadn't had chance to moderate my test.

While I was sitting and speaking through the exam with her, it all hit me.

It started slowly; a few tears trickling from my eyes. Then I broke down and told her I felt like I can't possibly complete the year with my dream A/A* grade. I told her I felt that I could have done much better, especially since I had done so much better in my AS exam last year. That was when she told me I don't need to know all the answers.

At first, I just carried on with the conversation, politely nodding while I tried to piece back together my dignity and confidence in the subject. We talk some more and while I was leaving, she recommended taking the next day off school to just completely relax and get better - I have been fighting a particularly persistent cold lately - and try do as little as possible to do with school work. When I agreed, she said she would email my mum her recommendation as well as my form teacher and other English teachers, and then I left the class.

I didn't really start thinking about what she had told me until I got home and prepared to relax for the next day and a half or so. It was constantly on the back of my mind, telling me that it's true. Even though I have been told it before, this is the first time I've fully listened to it. I see myself as a perfectionist, so I don't take incomplete or inadequate things lightly as I feel they aren't right and people won't be happy about it. Hearing that I don't need all the answers at this time has finally stuck with me.

I'm still working just as hard as before, but if I don't know the answer, I don't stress or worry until I did like I used to. Instead, I ask someone if they know or can help me, or just simply wait till the answer finds me.

I know asking for help is something you should always do, but as a perfectionist, and looking back on my previous exam results, I felt like I should just already know it. For once, it actually feels good to make a few small mistakes when it comes to education. Better late than never to learn that I say.