"You might have done well in school, but you’ll never do well in life" and other lies I believed.

On the journey of overcoming fear-based performance

In a previous letter I republished 169 days, an article I wrote and published on my previous blog in 2017. In this letter I detailed two situations — a fitness streak that occurred after my first episode with Adult Onset Still’s Disease and my approach to breaking down my academic goals whilst at university. The general theme of the letter was about both the importance of consistency and that results are a product of intentional action. However, what this letter did not address was the primary motivation behind both situations… fear.

Chapter 1: You’ll never learn independently

As discussed in a few of my previous letters I had significant learning difficulties in early primary school. I quickly fell behind my peers and my frustration with ‘not getting things’ led to misbehaviour. I felt, regardless of how hard I tried and how much intervention I received at school, I would always be making mistakes, getting into trouble and failing to improve. I was labelled as a ‘no-hoper’ and ‘nuisance’. These feelings and frustrations were a heavy burden to carry as a child.

After visiting numerous specialists with no breakthroughs, and exhausting our support options in Australia, my parents found a specialised learning centre in Seattle, Washington called Lindamood-Bell. This was looking like our last resort. But with our trip scheduled in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and the Australian dollar plummeting to just US50 cents it could have been easy for my parents to cancel the trip. But they believed that the tailored one-on-one teaching provided through the Lindamood-Bell program could help me to overcome my challenges. So in late 2001, my mum and I boarded a plane bound for the United States of America.

I started the program at Lindamood-Bell unable to sound out or read the word look. Three intense months of learning, and enormous sacrifices made by my family, provided me the foundation I needed to start developing the skills I would need to learn independently. On the plane trip home the contrast in my reading ability couldn’t be disputed or made more evident — as I happily read the Guinness World Records with a big smile on my face. As I settled back into school, I was a lot calmer and I now had the tools I needed to succeed in a mainstream classroom. I ended up repeating grade one to provide me with an opportunity to solidify my learning. These early learning challenges had taught me the necessity of working hard and the importance of deliberate practice, but it was the earlier experience of being labelled a ‘nuisance’ and ‘no-hoper’ that pushed me to excel. It was easy to think that I was trying to prove them wrong, but in reality I think I was trying to prove it to myself. That I was enough, that I was of value.

My grades slowly improved and by early high school I was hitting my stride and achieving top grades in all of my classes. I started receiving positive affirmation and it felt like people were starting to focus on my strengths rather than my weaknesses. However, I became obsessed with being ‘perfect’. I was driven by the fear and delusion that if I dropped even a single grade my world would fall apart, people would abandon me, all of the suppressed feelings of worthlessness would break-free and that I would become completely overwhelmed. So my solution was pretty simple, “don’t allow it to happen — and don’t give anyone a foothold to bring you down”. I still struggle with this today, and I am slowly trying to deconstruct the barriers I have built. But I have spent most of my life in this mode of survival, reinforcing these defences.

Year 12 Graduation

Chapter 2: You might have done well in school, but you’ll never do well in life

I remember vividly in college someone saying ‘you might have done well in school, but you’ll never do well in life’. I am sure that I received a number of positive comments at school — but it was comments like this that I find difficult to forget. Despite the false facade I presented to the world, my confidence was wafer thin and my response to criticism was to work even harder. “Don’t allow it to happen — and don’t give anyone a foothold to bring you down.”

I headed into university with the same powerful fears that had propelled me through high school and college. I quickly became obsessed with my grades at university — and I don’t use the word obsessed frivolously. At this point in my life performing in both sport and studies had become a part of my identity. Perfection was no longer optional, I had to excel even to the detriment and sacrifice of other things in life. From the outside looking in, I was mastering many of the things I was applying myself to, but in reality I had only one master, fear.

Chapter 3: You’ll never recover

When I found myself lying on my back in a hospital bed unable to move in my final semester of university with an undiagnosed condition I was surprised by my reaction… I was relieved in one sense and crushed by the belief that I had absolutely blown it in another. I didn’t need to contain the pressure that had been accumulating over my life anymore, but the pain was almost intolerable. Sickness had no expectations, but it also didn’t have any choices. I could connect to my pain without feeling like I needed to hide it from everyone. But I couldn’t work myself out of this problem. The below is an extract from a post published in July 2016

I use to live a life trying to escape and control everything. Freaking out about the future and constantly worrying about what other people thought of me. I lived under the expectations that I perceived others had of me. I pushed myself harder and harder and harder because I never thought of myself as enough. I sacrificed my joy in the present for a fantasised future that I thought might bring me happiness. I’ve realised that the future you aspire for isn’t guaranteed – so take hold of the gift you’ve been given now. Appreciate every second you’ve been given no matter what you’re doing.

Seven and half years on I can appreciate the progress I’ve made from those dark days. My illness started providing clarity on the impacts of living a life of fear-based performance. But it wasn’t until mid 2022, when I started seeing a health psychologist, that I began to appreciate more fully how my life was dominated not by the pursuit of intrinsic motivation, but rather extrinsic fear — and more hopefully what I could begin to do something about it. Like the intervention I needed as a child to assist with my learning, having regular sessions with my health psychologist is helping me to develop a deeper understanding and appreciation of my behaviours, motivations and reactions. I believe that all positive and sustainable change comes through increasing self-awareness. But ironically, to increase self-awareness we need others, and we need to be vulnerable. We must challenge the survival mechanisms that have protected us in the past, but no longer serve use anymore. This process is terrifying. To accept that you are inherently enough. To be vulnerable. I still struggle, but not like I use to. The trajectory I am on now brings me hope.

I’ve been sitting on this letter for months, fearing that it isn’t right and I think it is time that I just hit publish. I will finish with one of my favourite quotes that reminds me that growth takes time.

It took me 30 years for people to consider me an overnight success.

John Cooper Clarke

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