The Addiction to Success

We are at that critical moment when final Matric results for 2023 are about to be released. This can be considered a life changing moment for the young people exiting the formal schooling system, as it can be defining of their future life opportunities, so it is an important moment for them - twelve years of schooling culminate in a single set of results which can act as a very powerful gatekeeper. 

 

It is an important moment for schools too, as heads analyse and compare the individuals within the school, and also the performance of the school compared to peer schools. Many will consider how they will communicate the trends to stakeholders, and marketing departments consider their expression of the achievement of the school as a whole. It often, incorrectly, ends up being reduced to pass rates and distinction counts, and can end up reducing young people into units of intra and inter-school one-upmanship - and worse than that, incredible achievements, growth, and grade-shifts of the hard-working middle are rendered invisible. 

 

Irish psychologist Tony Humphreys (https://www.tonyhumphreys.ie/about) was once visiting Johannesburg as part of a conference I was hosting. He wrote his weekly newspaper column from there and reflected on the addiction to success in these words: " This article is coming to you from Johannesburg in South Africa.  I have been doing work here with teachers and their students on the adventure of teaching and learning.  Sadly, the emphasis on high academic and sports performance have engendered an addiction to success among both teachers and students. Parents too are success driven... "

 

Tony goes on to recount a case he had managed in Ireland where "... I recall a mother ringing me about her daughter who was studying medicine and who had for the first time in her academic life failed an examination.  The mother was distraught and told me how her daughter felt her life was over and how deeply depressed and suicidal she felt.  The young woman had stopped eating and was not sleeping.  She was refusing too to return to university. The mother asked: ‘could I help her daughter?’  I reassured her that I could help her daughter to free herself of her addiction to success and come to a place where she could strongly assert: ‘I’m not an exam result’.

 

The tragedy is when a parent or teacher confuses a child with their academic performance.  The child intuitively knows that she can no longer attract her parents by her amazing and unique presence and that she will have to put considerable pressure on herself to gain high school results in order to attract the attention of the parents.  Darkness descends on her interior world and academic success becomes the substitute way of gaining some light of approval.  However, the problem with the addiction to success is that you are only as good as your last success and you are terrified that the next time you may not succeed." 

 

Conditional valuing means that one is loved (or feels loved), not for one's intrinsic worth, but for one's achievements. And so a frantic obsession results, chasing results, honours, positions; and one's identity becomes inexorably linked to one's achievements. The problem with this, of course, is that the view that we are only as good as our achievements denies our own unique presence that we bring to the world, which exists quite independently of that which we do. 

 

As school leaders we should be creating an ethos which reinforces the notion of that which we are is much more important than that which we achieve - each child in your school should be able to celebrate their unique being, the limitless capacity of their mind, and love and care for their body which houses every part of their being.  As parents, recognising the unique being of our children and loving them unconditionally allows them to take ownership of their mistakes and failures, realising that these do not in any way take away from their wonderous capacity.  

 

One of the most influential teachers I have come across has never played a significant role in management. She has produced reasonable results with her classes, but has always had to champion her subject - it was never regarded as part of the 'big three' in her school, and has since been discontinued. In her humble way, though, she made life-changing positive impact on countless numbers of her students - she comforted the maginalised, she mentored the under-achiever, she took under her wing the at-risk and gently drew them back from the brink, she drew alongside staff in their time of need. Her manner was gruff, but her sense of humanity was incalculable. It is people like these that render simple distinction counts inaccurate in gauging success in a school. As we reflect on the year's success, we have to find a way to reflect not just on the high achievers, but on the great achievements. 

 

True success comes from the realisation of our own immutable giftedness, which renders arrogance, success, and glory redundant.