Separating educational achievement from self worth

I used to get very high educational achievements when I was at school and university. But now that I’m working and a few years into my career, let me assure you of this:

When you get to my stage in life, literally nobody cares what your educational achievements were, and neither will you. Those achievements might help you get your foot in the door for your very first job, but that’s it. After that, it becomes totally irrelevant compared to things like experience, business sense and leadership skills. I used to get straight A*s, got a first from a top university etc. and I guarantee that nobody I work with or hang out with on a daily basis would even know that. Plus you’re going to forget most of what you learnt in your A-Levels anyway.

Put it like this: do you, or anyone else still care about what you got in your end of year exams in primary school? That’s how you will feel about your GCSEs and A-Levels soon enough. It might feel good (or bad) to get your results at the time, but they’ll fade into the past just like everything else does, and you’ll be caring about something new.

I think you are doing yourself down. There is one person who should care about your academic achievements - you. They are an official record of the hard work and effort you have put in and the achievement. Yes - it is true that when you go into work no one really cares but that doesn't mean they aren't still important. What you may find is that in employment success and achievement come second to just doing your job. Over time this can erode your self esteem. To counter this, you need to find your own challenges within the work, and celebrate your own successes and achievements. Without doing this it is easy to fall into the trap of "What is the point of this?"

I'm not really suggesting that they're unimportant. I just don't think it's something that people should totally link their identities and self-worth to. As a young student it can certainly feel like academic achievement is the metric that determines your value and status, but it's worth noting that in later life the emphasis will really shift.

It you look at the most successful people in this country in terms self made millionaires many have low academic achievement many were expelled from school or did not attend school.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfie_Best