Little White Lies - My VCE Success Story

I was a pretty average student up until VCE® Exam. I came into Year 12 with an obvious disadvantage because my unwillingness to pay attention in the preceding years meant that some of the foundational skills that those years inculcated flew out of my ears sooner than they did enter them.

However, I was determined to do well in the VCE® Exam. I told myself I would. More subtly, I told others I would. Here’s an example of how:

Right in the beginning of the first semester, my VCE® Exam English teacher circulated some information about an essay we were required to write at home. The essay was to be hand-written. It was to be about the text we had just started studying. It was a piece that our teacher would use to evaluate how advanced each student was. I considered it a big opportunity.

I committed a harmless lie and typed my first copy up. As I’m sure you’re aware, Microsoft Word contains a “synonyms” feature which allows you to locate much nicer sounding words than those you may be naturally disposed to use. I typed my essay up, “synonym-ed” the life out of it, and typed up a second draft. I then wrote the whole thing out. I was careful - I intentionally wrote in some spelling mistakes which I crossed out, committed some solecisms which I also crossed out, and so on, to make it appear as if this draft was the first I had written.

The lie was, of course, a big success. The teacher considered me to have possessed a natural talent for writing, and I received a suitably healthy dose of attention throughout the year. The words of praise were like super effective second-hand smoke. I told a small lie, which grew into a belief shared by my teacher (and soon the other English teachers and staff), which was subsequently projected back toward me, and I eventually internalised. I achieved the highest score for English ever achieved in that school to date, and that was all thanks to a little white lie.

Tell yourself you’re good enough, and others will listen. Your actions - your self-belief - will be contagious. Lie to yourself. Keep repeating that lie, because eventually others around you will tell you what you’ve been telling yourself, and your lie, you’ll realise, is no lie at all.

So much of your success will depend on the story you tell yourself. You have the potential to make yourself smarter and happier and better at whatever it is that you want to do. When your self-confidence rises to a sufficient degree, you’ll take criticisms for what they really are - pearls of wisdom; opportunities for growth; insights, perhaps, into the psyche of the disseminator.

Perspective and mentality is like a wave. You can stand tall and allow it to propel you, or succumb to it and let it pull you beneath the water.