The Score Is Not the Self

I see that many of my GMAT students are initially reluctant to share their past scores with me. Not out of strategy, not out of oversight, but out of something quieter and harder to name. They are reluctant to admit the scores to themselves. Subconsciously, the number has become something larger than a number. It has become a verdict.

Often the conditioned mind finds it difficult to separate performance from personhood. Sub-consciously, by now, the score and the self have become the same thing. To admit the score is to admit something about who they are. And that is too uncomfortable to sit with.

I find that this is where Albert Ellis offers something genuinely useful. He writes on Unconditional Self-Acceptance, that one may rate thoughts, feelings, and actions as effective or ineffective, as helpful or unhelpful in the pursuit of one's goals. That part is reasonable. That part is honest. But the self, the personhood, the being, that is never on trial. Whether or not you perform well. Whether or not others approve. You accept and respect yourself. Always.

Thoughts that the score quietly conditions us to believe, but which are deeply irrational:

I "must" perform well to be worthy of being taken seriously. Cognition: That I would "prefer" to perform well, and that working towards that is entirely reasonable. But my worth as a person is not contingent on a three-digit number.

I "must" not show my real score, because it will reveal something shameful about me. Cognition: That I would "prefer" a higher score, and I am working towards it. But the current score reveals only where I am, not who I am.

However, if one insists on making the score a must, it creates more suffering than the score itself ever could. The shame around the number becomes a barrier to the very work that would change it.

Mindfully, look at the score. Sit with it. At the same time, cognitively, do not make it mean more than it does. Easier said than done — but that is the work.

The path above can be a stepping stone, seeing the score as information, not identity. Eventually, one can bring more honesty, more openness, more willingness to begin from exactly where one stands.