I don't wanna tell you that you learned the wrong lesson, but consider that the very negative lesson you learned was to equate success with victories on tests a

I don't wanna tell you that you learned the wrong lesson, but consider that the very negative lesson you learned was to equate success with victories on tests and homework. What changes in a lot of people is not that they learn the value of "hard work" which is kind of neutral in itself, but their goals shift to objectives that require work and long-term investments in developing skills. Maybe that's the same thing or too subtle a distinction, but it seems like an interesting idea to me.