Success: The Paradox of Big Fish, Little Pond
We need to balance growth and well-being in a sea of overachievers
My first college semester was jarring. I studied harder than ever. And went from an A student to a C student.
I had felt Imposter Syndrome among my classmates. Demotivated, I figured if I was close to failing, I might as well fail.1 I failed ‘Intro to Computing.’ Computer engineering was my major. It wasn’t Imposter Syndrome. I was an imposter.
It was disorienting. Until that point, I had thought myself as smart and capable.
I aspired for the most selective program I got into. Yet I wasn’t prepared to become a low performer among a class of high caliber students. I was a ‘small fish in a big pond.’
As we experience success and move to higher performing or greater competitive environments, we’re surrounded by people of increasing caliber. We may feel everyone else is smarter, more accomplished, or plain better than us.
No matter how exceptional a group, some of the group has to be below average. That’s by definition of average. I was accustomed to being above average in high school. But I unwittingly switched to below average in college. The experience led to anxiety and feelings of inferiority throughout my undergrad college experience.
Apparently, I had made the wrong college choice.
Writer Malcolm Gladwell found that the lower performing students at top schools were more likely to drop out or have lower success than the highest performing students at lower ranked schools. Gladwell posits the decrease in self-esteem from proximity to those of higher performance leads us to not only give up more often, but to also perform below our abilities.
The big fish little pond effect (BFLPE in psychology speak) isn’t limited to academics. In our careers, more success leads to movement into higher performing and competitive environments. If we’re successful, we continue to become a small fish in bigger ponds.
Gladwell’s finding struck a chord with me. I had thought about giving up on my college major because of my standing and experience. Yet, I thought surely it’s better to be part of a bigger pond, even if it means you’re the small fish. I stuck it out.
Did I have it wrong? Did I sabotage myself?
I dug into how being a small or big fish affects us, what’s best for us, and what to do.
Anxiety in High Performance Environments
In high school, I had an easier time than others to achieve good grades. I felt smart. In college, I had a harder time than others to achieve good grades. I felt dumb. We humans come to know ourselves through comparisons with others. The benchmarks for performance come through social comparisons. Social comparison theory, which outlines this behavior, is driven on the premise humans need to understand ourselves. Our need to understand is fulfilled through social comparison.
But why do we feel bad when we’re in the company of higher performers? When we’re the little fish?
Need for Competence
It feels great to win an award. It feels great to get a promotion. These accomplishments represent our competence and expertise. Humans have a need to feel competent. We need to feel capable to navigate the world around us. We need opportunities to express our abilities. Competence fills our esteem needs.
When we’re the little fish, we benchmark performance to the big fish. Our feelings of competence drops. Our need for esteem and competence suffers. We can feel anxious, inferior, disheartened. We can also feel envy (see here for post on how to turn envy into inspiration).
The innate social comparison we do can lead us to feel worse about ourselves.
Know More, Feel Worse
As we gain expertise, we also gain awareness of our limitations. We learn more of what high performance is. And we learn more about our shortcomings. This self-awareness creates a a paradox. Greater knowledge and expertise can result in lower self-assurance. Rather than celebrate our strengths, we identify our deficiencies. This phenomenon, the Dunning-Kruger effect, can add a double whammy of negative feelings with our success. We not only feel inferior around higher performing individuals, but we also feel lower confidence with awareness of our weaknesses.
Is Malcolm Gladwell correct then, and we should aim to be big fish in smaller ponds? Sort of.
Our esteem and competence needs require us to feel like big fish. But to grow we need the experience of small fish. We learn from others who are better than us. We can be motivated by those better than us.
What can we do to grow, yet also save our well-being?
Navigate Inferiority (and Need for Competence)
Be a Different Fish
I felt deja vu in graduate school. It seemed everyone I met had wild success in their careers, degrees from prestigious colleges, or fantastic test or academic records. Surprisingly, I had one area of strength. I knew were the cool bars were near school. In a curious twist, the ‘social training’ I subjected myself to came in handy (see here on how fear motivates us).
I volunteered to help organize social activities.2 In a class full of academically brilliant students, I was a small fish (again). But in a class full of socially oriented students, I was a big(ger) fish. The value and success I found on the social side of graduate school fed my esteem and competence needs.
Rather than compare to an impossible benchmark, we can focus on or create a different benchmark. Evaluations on our standing aren’t one dimensional. It’s easy to forget this. Particularly when everyone chases the same dimension of success.
In the workplace, this could mean excelling in an area colleagues don’t. Our roles are multi-dimensional and so our value is as well.
Be a different fish. Change our points of comparison.
Redefine the Pond Boundary
In the first week of undergrad, we were put into small learning teams with fellow classmates. My teammate next to me wore a jacket with “Team Canada” embroidered on it.
“What’s your jacket about?” I asked. “Oh, I was on the Canadian team for the International Math Olympiad.” Whoa. That’s a big slice of humble pie for me.
Humans have a tendency to conduct our social comparisons with a few individuals immediately around us (e.g. friends, colleagues).3 This phenomenon, called the local dominance effect, can lead us astray. We compare with those immediately around us, even if they aren’t the relevant comparison or the sample size is too small.
Rather than use the person next to me as my performance benchmark, I would’ve been more accurate (and felt better) to look at a wider group of peers in engineering, or perhaps across disciplines or schools.
Redefine the limits of our ponds. Change our comparison group.
Have Multiple Ponds
“No matter how good you think you are, there’s always someone better than you.”
I was told this as a child. As a way to work harder, or perhaps to stay humble. It seemed strange. If we’re never the best at something, that means we’re always just meh? The wide world of social media makes it even more obvious we’re just meh. The comparison pond can span globally.
Rather than define via an ever increasing pond, we can define via unique pond combinations.
Suppose we’re not the biggest fish in any single area. We can’t hold our heads high as the best at whatever it is. We can however, be reasonably competent across a range of domains. Even if we’re not the biggest fish in any one pond, our combination of strengths makes us a big fish in a unique domain. As a tech professional business school student DJ social coordinator, I wasn’t the best in any single area. But together I had a rare and valuable combination in graduate school. Another upside of our unique combination of abilities is we tip the scales of luck in our favor (see post on courting good fortune).
Have multiple ponds. Realize strength from combination of abilities.
“Escape competition through authenticity.” - Naval Ravikant
…And therefore what?
I rarely hear people state a preference to be a big fish in a little pond. We don’t outwardly speak of our esteem needs. Yet it’s fundamental to our well being.
Ambition drives us toward bigger ponds. A little pond suggests stasis. A desire for higher performance is also fundamental to our well being.
We have to address both needs. We have to feel competent and fulfill esteem needs. And we have to feel progress and growth. Confidence of competence and humility of growth drives healthy success.
The key is to be both big fish and little fish. We can’t solely subject ourselves to anxiety of lower performance. Nor can we just bask in glory of high competence.
To recap, here’s what we can do flourish in the environments we’re in:
Be a different fish. Change our dimension of comparison.
Redefine the pond. Change our comparison group.
Have multiple ponds. Strength via our unique combinations.
Back to Malcolm Gladwell’s idea - we harm ourselves with desire for big ponds (elite institutions, as he refers to them).
I disagree with Mr. Gladwell.
It’s not about choosing the biggest pond we can be big fish in. Rather, it’s about experiencing more ponds. The experience of small fish showed me heights I never knew. I met the smartest people I know. The experience of big fish enabled to move with confidence. I could connect with and positively affect others. We learn from the ocean’s vastness and flex in the familiarity of the pool.
I’ll accept my humble pie, but also make sure to savor a slice of glory too.
References
Gladwell, M. (2014). David and Goliath. Penguin Books.
Marsh, H. W. (1987). The big-fish-little-pond effect on academic self-concept. Journal of educational psychology, 79(3), 280.
Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human relations, 7(2), 117-140.
Dunning, D., Johnson, K., Ehrlinger, J., & Kruger, J. (2003). Why People Fail To Recognize Their Own Incompetence. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 12(3), 83-87.
Zell, E., & Alicke, M. D. (2010). The local dominance effect in self-evaluation: Evidence and explanations. Personality and Social Psychological Review, 14, 368–384.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2012). Motivation, personality, and development within embedded social contexts: An overview of self-determination theory. The Oxford handbook of human motivation, 18(6), 85-107.
This was dumb thinking. I thought I was clever to take advantage of the first year policy where I could fail a course and still proceed as long as my overall average was sufficient. I regret this.
The most memorable experiences and deep connections for me occurred outside of class times and school hours. The change in environment enables more colorful or personal sides of people to shine. Students are remiss if there isn’t attention on the non-school hour activities.
A related phrase, “you’re the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with,” is based on similar fundamentals. We’re influenced by those around us, and we seek to surround ourselves with those similar to us.
Same experience here with WEMBA! Our IIT friends made me feel like I had the intellect of a potato haha. But as you said, we shine in different ways! Comparison is the thief of joy.