When is being early too early?

Growing up in two completely different cultures have exposed to many different ideals that people have in both cultures. The Chinese culture emphasize qualities like honor and loyalty, while the American culture emphasize the importance of change and equality. However, one quality is emphasized both here and back in China: the importance of being early. Both cultures have a saying that basically translates to "the early bird catches the worm". After 17 years of experience, I have came to the conclusion that most of the time that saying holds true, but during some instances, I have wondered, was I too early?

In the past, both cultures have pounded the importance of being early into my mind, from examples in TV shows, speeches, daily lives, etc. I developed a habit of doing everything as early as I can (mostly influenced by my parents). My parents signed me up for Kumon Math at a really young age (around 1st grade) so I can have a head start on the rigorous math curriculum in China. Thinking back, I literally grinding hours upon hours of math homework. So, by the time I was in 3rd grade, I have learned almost everything up until 8th grade (so basically 12th grade math in US). Then I stopped going to Kumon because all my other classes are assigning more and more homework. I was stuck there at an 8th grade math level while my classmates are learning how to do decimals. For the first few months, it felt so good. I flew through the classwork and homework, and answered all the teacher's questions like a good boy. Eventually, I realized that my skills are not improving anymore and is actually rusting away. I slowly started to forget concepts and formulas while my fellow classmates are slowly catching back up. Even though I am doing those questions with them, I am still stagnating. At the end, I learned nothing new for years and basically waited for my classmates to catch up before I can learn new things again. This has happened so many times in my life and caused so much trouble like filing a form for the previous year or rushing an assignment that was not even counted for grade.

In these situations, I am like a bird who came to the feeding ground early, but the worms did not even come out of the ground yet. So I am just stuck there, looking like an idiot, while the rest of the birds come much later but still gets the same rewards as me. 

So, Yes I do agree early birds catches the worm, but I would like to add that sometimes the bird can be too early for the worms.