The Things I’ve Learned From Failure
By Anonymous
Looking back over my time at university, I can think of quite a few occasions where I didn’t manage to achieve the outcome I thought I wanted. Thinking about these ‘failures’ with hindsight, I can see I’ve learned some helpful things from experiences of failing.
Failing can help you see the value of different options
A really memorable time where I felt I’d failed was when I was rejected from my first-choice university in my final year of school. I’d had my heart set on that university for a while and was pretty disappointed when I was rejected. After the initial disappointment subsided however, I felt an unexpected sense of relief at being released from the pressure I’d put myself under to get into my first-choice. With this pressure out of the picture, I could think more clearly and realised that my original first-choice didn’t really offer the ‘university experience’ I really wanted, whereas St Andrews, which I eventually chose, did. Looking back, I’m glad I ‘failed’ and ended up somewhere which was a better fit for me.
Not being perfect is actually really great!
I’ve always struggled with perfectionism, and one of the ways this manifested when I was at university was that initially, I put a lot of pressure on myself to get a First-Class in my degree classification. I realised in my third year that this wasn’t going to happen, and at first I really beat myself up for not getting better grades. I think this instance of ‘failing’ and not being ‘perfect’ was actually a positive turning point for me. As human beings, we’re just not perfect, and having experiences of not achieving ‘perfection’ was a good thing for me to become accustomed to and be comfortable with. Learning what it’s like not to achieve everything you want really helped me to feel comfortable with failing or messing up in other areas of my life. Not being perfect is actually really great!
Stop caring about other people’s expectations
When I was at university, I put myself forward for three different positions in the Students’ Association elections. The first time I ran, I lost, and when elections season came around the next year, I was quite nervous about putting myself forward again because of this. That second time, I did get the position, but when I was considering running for a Sabbatical position the third year, I almost didn’t run because again, I was nervous about losing. When I thought about this, I realised that I was scared because I didn’t want to let people around me down and because I was self-conscious about other people knowing I had failed. In the end, I reminded myself that everyone has experiences of failing at times, and that helped me to stop caring about what anyone else thought.
Failing doesn’t mean you’re not good enough
Looking back on times where I’ve felt a fear of failure, I think that what I was scared of was finding out that I wasn’t good enough at something. I was worried that I would be told I wasn’t clever enough to get onto a course, or didn’t meet the requirements in a job application. Both when I’m putting myself forward for something, and any time I receive a rejection, it’s helped me to think about the fact that there are many reasons you might receive a rejection. It could just be that you didn’t have the right qualification or experience yet (but that doesn’t mean you can’t build on your CV and get it for the next time). It’s rarely that ‘you’re not good enough’ and mostly down to other factors or circumstances.
Whenever I get put off by a fear of failure, I find it helpful to remember that the only way I won’t succeed at something is if I don’t put myself forward for it in the first place.
