First things first: A big thanks goes to Stephanie Bowyer for getting me thinking about this again.
I’m a perfectionist. I hate the thought of failure and I’m willing to work quite hard to avoid it. Succeeding has many benefits of course, but I started thinking that I’m missing out a little bit by avoiding failure like a plague. It’s not always a bad thing. It has the ability to teach us things that we never would have learned except by going through the school of hard knocks.
One of the biggest problems I’ve had with failure is that, like I said, I’m a perfectionist. I hate to fail, and I’m afraid of failing. Now I don’t think I’m alone in being afraid of failure, it’s a weakness that many of us need to work on. During the past semester I started discovering that it’s very beneficial to stop fearing academic failure in particular.
Finals can be a nerve-wracking time for students. They used to be for me, until I decided to stop worrying about them because I realized worrying wasn’t doing any good. You might as well relax about finals because the results aren’t going to be any better when you’re stressed out. In fact, they’ll probably turn out worse if you’re sweating it, and not just because it’s hard to hold a pencil with sweaty hands.
When finals came around this year, I had essays to submit in every single class. I wanted them all to be perfect too. But perfection wasn’t an option because I just didn’t have the time. So I submitted what I very well knew were not perfect papers, but I didn’t keep worrying about it, because once they were submitted, there was nothing I could do to change the outcome anyway.
The most important way to defeat failure is to learn how to cope with it. Stop fearing it and you’ve already taken care of one of the biggest problems with failure. If you don’t feel failure, all you have to do is pick up the pieces and start learning. Maybe by failing you’ll learn something that you never would have learned otherwise.
What valuable failures have you experienced and what have they taught you?
May 30, 2008 at 7:59 pm
I started a business a couple of years ago. My forte is the creative realm, and I complete suck at sales, accounting, and other skills needed to run a business.
So I hired myself a coach and tried to master those areas (as opposed to hiring experts). I learned that no matter how much I work on my weaknesses, they remain my weaknesses. Meanwhile, I neglected my core strengths because I was so obsessed with bettering my weak spots.
Next time around, I’m delegating/outsourcing to people whose skills complement mine, and focus on what I do best.
(And I’m high on migraine medicine right now, so it’s quite possible I sound delusional… I hope this makes sense.)
Have a great weekend!
Andrea
May 30, 2008 at 8:12 pm
That’s a great reminder that no matter how much we work on things, chances are we’ll still have weaknesses. I also like the way it highlights the many benefits of working in teams so that each of us can do what we do best.
May 31, 2008 at 8:08 am
I think your article is great and i like it very much but some times if you were too relax it is going to be even worse you need a little of stress “i think”
May 31, 2008 at 9:37 am
The value of stress depends a lot on the situation and even the person. For me, having too little stress is rarely the problem. I tend towards the opposite. I try to minimize my stress as much as possible.
On the other hand a little pressure from deadlines can make you work better or faster.
May 31, 2008 at 10:08 pm
I’ve blogged about this, but I think the biggest failure I’ve made is putting my job and random outward achievements ahead of my family and relationships. I’m on my way to correcting that, but it’s hard, because I’ve built my whole life around a certain mode of operation. Undoing it is proving incredibly hard and incredibly rewarding.
Here’s to failing and doing something new!
June 2, 2008 at 10:21 am
I guess that it depends on the job and the magnitude of the failure. My friend, the paramedic can have a small failure, like giving the wrong location, or a major one like accidently killing a patient. Again, it depends on the job and the magnitude of the failure.