Staying up late and working on an assignment that is due in a couple of hours is possibly the best time for a college student to contemplate life. It is at that point that every effort put into the semester seems pretty useless, and you have a legitimate fear that you are going to fail the course! That was pretty much my life every semester! But as I advanced in my courses, I felt it more. From trying to build up my cv to maintaining my GPA; everything seemed to be getting out of control. I was stretched, being a full-time student, part of the editorial committee of the college magazine and – not to forget- trying to spend time with family.
The fear of failure kept me going all these years. I was always worried of failing my courses, failing to live up to my expectations, failing to live up to my parents’ expectations…in short, failure became my worst fear.
The fact that I didn’t meet my own expectations made me upset. Failure led me to forget everything I have achieved, and made me feel like I was not going anywhere in my career. It made me rethink what it meant to give my best. Just because things didn’t go my way (many situations were beyond my control), didn’t necessarily mean I was not going anywhere. I realized also that failing is definitely not a bad thing!
In Ellen DeGeneres’ words, “It’s failure that gives you the proper perspective on success.” This basically means that if you don’t fail, how will you learn? And if you don’t learn, how will you succeed? Here is a fun fact: did you know that Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard and started a business with his Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen – and it actually failed? But later on, he worked harder and came up with a better and more refined idea that created a global empire called Microsoft.
We should also accept the fact that we are all humans and just because someone in our social circle or an acquaintance is succeeding in something doesn’t mean that we are not ‘good enough’. Growing up in a world where everything is happening instantly might make you feel like you are lagging behind, and that’s OK. But comparing yourself to others and getting depressed? That’s not good. If you want to be successful in your life, you should learn from your failures and work on how to get better instead.
So how does one cope with failure? First of all, when we fail we tend to think we are the only ones who are failing. According to Forbes, 90% of start-ups fail! Just because you hear of people’s successes doesn’t mean that everything is running smoothly for them! Secondly, when we talk about our failures we focus on what we didn’t get. How about we talk about the learning we got from the experience?
I see now that I have been trying to avoid failure in so many ways that I had convinced myself that there was just one way to succeed. Whenever things didn’t go the way I planned, I blamed myself completely and forgot that I actually did my best. I had little appreciation for my efforts and I focused only on negatives.
Now I know that it is important to push yourself to work hard, but you should also appreciate yourself and be okay about making mistakes. After all, nobody is perfect.
by Ivana Jesmin
www.facebook.com/Evvanah
