Celebrating Failure

1.) One of my biggest failures this semester was involving sleep, and making it to class on time. I took a pretty big course load this semester, and needless to say I spent a lot of late nights up working on things, only to turn back around and be out at the bus stop by 7:45 every morning. One of the most memorable moments (and not in a good way) was one particular day that I had a project to present starting at 8:30 and I woke up in a state of complete panic at about 8:55, still having to shower and catch the bus. Safe to say I failed in a pretty big way that day. Most days though, I’d just wake up closer and closer to when I needed to leave, and I’ve pretty much been living on coffee the past few weeks. 

2.) What I learned from this? Definitely to try and be better with my time management and procrastination. I also learned how to get really good at taking 20 minute naps, but I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not, so take that however you will. I also learned to always, ALWAYS put your phone, with the alarms set and volume on, on the other side of the room or at least out of arm’s reach so you can’t grab the phone from bed and shut the alarm off to go back to sleep. I’m not someone who needs a full eight hours of sleep to function, but when I started averaging five hours a night, having a reliable wake up plan was something I really needed to get serious about. 

3.) In general, I think failure is helpful-to a degree. Failure can be something as simple as dropping an egg on the floor while cooking breakfast, to something more impactful, like getting fired from your dream job because of something you failed to do. I think failures are necessary though because they teach you that nothing is ever guaranteed and in order to accomplish the things you want to, you have to practice and work through several obstacles. Personally, I feel like I have a pretty good relationship with failure. I grew up with parents who were always very real about things and matter-of-fact when it came to realizing your shortcomings and learning from them. So little daily failures, I tend to let roll off my back with minimal stress. But when something bigger comes up, I do tend to get really distracted as far as other aspects of my life goes and I become centered on the certain thing for a while until I can kind of snap out of it and come up with a plan to either fix it if I can, or come up with my new route of approach. As weird as it may sound, my usual best place for thinking through things like this and clearing my head is on a long run usually late at night. Finally, this class has changed my perspective of failure by making it seem a little less monumental. Knowing what I know now about all the failings entrepreneurs have to deal with every step of the way, it makes it a little more comforting to see that ordinary people do hit a wall just as much as famous and successful ones do. I feel like compared to a few months ago, I would be less afraid to take a risk. I would still be skeptical because I am a realist, but knowing others are going through struggles too make it easier to take a chance and jump on a leap of faith without as much fear of failure because sometimes, you have to fail before you can fly.