NOTE: This is the 1st of a 2-part series featuring about overcoming setbacks. Failure should never mean “the end,” only an opportunity to learn, adjust and grow. Read on to see what we mean.
By Dr. Gabriel Williams
At some point in your life, you will come face to face with failure (if you have not already). This may come in the form of failed relationships, personal moral failures, or academic failure. It is our natural human tendency to downplay or to excuse our failures; however, dealing with failure is one of the signs of emotional maturity and is integral in your personal development.
First, it’s important to remember that your personal failures are not uncommon. The road to success is often paved through many failures, and most successful people have gone through periods of deep failure.[1] Consider the life of Pulitzer Prize winning poet Philip Schultz. When he was a child, he was considered the “dummy” in his class, and he learned to read at 11 years old due to dyslexia. When he spoke about his writing ambitions to his school principal, his principal laughed[2]. As you can imagine, Schultz developed a deep sense of failure throughout most of his life until he molded his reflections on failure into a writing career. In 2008, Schultz won the Pulitzer prize for a collection of his poems aptly titled Failure. Consider the life of Apple founder – the late Steve Jobs. He has attributed his life success to three failures: dropping out of college, being fired from the company he founded, and being diagnosed with cancer.[3] Both individuals can testify to one basic truth: there are lessons that can only be learned through failure.
Second, it’s important to convince yourself that failure usually precedes competence and proficiency. This is a lesson that I’ve learned personally as an amateur saxophonist. As every musician knows, the first few years of learning any instrument are simply awful. It takes thousands of hours of diligent practice to become competent as a musician, and if we are honest with ourselves, most of those hours are spent struggling to improve. By the time that a musician performs on stage, he/she is deeply acquaintanced with his weaknesses and failures. However, it is only through this process that one becomes competent. This is the experience that every world-class athlete and musician has described. Michael Jordan has once said, “I have failed over and over and over again, and that is why I succeed.”[4]
Perhaps it can be said this way: find a person who has never failed in their life and I will show you a person who has not accomplished much. At the beginning of any worthwhile endeavor, you will likely fail often. This is especially true in academics. As a physics major in college, I would often spend 10-15 hours on completing a single homework assignment, and much of that time was spent pursuing dead-ends. As a graduate student, the time spent increased to 30-35 hours for a given homework set, and again, much of that time was spent pursuing dead-ends. Moreover, the same type of discovery, failure, and frustration occurs when I attempt to solve a research problem. However, those who have become successful are the ones who have learned how to be instructed by their failures. Just as practice and musical training is part of the process of becoming a musician, failure is part of the learning process in life.
Third, you should recognize your mind can be your worst enemy when processing failure. If you are a self-described perfectionist, then it is likely you have set high expectations of yourself, and if you don’t meet 100% of your goals, then you are going to feel like a fraud.[5] Perhaps you were known as the “smart kid” and you never had to apply much effort to develop skills. When you are forced to struggle and apply strenuous effort to accomplish your goals, your mind will tell you that your struggles are definitive proof that you’re an imposter. Perhaps you have internalized past failures to the point in which you feel that you will have to work harder than everyone else to prove to yourself that you’re not an imposter. When you find yourself despairing, it’s helpful to remember the words of Dr. Valerie Young regarding imposter syndrome: “People who don’t feel like imposters are no more intelligent or competent or capable than the rest of us. It’s very good news because it means we just have to learn to think like non-impostors.”[6]
So how do we learn to think like non-impostors? Personally, I have used two approaches. When dealing with the reality of failure, I have always found it necessary to share my thoughts with trusted friends, family, and mentors. Every person needs a group of trustworthy companions with whom we can share our darkest struggles and who will keep your concerns private. Furthermore, every person needs older men and women who can serve as mentors because they are often able to see your life in a clearer light. Moreover, the lived experience and wisdom of older mentors serve as a powerful witness that momentary failure is not the end of the world.
Finally, as you deal with failure, I’ve found it helpful to encourage myself through examples from older generations. For me, when I’m tempted to give up, I consider my father – who immigrated to America from Grenada in the 1970s and worked diligently to provide for himself and his family. Many of our ancestors endured great difficulties, and their lives can serve as a motivation to not become paralyzed by the fear of failure. As you wrestle with your personal failures, let these brief considerations motivate you to press forward in your future endeavors.
[1] Psychology Today published a series of interviews entitled The Failure Interview Series, which you can find at the following link: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brainstorm/200907/the-failure-interview-series
[2] https://dyslexia.yale.edu/story/philip-schultz/#:~:text=Schultz%20grew%20up%20at%20a,%2C%20pretending%20you’re%20reading.
[3] https://www.biography.com/business-figure/steve-jobs#:~:text=Born%20in%201955%20to%20two,with%20Steve%20Wozniak%20in%201976.&text=Jobs%20died%20in%202011%20following%20a%20long%20battle%20with%20pancreatic%20cancer.
[4] https://www.forbes.com/quotes/11194/
[5] This is sometimes referred to as “imposter syndrome”.
[6] https://time.com/5312483/how-to-deal-with-impostor-syndrome/
Gabriel Williams is the Associate Professor of Atmospheric Physics at the College of Charleston where he studies the physics of hurricanes and other severe convective weather. Learn more about him by visiting his webpage.