Blog Post #4- Why We Need to Fail

Wow, my fourth blog post already! Time is flying by!! 😆

Failure in My Life-

Just the word failure, almost instantly brings on a depressing mood, right? Makes you feel inadequate and maybe even insignificant. I think everyone has felt this way before, I know I definitely have. Kind of ironic, the topic of the writing portion on the entrance exam for my dream school (which I am currently attending ❤️) was the benefits of failure. I remember writing about one of my personal experiences where I felt I had failed. It was my first time taking the hardest tap class my dance studio offers. This class can only be taken by those in high school and at the time I was in eighth grade, but I had always loved tap and had competed with it before so I asked my studio owner if I could take the class and push myself. The class was more than I could ever expect. I was  already walking in with pressure, being a year younger than everyone. Then my teacher threw complex and mind-blowing tap sequences at us at the speed of light, gave us little time to try to understand, and then added on. I was feeling frustrated, embarrassed and judged. I did my best to understand, but just couldn’t pick it up. I always love giving my teachers a hug after class is finished to show my appreciation to them. So though I knew I did poorly, I walk up to my teacher. I reach out to hug her, and instead of returning it, she startles me by placing her hands on my shoulders. She looks me straight in the eyes, a cold stare, not just because of the unfamiliarity, but her intensity as a teacher, and tells me everything I did wrong. My heart was beating fast and my eyes were tearing up as she rambled off the list of my mistakes. When she was finished she gave me hug, but let me tell you, I could not get out of there fast enough. I hardly held myself together as I took the walk of shame and embarrassment out of the classroom. I grabbed my stuff as quickly as I could, and when I finally got in the car and closed the door behind me is when I let it all go. I was sobbing horribly, from frustration with myself and the situation, from the intensity of everything, the pressure and judgment. Worst of all though, was the disappointment. I was disappointed in myself for sure, but to know that this new teacher I wanted so badly to prove myself to was disappointed in me, crushed me the most. I never wanted to go back. I didn’t want to face my teacher. I didn’t want to compare myself to the other dancers knowing I’d never be as good as them anymore. I didn’t want to be overwhelmed beyond belief. As I cried and cried, my mom did offer me some hope. She reminded me that I was in the class for a reason, and I realized that the opportunity was too special to throw away. She helped me come up with a game plan on how to succeed in the class.

I notice that game plans help me look past the overwhelming stress of my current situation. 

Either my mom or I would videotape my teacher while she was teaching, and would go home and write out every move my teacher made. I studied these before class, and this preparation made me the slightest bit more confident. I knew I could only go up from where I started, so I continued to do my best, and I started seeing improvement. This improvement excited me, and this propelled me to do better, until my teacher started commenting on it. I eventually gained the confidence I needed and finally felt like I belonged. It became my favorite class because of the struggle I overcame.

I learned that preparation brings confidence.

The Importance of Failure-

I guess I really never thought about the importance of failure before this year because I  could only see it as mistake, and not as a learning experience. I’m really excited about the new mindset I am developing this year. It is helping me realize that yeah, you can never change the past or the mistake you made, but you can learn from it, and that improving from failure is possibly more honorable than having it all right the first time. Crazy right? I used to hate failing. It was a terrible feeling. Now I’ve learned that failure is almost kind of, cool. Not that I should fail purposely because you should always put effort into whatever you’re doing, but failure=learning and that is cool. I’m thinking that maybe failure can bring about confidence, just like it did in my tap class. You can walk around and be like, I overcame that. 😄

Failing #Goals-

I believe that the fear of failing stops us from taking risks, extending ourselves to others, and sharing our real thoughts. For me, I can tend to beat myself up about failure. Just replaying the disappointment, embarrassment, and negative outcome of the situation over and over in my head. Upsetting other people makes it worse. (I am a people pleaser, can you tell? 😜) So sometimes I will avoid taking that risk just so that I have the safety of not having any of those feelings. What’s weird though, is that sometimes I regret not taking the risk and get the feelings I originally avoided the risk for! So here’s my goal: stop hating on myself for my failures, and uplift myself by assuring me I know what not to do next time, and that I gave now acquired more learning under my belt. Learning is one of the best feelings for me. ☺️ I think what will help me in this is looking at what I did, and then what I could’ve done, instead of what I could’ve done and then what I did. I believe this will help me see my mistakes and look forward to correcting it in the future instead of beating myself up about what I should’ve/could’ve done.

Conclusions-

Thank you for sticking around this long! Failure is a topic I am becoming very passionate about, which is crazy to think about since I hated it not too long ago. Loving the way my school is giving my this new, wonderful mindset. I think this program may be one of the best things I will have ever done in my lifetime. Anyway, don’t let failure stop you. It’s not worth it. There’s so much you can learn from taking that risk. There’s so much you can learn from just being honest that you don’t know what you’re doing in a situation. Don’t purposely do it, but, there is so much you can learn from failing.