Celebrating Failure

1) This past semester I have encountered several failures in this class. In the beginning I was unaware of the work that needed to be put into the class each and every week and because of this I would procrastinate heavily on the assignments. Therefore, I failed in the beginning of the semester by not completing assignments/ peer reviews simply because of my poor time management skills and not committing to work on the assignments throughout the week rather than the last minute. My grade suffered drastically as a result early on and I have been working throughout the semester to make up for my mistakes early on. In my eyes I had failed this class in the beginning of the semester but by acknowledging it I was able to learn from it and grow. By doing this I was able to consistently submit my assignments and peer reviews on time. Although I have improved since the beginning of the semester I have still found it hard to stay consistent and have lapsed every once in a while with my submissions. At the end of the day I could have done better in this class by managing my time better throughout the semester but by failing it will set me up for success in the future by helping me refine my time management skills. 

2) What I learned from my failure in this class in the beginning of the semester was that failing is hard, but sometimes necessary to make you take the actions required to make you more successful. By failing early on this semester I was able to learn what I needed to change in order to have success in this class. I had to manage my time much better and be consistent in doing the course work. I learned that failure is not a bad thing as long as it forces you to learn and change how you approach certain challenges. Have you heard the phrase "Failure is not an option"? Of course you have.This idea is drilled into us as children. If you are not excelling then you are not succeeding and failure is unacceptable. As a society we believe in this idea... but why? People learn from failure and it leads to growth and success in the future. I learned that failure IS an option. 

3) Failure is an extremely difficult thing to come to terms with. It means admitting that you either made mistakes or did not perform to the best of your ability. However, by admitting that we made a mistake we can reflect and learn from these mistakes so that we do not fail again in the future.  I used to be afraid of failure and would do everything I could to prevent it. I would never try anything new or go outside of my comfort zone. I am no longer afraid of failure because I now know that failure is necessary to be truly successful. Failure is by no means an easy thing to deal with, but it should not be feared rather expected. As H. Stanley Judd once said, "Don't be afraid to fail. Don't waste energy trying to cover up failure. Learn from your failures and go on to the next challenge. It's okay to fail. If you're not failing, you're not growing."