Failure is Important

Wow, can’t believe it’s already 2019. I could say that 2018 was a great year for me. I somehow managed to be 1 of 5 students who were chosen to represent my university in Thailand for a program organised by Faculty of Liberal Arts Thammasat University. That was the highlight of my 2018.

But, I want to talk more about failure. I saw a tweet about how you get used to failures the more opportunities you take. I think it’s true. This year I applied for 3 programs which were going to be held outside of my country, I managed to get one, the other one I failed my interview, the last one I didn’t even make it to the shortlisted candidates for the interview process.

The interesting thing is I’m fine with it. I think the positive thing from not getting what you want is you learn that it’s okay to fail.

“When I think of failure, I like to think of it as a hurdle on a race track. It is up ahead of myself (the runner) and I need to calculate when to change my direction upwards. Is my hurdle (failure) the end of the road? No, it’s just an obstacle in the way I need to overcome in order to cross the finish line.”

~ Benjamin A. Chapin

Failure is a part of every great success we have in life. Instead of having fear, we need to embrace failure firmly, look for the signs and learn every time we face it. Failure is not a burden and offers incredible value if we know how to approach it (Chapin, 2014).

Through my failures, I learnt to move out of my comfort zone to overcome my fear of failure. When I failed my first interview I understood that my lack of preparation was a mistake. I decided to always research about the program, location, and what is expected of me as a candidate. I’m sure that as human beings we will face failure at one point. The thing is, how we face it and learn from it. You’ll never know if you never try, hey YOLO, right!

P.s. Big Data (my team) were given grand prize for a short video we made.

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Reference:

Chapin, Benjamin A. (2014). Failing Upwards: Discover the Importance of Failure on Your Way to Success. California: Createspace Independent Pub.