Celebrating Failure

This past semester I have been studying abroad in Madrid. One of the hardest things for me has been to adapt to my Spanish grammar class. Growing up in a family that spoke Spanish help me become a very fluent speaker. Although my conversational skills were good, my Spanish grammar was rarely tested. Because of this, I was having a hard time in my Spanish grammar class, especially with accents. I consistently under-performed in tests and quizzes. I had to try and do something different if I wanted to pass the class.

As I watched the other students progress and improve their grammar, I because a little discouraged with my situation. Although I understood that failure can be a good thing, it was tough to not see any improvement. I decided to look at the issue differently and I changed how I studied what they were teaching me. I started to see improvement and I ended up passing the class. I learned that if you keep failing and you don’t change your perspective, you will continue to fail.

Being a perfectionist about most things, and someone who likes a challenge, I have very mixed feelings about failure. On one hand failure is the enemy. Being a competitive athlete all my life, it’s against my nature to welcome failure especially as others succeed. On the other hand failure presents a challenge by making you aware of different areas you can improve on. This paradox brings out interesting reactions from me in different situations. During athletic competition it can bring out motivation, adrenaline or rage. When I fail in areas of creativity it challenges me to focus, concentrate and look at things differently.

This class has helped reinforce the idea that failure can be a good thing because it tells you what does not work. Failure helps you refine your final product, improve your service or think differently. This reinforcement has helped me be more open to taking risks than I was four months ago.