Celebrating Failure

I can't really think of one gigantic failure that I've had during this past semester I (thank goodness) but I will name all the little things I can think of:

In this class, I failed several times at doing the assignments where you actually have to go talk to people and interview them. I really dislike those assignments and don't enjoy them at all. Also, I didn't do so hot on the extra credit quizzes. In my marketing course, I missed one of the LearnSmart assignment due dates. By the way, I have A's in both classes still so don't judge me too much ha. I learned that I need to set aside more time for the assignments that I underestimated. I need to give myself more time to interview the people. Missing the marketing LearnSmart was an accidental fluke. It's the only one I missed and it's because I lost track of time because it was due around the 4th of July weekend. Next time, I'll just mark down the date better.

In my personal life, I failed at making cod one night. I tried cooking it in a pan on the stove top and it completely turned into mush. It was really gross. I'm usually a really good cook and that was the first time I ruined a dinner in the two years I've been cooking. I learned to stick with cooking salmon or to cook cod in the oven instead.

I think, probably like everyone else, that failure is never fun and usually always disappointing. Having said that, it's a fact of life and although it's upsetting to fail, you have to talk yourself through it. My rules for myself when facing failure are to be realistic with myself, not biased towards myself, and rational towards everyone involved. Figure out the cause of why you failed and how you can fix it next time and actually work on fixing it, not just saying you will.

I do believe that I am more likely to take a risk than I was four months ago. I am not a risky person by nature. I am adventurous though but not risky. There's a difference. I have learned through this class that entrepreneurship is like being a pioneer in a sense. What pioneer do you know that nailed the path right their first try? Practice makes perfects. Failure is okay and it's okay not to be perfect. It's a normal (albeit annoying) part of the process that leads to success.