The fear of failure is a feeling everybody knows. Often this fear holds us back, manifests itself into a voice telling us that we aren't good enough. For me, since coming to college, this fear has brought on some anxiety.

Am I wasting my money studying the wrong subjects? What if I'm shooting too high and fall hard? I started planning and studying for my backup career rather than my dream one. I had given up on my dreams less than a year into my college career.

Then, I entered a competition through my university. All I knew about the competition was that you were put in interdisciplinary teams that had to research a particular issue and present solutions to it, the winner got a chance to travel to another country. I didn't know what the issue would be that we had to research, I just knew I was going through a breakup and needed something to get my mind off everything, plus, it looked good on a resume. Little did I know that competition would change my life.

I have always been interested in issues of the justice system, I just didn't know how working on these issues would be possible for me. I thought it was to big a dream. Who was I to have dreams of making a change? But then, this competition, the Global Case Competition, just happened to be focussed around the issue of arbitrary detention in the United States. My curiosity and passion were peaked, but even then, I never thought winning the competition would be a possibility. The prize, a trip to Geneva Switzerland to give a presentation at the United Nations, was too big a deal for me to have a chance at it. Who was I to have a chance to present at the UN?

Then we won.

Then I was presenting, at the United Nations, about an issue I want to spend my life working on.

Then I was not so afraid of failure.

It may have taken a once in a lifetime opportunity to realize it but realizing it gave me a fire that won't be easy to put out. The taste of success was so sweet now that bitter aftertaste that is the fear of failure was washed out. Our fear of failure is natural but we owe it to ourselves not to accept it. I am reminded of the first lessons my 9th-grade science teacher taught us. Never give up, never never give up, failure is good, and risk spectacularly. As many of us do far too often, I had given up on my dreams, I forgot that the failures I am destined to experience in life can create good things. I was too afraid to take the spectacular risk of believing in myself.

Settling isn't always bad, neither is being realistic. However, selling yourself short is. The fear of failure is something everybody has experienced, but don't let it dictate your life. The United Nations wasn't something I could even dream of but it happened. I have come to realize, that the more I'm afraid of failing at something, that means I am more afraid of loosing it. Now, those dreams that scare me the most are the ones I shoot for because I know they are the ones I most want to achieve.

Winning that competition brought me out of a dark time in my life. Realizing my dreams were a possibility gave me a self confidence, that, while i sometimes lose sight of it, has propelled me through my fears. Our fear of failure isn't just detrimental to our career or family hopes and dreams, its detrimental to our vision of ourselves. For this reason, we need to stop being so afraid of failure, and start seeing our failures as one step towards later success. Had my relationship not failed, I would have never known the success entering that competition gave me.