This article goes hand-in-hand with my last article, “Downside of High Expectations.” I mentioned how expectations are met, exceeded, or not met. In the case that expectations are not met, they have failed. Did the expectations fail because they were too unrealistic, or did you fail to carry out the necessary steps to meet those expectations? The answer to this question depends on who is reading it and what standards they hold themselves to. Everybody experiences failure at least once, but it is the ways in which failure is dealt with that determine future success. Sounds plain and simple, right?
Wrong. Even though many people know how to deal with their failures, there are still a handful of perfectionists who have no idea how to react to failure. I used to be one of those people. I would set goals and work my butt off until those goals were met. I was mainly a perfectionist in school, so I would spend more time than necessary proofreading papers, studying, and doing homework. Why? Because failure was not an option for me. I thought that if I failed one assignment, I would start failing others, and then fail the class, and then not get into college. When I did fail, I didn’t know how to react. I was truly ashamed of myself and felt like I had no future ahead of me all because of one or two bad school assignments. It has taken me more than a year to finally realize that I was too hard on myself.
In response to my fear of not getting into college, I wanted to say that I got into a good school despite those few failing test grades. After a few months of challenging classes, I am no longer ashamed to announce that I have failed several times despite my perfectionism. I have failed tests. I have failed to make everybody happy. I have failed to keep in contact with all of my high school friends like I promised I would. Just because I keep experiencing failure does not mean I am okay with it. The only difference between now and when I was in high school is that I have learned to accept failure. When I get back a test that I did poorly on, I don’t sit there and think about how my life is practically over. Instead, I try to learn from my mistakes so that I don’t repeat them.
Failure is hard to accept, but not accepting failure is even worse. I speak from years of experience when I say that shutting down after failure is not healthy. It makes you judge yourself too harshly and when failure finally strikes, you are unprepared. No one is perfect, so don’t hold yourself to perfect standards. Strive for success but don’t be afraid to fail because it will happen eventually. When failure finally finds its way into your life, remember to breathe and just relax so that you can learn exactly where it is that you went wrong. There is absolutely no way that you will be able to learn from your mistakes if you are constantly beating yourself up. Even though it might be hard to imagine in the moment, your failures ultimately make you stronger.
