1) My most recent experience with failure took
place outside of this class, but was enlightening nonetheless. I am a
competitive rock climber, and I spent much of the past several months training
intensely for a regional competition. During this time, I dedicated approximately
20-25 hours per week to training and conditioning in preparation for the
upcoming competition. Unfortunately, however, I finished much more poorly than
expected (i.e. I choked) and did not even place. This outcome was extremely
disappointing given the amount of time and work I had invested preparation, and
the experience was certainly a humbling failure.
2) From this failure, I learned not to measure
failures by the amount of investment that preceded them. Instead, they should
be measured by the extent to which I can learn from them moving forward.
3) Experiences like this one serve to test one
of my most deeply held values – that individual successes or failures are the
product of hard work, and we must accept this responsibility regardless of the
outcome. It’s very easy to convince ourselves that we’re victims of our
circumstances, and every failure presents us with an opportunity to do so. When
faced with failure, I try to take extreme ownership of my role in the failure
because doing so also acknowledges that it’s within my power to correct in the
future. Throughout the semester, this class has taught me that failure is an
acceptable by-product of entrepreneurship so long as I embrace my own capacity
to learn from it.
Hi Zachary,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your take away about accepting failure for all that it is worth because owning it and learning from it will change your future (and the past is the past). That is really cool you are a competitive rock climber. Take pride in putting in that amount of time knowing if will payoff in the next competition.
Grant
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ReplyDeleteHey Zachary,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the way you accept failure and acknowledging that you can grow from it. I am sorry that you did not place like you had trained for, but you should be proud of all the hard work you put in and know that you can certainly bounce back in the next competition. I am glad that you see it this way as well and know that failure is okay.
Hi Zachary,
ReplyDeleteI know exactly how you feel when you say the feeling of putting all of your time and effort towards something and then ending up failing. I appreciate even mentioning at all a true experience that happened to you. I'm glad we could all learn about accepting failure this semester like you said--I think it's definitely something we could all use as college students at a school as hard (but amazing) as UF.
Thanks for sharing,
Sydney