Learning to fail

I remember sitting in a college chapel and the speaker asked everyone who'd ever failed at anything to stand up.  I stayed seated, first because of a stubborn streak I have, but then, as I thought about it, I couldn't bring to mind a single time I had failed.  It bothered me then, enough that I still remember that moment 8 years later.  Why on earth could I not bring to mind a single failure?

Recently, my fear of failure caught up with me again.  I was debating whether it was worth the time, effort, and money to apply to some of the more selective schools I was interested in.  I tried to justify it as being "practical"- after all, why spend hundreds of dollars on testing, application fees, and transcript requests if you don't get accepted? But, as I looked more closely at my motivation, I realized it wasn't just practicality that was driving me.  It was fear.  Fear of failure.

Just the other day I stumbled on a blog post about bright girls which led to a huff post article, both of which made me think about the way I view myself and why that might be.  The basic premise is that high achieving girls are praised when they are young for being smart and good, leading them to see their achievements as something innate.  If they are challenged by something, it isn't a sign to try harder, but a sign that they aren't smart enough for the challenge.  All of this leads high achieving girls to avoid risk taking- better to avoid a challenge than to tackle it and fail.

It seems counter-intuitive that telling girls they're smart could have a negative effect.  Yet, I can see it in myself.  Ask me why I do well on standardized tests.  I'm smart, I'll tell you.  My sense that my achievements are due to innate ability is strong.  But, at the same time that I was developing my view of myself as naturally smart, I was also developing a view of myself as innately in-athletic. I hated sports with a passion growing up and looking back, I think the big reason is, I wasn't good at them.  Rather than taking a challenge, risking "failure", and learning to improve, I walked away.

The first time I played soccer here, I made a mistake, had someone impatiently tell me what I did wrong, and I walked off the field.  Why keep playing if I was just going to fail?  Over and over again, I catch myself in the same sort of cycle, walking away rather than putting forth an effort and failing.

It's not just in sports either.  I think in most aspects of my life I take calculated risks, risks where I'm sure I can't fail completely, risks where I have a back up plan if things don't work out.

But, I'm trying to change that.  I've begun to see that failing is okay.  Not just theoretically so, not just me telling my students it's okay to make mistakes, they can learn from them.  But really and truly, in practice.  It is okay if I fail.  It's okay if I try something and it doesn't work out.  It's okay to make mistakes.

So, I play a little bit of soccer and a little bit of volley ball and maybe even some ultimate frisbee if I'm among friends, and even when my team is losing and I feel like I'm just dead weight, I try not to give up.  And, I kept my selective schools on my shortlist of programs I'm applying to, even if it means I get a rejection letter.  And who knows what I'll decide next, but I do know this- I don't want my fear of failure to keep me from trying something which just might turn out to be something I love despite the messes along the way.