My Definition of Failure Essay

When I look at the word failure I didn’t see success. But that slowly changed as I read the book What the Best College Students Do by Ken Bain Chapter four. Bain, for me and I’m sure many other, have changed our view point on failure being a bad thing. He instead expressed failure as an “opportunity to learn something.” (121) As infants we grow and develop, we learn to walk by falling down a couple hundred times, and we learn to speak by babbling. By trying to walk, and trying to talk, we may fail at first. As an infant, you cannot give up when you are face to face with failure. You must get up and try again to learn. In the book, What the Best College Students Do by Ken Bain he uses people’s experiences and research to explain why failure is an opportunity to learn something new, rather than seeing failure as something bad. He asserts “people who become highly creative and productive learn to acknowledge failures, even to embrace them, and to explore and learn from them.” (100) Failure is important. If we did not get up and try again as infants, we would not be where we are today.

What is failure? According to Webster dictionary, failure is “ lack of success”. What exactly is success? Success is “ the correct or desired result of an attempt”, according to Webster dictionary. Typically, people may fail before they ever succeed. In Gender Failure by Ivan Coyote and Rae Spoon, Spoon felt that they succeeded at failing. Spoon currently refers themself as “gendered retired”; therefore, they refuse to identify themself within the gender binary (285). As well as, Spoon wishes to be referred as “they”, rather than, he or she. However, Spoon went through various identities until they accepted their “retirement”. At fourteen years old, Spoon thought they experienced “God failure”. Spoon felt that they were failing God considering

When it comes to failure, I do not think of them as failures, but as

Throughout my life, I have experienced multiple failures. Putting in countless work towards a goal and not being able to achieve it in the end is a very frustrating experience, but it can also be a lesson for you to learn and become better. A time where I experienced failure was back when I was in middle school. My school will have an assembly at the end of each marking period, and a student from each class would be selected to go on stage and receive an award for their exceptional grades and academic performance. It was my main goal at the time to be chosen for this award, and I would work towards getting straight A's in each class in hopes of achieving this. My efforts were rewarded; my grades were excellent, I was one of the top students

If you asked the younger version of myself what failure was it would have included not earning straight A’s or not turning in my homework on time. Little did I know, the meaning of failure is not always as innocent as those days on the playground. The moment I entered junior year, I knew I discovered the world was filled with more diverse forms of what failure meant.

Until recently, my definition of failure was determined by not getting something that you desired. However, after watching an interview with Emma Fierburg, the CEO of Spanx, my perspective on the subject has changed. In the video of Fierburg, Emma talks about how her dad would ask her and her brother about what they had failed at that day and would be disappointed when they would say “nothing.” In doing this Emma says that her definition of failure had been reframed. Failure to her went from “the outcome” to “not trying.”

To me, failure is when I do not meet my own expectations. Over the summer, I thought that I would get the opportunity to compete level 9 gymnastics this competition season. I knew what skills I needed to make this team and had set clear expectations of what I needed to do to achieve this goal. I fell short and didn’t make the team. For a long period of time, I was crushed.

Failure is simply not performing to the best of one's ability. As a sophomore, I experienced a lack of understanding and received a C in Calculus Ab. Being in an advanced math class, I was expected to perform better on our math exams. However, I received few B's and C's and D's. This was not my true math abilities; math had become challenging. I was performing below my own expectations and should've been scoring higher on these tests. For me, this failure was not about the grade but more of my own confusion in the class. Knowledge is all I wanted; I retained little information in this class. I learned from this bad grade that the way to improve is to practice. The next year I decided to retake Calculus Ab and performed at a higher level of

Failure can be both beneficial and adverse depending on how one accepts the results. Through failure you are supposed to look at the positives and learn from the outcome. Most of my intentions in life began with failure. My academic ambition was ruptured by drastic failure that could of ruined my chances of getting accepted into any college. Failure had taken over my life.

“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure” (Twain). This quote portrays to me the fact that people who don’t accept that something is impossible, will have the confidence to push on and make it become possible. Not knowing something isn’t always a bad thing. You have to be completely oblivious to the possible failures that surround your decisions.

Success can be met in a variety of contrast ways, but it is most important when it comes to learning about failure. Winston Churchill once said," Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that

Failure, a word I have come to great acquaintances with. Failure, the biggest struggle I have yet to overcome. This word has always seemed to find its place in my life messing with plans and goals that I have set out for myself. I have never been able to accomplish a goal I have set out to do with out many failures along the way. Failure, a constant struggle that included obstacles that I have great difficulty breaking through.

“If you’ve never failed, you’ve never lived.” (“If you've never failed, you've never lived”-video) This video and short statement entails that life is about taking risks and learning from one’s mistakes. Without life’s mistakes, people wouldn’t have the motivation to become better. Failure is a part of life. Failure allows the term, “When you fall, you get back up” come into play, allowing individuals to realize that it is a natural part of life to lose at something; one must simply get back up and try harder. Without failure how would people discover their true potential? Rather than giving failure a negative perspective, society should see it as a part of life that allows for growth and knowledge.

Lessons taken from failure can be fundamental to later success. I experienced a major failure in my life. Though the failure was not my own personal failure, I was deeply affected. Almost a year ago my parents separated. This was a very emotional time and changed my life forever.

“I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that don’t work” (Thomas Edison). Similar to Thomas Edison, many people have failed on inventions, innovations, projects, sports, and really anything that people commit to. What inventors, entrepreneurs, and athletes need to know is that success is the outcome of failure and failure should be acknowledged in a positive way.