Personal Narrative: What Was Your Greatest Failure

Having grown up in a time and within a society where the terms fail and lose are rarely spoken to children in any aspect of their lives, I generally considered myself a success in everything I did. I received medals, ribbons, certificates, awards, and trophies for academics, sports, and for just being a kid. So in my mind, for the majority of my life, I was unaware that I had failed or lost at anything. And having a father that is a U.S. Marine, failing and losing were not things that I wanted to tell him that I had done. Now that I am tasked to determine how I have grown from my failures, I realize that I have failed, that failure is not the end, and that I have excelled in several areas of my life due to what I have learned from those failures.

My freshman year we entered playoffs with a hopeful optimism that in our first year in 3A, the largest division, we could make a statement that we were here to stay. In the end, the game didn’t go our way. There were some questionable calls made but in the end, it is what it is: we weren’t good enough to win. A tough reality but often times you learn more from a loss than from a win. Sophomore

On a not so typical friday night, after a long day of school, my team and I knew that the day was not over. We had a fight in front of us and we knew what needed to be done. Coughlin high school was going into the ballgame as underdogs. Having everyone look at us as “the team that never wins playoffs” really makes you push harder for that title. It was very typical for my team to get the “short end of the stick” when it came to playoff rankings. The only thought that crossed my mind was to win so my team can move on to distracts. In the locker room before the game, everyone was getting ready and our coach told us something that i would never forget. He said “play this game for the next 48 minutes as if it was the last 48 minutes of your life.” After hearing this, we knew that we had work to do and that we had to accomplish the goals that we came in wanting so badly.

One failure in my life occurred when I tried out for my high school’s softball team. I had been playing softball for most of my life, and there would only be fifteen players trying out, enough to create a team without cutting anyone, so I got onto the team but found that I wouldn’t have a place on the field because another player occupied my position. So I spent the season figuratively on the bench rather than playing the game I loved.

I believe Jimmy Connors best embodied my attitude toward failure in his iconic quote, “I hate to lose more than I love to win.” As someone who has actively participated in sports all throughout high school, as well as serving captain of the varsity football team this senior year, I am no stranger to Failure. As time goes on I have noticed the losses tend to stick more than the wins. I believe this is because of all the ‘what if’s that accompany failure. What if I had been a little bit faster? What if we didn’t drop that pass? What if we stopped that play? No matter the team, no matter how hard we played, every loss always left me with these same questions times 1000. However, no loss was more impactful than this year’s Thanksgiving day game

Failure plays a vital role in developing a plan for success. There are many times in life where one must consider the reason behind a failure to prepare for a similar problem in the future. In my life, our high school football team has been well below par, winning only three games in two seasons. During my junior year, I, along with other upcoming seniors, pinpointed major areas for improvement within our program. This year, we have been fairly successful, and the team, the school, and most importantly, the community, have come together to bring "Lion Pride" back.

Every person experiences multiple failures, both big and small, in life. At any given point in life, they can point out what they think was their biggest failure. That doesn’t mean their biggest failure helped them make their biggest change. I’m still young so I’m sure I haven’t experienced my biggest regret or failure yet, but one failure made me look at life differently. Although some would view this event as more of an unfortunate accident than anything else, I still consider it a failure on some level.

2016, my sophomore year. The year I would return to Lakewood Junior Varsity Lacrosse; The place I left my comfort zone. The place I really made friends for the first time in high school. The place I found what I really love. A sanctuary, the place we strive to be in the safety of our team. This season was ours and we weren’t going to let anything stop us. Our first game was finally here. “We are LAKEWOOD!” Chanted the players running onto The Field, their safe place. With Jack Frost forcing his way onto anything and everything he can, the boys take their positions. Four 12 minute quarters, we got this. The bell screams indicating the start of the game. ‘Clomp clomp clomp’ the sounds of cleats smacking the cold, dead grass as the players rush to try to get a goal. About an hour of intense shots goes by and the game ends. Lakewood takes the win. Six nothing. Even after millions of screeching whistles, numb fingers, and a broken wrist--Lakewood took the lead in the game that defines the

I can think of one instance where my girlfriends and I had a major communication failure. A few weeks ago, I got together with two of my girlfriends Jennifer and Robbin for lunch at Red Robin located at the Hamilton Mall. We were having normal girl chat and of course, the main topic was guys and makeup. We realized we were all in need of new makeup and decided after lunch we would meet at Ulta for a much-needed shopping spree and even mentioned how close it was, that it was only right around the corner. Jennifer and I rode together and told Robbin to meet us there. So, we left and within a few minutes parked and waited for Robbing to arrive, ten minutes later still no Robbin. I finally said, “do you think she went to the Hixson Ulta?”

The military’s height and weight standard and my ability to successively maintain it. Joining the military at the age of 21 weighing in at 130 pounds; very much in shape and thin, never concerned about how much I weighed in the past. As time went on, I had children and gain weight. Having surgery, which prevented me from working out and more weight was gained. The Military has a standard which I am require to meet, regardless of the circumstances. As I get older and have another surgery the harder it is to keep up with the standard.

​Failure can present itself in many different flavors. The bitterest for me being when I failed to act. I had a black friend who was maliciously slandered by others in my school. I had no idea of the severity of the situation. While in a Ashland, a small town in a predominantly liberal Massachusetts, it didn't seem likely that racially charged verbal abuse would have ever been a latent threat at my school. He was harassed and accosted so much he transferred schools, but only after this was anything done about it.

I could not believe my eyes. I rubbed them over and over again, hoping that somehow reality fooled me. The only noise that I could hear was the continuous beat of my heart; thump, thump, thump, thump. It was as if my brain short-circuited and needed to be rebooted. With sweat running down my face, I gathered my courage and looked into the mirror. It has been months since I had the guts to glance at my reflection, and I was shocked. I did not expect to see such an oversized woman staring back at me. I closed my eyes at the horrifying figure and looked down to see the scale one more time. One hundred and fifty four pounds. From that moment on, I knew that things will never be the same

Street lights turn off one by one, my eyes slowly shut as if I'm going to sleep, my hands have no control of the steering wheel I noticed that my car's speed was gradually increasing,my eyes screwed shut in fear.The car swerves and drifts off the road and hits a tree.My head hits the middle of the steering wheel, my air bags do not deploy my stomach straining against my belt as I struggled to move.My eyes are shut but I can still hear, sirens of ambulances but barely could understand what others are saying it's almost like they were speaking another language, I try to stand up but I have no energy to do so I try to move but my body won react.I feel trapped in my own flesh and blood.All my memories flash in from the past all my dreams and goals I could've achieved but instead, I hanged out in the clubs ,took unhealthy supplements and got drunk all day, they were taunting me,most likely haunting me.I start to tear up my thoughts kept saying “you’re a failure” “You’re a loser” it just kept repeating and repeating,it just didn't stop I was

Yet another example of a failure that became instructive was when I tried to tile my bathroom floor. I simply did not want to dish out the big bucks to have a worker do my tiling, which I assumed would be an easy job. I bought the necessary items and dove into the project with an eager do-it-yourself attitude and absolutely no clue about what I was doing. I tried diligently to tackle the task, but in the end, I only managed to get grout everywhere and

The truth if the matter is these successful folk will tell you that by making mistakes they learn even more, much faster and are able to figure out how not to make the same mistakes again, then they pass that knowledge on to others. They develop the mindset that to fail is to learn faster.