Students: 4 Steps To Dealing With Academic and Professional Failure
Failure is a very healthy and inevitable part of the student journey. In job interviews, employers even ask you to name a time you failed and what you learned from it. As a college professor, I have witnessed some of the best, brightest and most put together students fail. Here’s how to deal with failure and make it work for you.
STEP 1: Not All Failure Is Negative
As a career coach, I work with loads of students completing their first internship or professional work experience. This is the first time they’ve taken what they’re learning in the classroom and applied it to industry. And sometimes, it’s not a good fit and that is ok!
As a professor, I can fully endorse you experimenting with a new class, subject area or work experience and understanding that failure is a good thing! For some people, this is how their career paths are created- not by what worked but by understanding what they don’t enjoy doing or don’t want to spend 40 hours a week doing.
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A big part of failure is being able to reflect on the experience, understand what learnings they can take away from it and how to incorporate that learning into creating future opportunities for success.
STEP 2: Learning How To Reflect
Reflection is an important skill to learn as a student. Reflection gives us the opportunity to process failure to fully understand what happened and how we feel about it. I like to follow the below structure to reflecting:
A- Activities- what were you doing? Passive or active? Un(structured)?
E- Environments- where were you and how did it make you feel?
I- Interactions- People or machine? New or familiar? In(formal)?
O- Objects- vs. devices (iPhone vs. book)?
U- Users- who else was there and their role in making the experience positive or negative?
These prompts help to better understand exactly where the failure occurred, what was in your control, what was not, and who were the people around you supporting you or not. In most of my own failure cases, it usually leads back to disorganization and not using the technology I have at my disposal to create reminders, check ins and ensure I am staying on track with an assignment or project.
So I take these learnings and ask myself what happened here? Why didn’t I use the tools I know how to use? What got in my way of success? And lastly, what can do I going forward to ensure this doesn't happen again?
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STEP 3: Turning Learnings Into Action
Identifying what specifically went wrong or led to your failure and knowing how to plan for it or prevent it going forward is a massively helpful skill to develop in our professional and personal lives. If we don’t learn from our failures we are likely to continue to repeat them.
Once you have identified shortfalls in your failure, think critically about how you can anticipate them going forward. For me personally, disorganization and overcommitment are long-time frenemies! I’ve been challenged with them for years.
As a student or professional, when I start on a project, I typically start at the end first and create a plan and organization system for success, reverse-engineering steps, actions and checkpoints from end to start. This helps me figure out how to get started and to ensure I’m making sufficient progress to reach my goals.
I’m very good at committing to things and starting them but not so good at finishing them- where my fellow ADHDers at?! I’m 38 years old and have been this way my whole life. I have failed at turning homework assignments in on time and completing professional projects because of my inability to see the bigger organizational picture.
But I can’t just say “oh, well, that is how I am, can’t change it” because that’s not how the world works. I need to understand my failures and how I can take the learnings from my failures and turn them into action for future success.
In the interview question “name a time you failed and what you learned from it”, the interviewer doesn’t really much care about what you failed at (unless it’s absolutely pivotal to the role) but more so how you deal with failure and how you learn from it and move forward. This will help you stand out in interviews.
If you can learn and be coachable in your career, your opportunity for growth is limitless.
STEP 4: Let It Go
There are failures from my childhood that I still carry with me today. Some serve as cautionary warnings, others just live rent free in mind serving no purpose at all! Failures, academic and professional, are part of the process. Take what you can learn from them and leave the BS that serves no constructive purpose.
Let go and move forwards and upwards!
Related:
5 Reasons Why College Students Should Take a Mental Health Day
Tips To Professional Growth After College From Two Career Coaches
The 6-Point Graduation Checklist for University Grads (Updated 2022)
Meet The Writer!
Hi! My name is Nadia Ibrahim-Taney and I help people design happy and fulfilling careers through authentic career coaching. My expertise includes career exploration guidance, resume writing, interview prep and LinkedIn profile optimization. My pronouns are She/ Her/ Hers and as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I focus on how diverse identities impact and influence folks holistically and professionally. Please connect with me on LinkedIn or at Nadia@beyonddiscoverycoaching.com
